British Film and High-End TV - Culture, Media and Sport Committee
How resilient is the UK's film and TV industry?
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry into British Film and High-End TV aims to answer just that, examining the challenges facing the industry and investigate what needs to be done to enhance the UK as a global destination for production.
In this session, the Committee will hear from Gurinder Chadha, the acclaimed writer, director and producer of films including Bend It Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice and Blinded by the Lights. MPs may examine what has changed for filmmakers in the UK over the past two decades and whether films have the same cultural impact as they had in the past.
Members could also explore the importance of theatrical releases in the age of streaming and whether diversity has improved within the industry over past decades. They may also discuss the filmmaker’s attitudes towards AI, including concerns about films being used to train AI models.
In the second panel, MPs will hear evidence from the CEOs of leading production, distribution and exhibition trade bodies. Members may ask about key issues facing their respective sectors, the ecosystem of British film and the impact of the SAG-AFTRA strikes on the UK industry.
Questions could also be asked about the best ways to support domestic films, including tax reliefs, levies and quotas, and how the industry plans to tackle skills shortages and recruitment issues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEzBl4zF5jo
More livestreaming fun!
The last time a government tried to support the film industry with tax reliefs it led to a lot of mis-sold investments to rich investors trying to avoid large tax bills. The Ingenious fund, for instance, which turned out to be anything but.
It might be an idea not to repeat this scandal. We have plenty of others to be getting on with.
Tbh I never really understood that tax scandal.
Hollywood accounting. You invest in a movie and it loses money, but you borrowed most of the money and it gets written off.
“BBC business correspondent Joe Lynam said that to make a £1m investment, an Eclipse partner might contribute only £20,000 of their own money and borrow the rest.
“ "The tax relief on the whole amount would have been up to £400,000, or 20 times what they had risked. Here, HMRC may seek to recover the full £400,000," he said.”
How do you verify the age of someone, either way: an adult pretending to be a child, or a child pretending to be an adult, and how do you do it in a timely manner give the numbers coming over?
Dental imaging in the best way but the guardian campaigned against that
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
I live to help. I have actually done the Grand Canyon helicopter ride. It is definitely worth the money for a once-in-a-lifetime experience
But be warned it is quite hair raising. I've done multiple helicopter rides - I've done microflight rides halfway up K2 - and this is the only one that has freaked me out. It is quite scary, and you get intense and various thermals from the desert and the canyon
I cannot remember which particular one we did. I remember we had to get a bus from LV which took about 30-60 minutes to some anonymous landing strip. It was the day Notre Dame burned down - news which came as light relief after that ride
I was all lined up to fly myself solo over the Grand Canyon, out of San Diego, but the day before some tw*t crashed a plane and the FAA closed the airfield. A big regret, as that chance won't come again.
in the end this was bound to happen - or it will happen. Mass immigration raises rents and house prices and that expecially impacts the young, who nonetheless vote Labour. The cognitive dissonance cannot continue forever
And yet the country will most likely elect a Labour government in the next 12 months.
The mitigating factor is that a combination of the crash in fertility rates and the shape of the demographic profile is offsetting the impact of mass immigration at the moment. This is even more pronounced in Scotland; out population has basically flatlined.
The problem is a seismic economic and population shift to already densely populated cities like Edinburgh, London, exacerbated by enormous numbers of students in those cities. It's also where all the economic migrants head to. Housing is affordable elsewhere (Middlesbrough, Greenock), it's just those places barely have an economy to provide jobs.
It's why plastering provincial England with detached housing won't work. And people understand that it's not immigration that is to blame for inner-city rents: it's the geographic inequality that means the pressure on housing and services (along with economic growth) isn't shared across the country.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
It is depressing, Mike. Even if Donald Trump fails to become president again (still my confident call) it's intensely dispiriting that so many Americans remain in thrall to this repellent individual.
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
Soul Sacrifice as the soundtrack for the chopper ride
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
The West Rim has worse views and you get completely screwed over by the Native American tribe who own the land, who'll charge you an arm and a leg to visit a few specific spots on the canyon. Also, the Skywalk is complete crap and mostly just another opportunity for gouging.
The South Rim has better views, more freedom to walk around and also much cheaper. It is much further away from Vegas - but still doable in a day, and fine if you hire a car and share the driving. Can also fit in Hoover Dam on the way (also applies to the West Rim).
I've never done the helicopter trip - from what I hear, it isn't worth it.
If you’re one of the PBers who thinks Biden is gonna win this year then it might be worth finding better odds on the 2028 POTUS elex
Coz if Biden wins in 24 there is no way Americans will give it to the Dems AGAIN in 28. And by then Trump will (surely) have disappeared. So I reckon a GOP victory is extremely likely (if Biden wins this year)
Both Vivek and Haley would be very strong candidates in 2028?
Only problem
1. You’d be tying up your money for about 23,000 years
2. I can’t actually find odds on the victor of POTUS 2028
Other than that I heartily recommend this BETTING TIP
I disagree. I think if Biden does win this year it suggests that the GOP has just gone too far right to hold together it's white majority coalition of white-middle class and white-working class voters (with the white-middle class jumping ship to the Dems in greater numbers). This race is looking strange in that Biden is doing better with older / whiter voters then the average Dem, and Trump is doing better with voters of colour than the average GOPer (see the 9% point lead Biden has in NY for his underperformance, but the closeness in Ohio for his overperformance). These coalitional changes make it possible, for example, for Trump to potentially win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote this year (as a few analysts are already talking about).
Either way, Trumpism has won in the GOP, and that is a sure fire way for more politicians like DeSantis who have all the cruelty but none of the charisma of Trump; and are therefore unelectable outside the asylum that is Florida. The Dems, on the other hand, can double down on reflecting shifts in white sensibilities by continuing to elect stale, pale and male politicians who talk a good talk and then govern like Bush Sr. Which will be Newsom in 2028.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also the elephant in the room of balance of payments. Foreign money that’s buying education or holidays, isn’t buying up businesses.
However the dependents thing does seem very weird and should be restricted to postgraduates, most of whom we’ll be wanting to keep anyway as they’ll be net contributors to society.
There was a scandal a few years ago, of some very dodgy educational institutions which were besically a front for immigration, I wonder if there’s something similar happening behind the scenes now, involving more regular institutions?
I can't believe the tories managed to not give them any money. It's right up their street.
1) Owned by a Russian/Georgian oligarch 2) Sub-scale and doomed to failure 3) EVs were the next big thing for a few years and this was a chance to position #globalbritain at the forefront while Shappsie was calling the shots at the DoT.
in the end this was bound to happen - or it will happen. Mass immigration raises rents and house prices and that expecially impacts the young, who nonetheless vote Labour. The cognitive dissonance cannot continue forever
So who do you vote for if you want lower rents and house prices? The Conservatives have overseen 13 years of mass immigration, restricted housing supply and stupid schemes to prop up house prices like "help to buy" and the stamp duty holiday. Plus Osborne's ridiculous wheeze to end mortgage interest payments being a deductible expense for landlords, which, unsurprisingly, led to a constriction of supply as well as a surge in rents as landlords passed the extra cost on to tenants.
Voting Conservative instead of Labour isn't going to materially improve the fortunes of the nation's young.
I entirely agree - which is why the Tories are doubly fucked
In the end a party will address this problem. It would be nice if it was one of the main democratic parties rather than a British version of AfD
Leon, 2029
‘Starmer has broken all his promises, Cons are a disaster, so it is with a heavy heart* that I will vote for AfUK today.’
*knocks several pensioners over in rush to the polling station.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
It's also blatantly racist. Which of the 'enlightened' reasons against immigration - long-term housing, pressure on social services etc. - particularly applies to overseas university students?
On that with yesterdays poll and 35% tactical voting it has the Tories as 3rd party.
Not really that plausible but it emphasizes how close the current Tory polling is to the point where their seat numbers start to collapse
I will enjoy listening to the post-election Tory rump expounding on the iniquities of FPTP, and how they really feel the country would be much better off with PR.
With the Lords blocking the Rwanda=safe bill, the Tories will be calling for PR and House of Lords reform.
British Film and High-End TV - Culture, Media and Sport Committee
How resilient is the UK's film and TV industry?
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry into British Film and High-End TV aims to answer just that, examining the challenges facing the industry and investigate what needs to be done to enhance the UK as a global destination for production.
In this session, the Committee will hear from Gurinder Chadha, the acclaimed writer, director and producer of films including Bend It Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice and Blinded by the Lights. MPs may examine what has changed for filmmakers in the UK over the past two decades and whether films have the same cultural impact as they had in the past.
Members could also explore the importance of theatrical releases in the age of streaming and whether diversity has improved within the industry over past decades. They may also discuss the filmmaker’s attitudes towards AI, including concerns about films being used to train AI models.
In the second panel, MPs will hear evidence from the CEOs of leading production, distribution and exhibition trade bodies. Members may ask about key issues facing their respective sectors, the ecosystem of British film and the impact of the SAG-AFTRA strikes on the UK industry.
Questions could also be asked about the best ways to support domestic films, including tax reliefs, levies and quotas, and how the industry plans to tackle skills shortages and recruitment issues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEzBl4zF5jo
More livestreaming fun!
The last time a government tried to support the film industry with tax reliefs it led to a lot of mis-sold investments to rich investors trying to avoid large tax bills. The Ingenious fund, for instance, which turned out to be anything but.
It might be an idea not to repeat this scandal. We have plenty of others to be getting on with.
A lot of films from the 'golden age' of British cinema were 'quota quickies' that were made because cinemas had to show a quota of British films. It's not ideal but sometimes Governments' fingers on the scales are necessary for cultural reasons.
It's an interesting question. The EU commissioned a study of the Korean film industry a while back, and they noted that domestic producers did better after the quota restrictions were lifted - competition evidently benefitted the industry. But it's possible that the previous support is what helped have an industry to benefit from the subsequent competition ?
Despite your EU scepticism, perhaps worth a read ? https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/84084/A-JParc-Brussels-vDec-EN-PE.pdf ..The Korean film industry provides a remarkably dynamic and successful story since the late 1990s. This paper comes to the conclusion that this success cannot be attributed to protective policies—import and screen quotas, subsidies, and tax rebates. Contrary to many existing studies, this conclusion relies on robust data and a rigorous analysis incorporating a historical long-term perspective...
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
Tough shit
The country cannot afford to absorb half a million people PLUS a year: the impact of migration on that scale is not paid by the universities, is it? They just cream the profits. It is everyone else that pays, in greater pressure on the NHS, housing, infra, and a general dissolution of social cohesion
Unis will have to get used to fewer foreign students
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
I live to help. I have actually done the Grand Canyon helicopter ride. It is definitely worth the money for a once-in-a-lifetime experience
But be warned it is quite hair raising. I've done multiple helicopter rides - I've done microflight rides halfway up K2 - and this is the only one that has freaked me out. It is quite scary, and you get intense and various thermals from the desert and the canyon
I cannot remember which particular one we did. I remember we had to get a bus from LV which took about 30-60 minutes to some anonymous landing strip. It was the day Notre Dame burned down - news which came as light relief after that ride
I was all lined up to fly myself solo over the Grand Canyon, out of San Diego, but the day before some tw*t crashed a plane and the FAA closed the airfield. A big regret, as that chance won't come again.
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
I live to help. I have actually done the Grand Canyon helicopter ride. It is definitely worth the money for a once-in-a-lifetime experience
But be warned it is quite hair raising. I've done multiple helicopter rides - I've done microflight rides halfway up K2 - and this is the only one that has freaked me out. It is quite scary, and you get intense and various thermals from the desert and the canyon
I cannot remember which particular one we did. I remember we had to get a bus from LV which took about 30-60 minutes to some anonymous landing strip. It was the day Notre Dame burned down - news which came as light relief after that ride
I was all lined up to fly myself solo over the Grand Canyon, out of San Diego, but the day before some tw*t crashed a plane and the FAA closed the airfield. A big regret, as that chance won't come again.
Oh no, what a shame.
You could rent a plane out there with an EASA licence, or did you have to get an FAA conversion?
Extraordinarily regressive step by Ireland in forcing retailers to accept dead tree and metal currency. A huge step backwards. Insanity. I hope this woke nonsense doesn't catch on here.
That's an interesting little piece about aspects of Ireland still coming out of the 1970s .
Oral contraceptives to be over the counter now. Rent-a-room income now disregarded up to €14,000 in means test for a Medical Card, which gives free access to certain healthcare services. As they put it:
Meanwhile, people who rent out rooms in their house for up to €14,000 a year tax-free will not lose their medical cards, or be deemed ineligible.
And this - why more ATMs near the border? (UK is 75 per 100k people.)
In the west, 96.8pc of the population is within 10km of an ATM. The figure stands at 97.8pc in the midlands and at 99.1pc in the south-east.
Currently, there are 95 ATMs per 100,000 of the population in the Border region and 75 ATMs per 100,000 people in the midlands.
in the end this was bound to happen - or it will happen. Mass immigration raises rents and house prices and that expecially impacts the young, who nonetheless vote Labour. The cognitive dissonance cannot continue forever
So who do you vote for if you want lower rents and house prices? The Conservatives have overseen 13 years of mass immigration, restricted housing supply and stupid schemes to prop up house prices like "help to buy" and the stamp duty holiday. Plus Osborne's ridiculous wheeze to end mortgage interest payments being a deductible expense for landlords, which, unsurprisingly, led to a constriction of supply as well as a surge in rents as landlords passed the extra cost on to tenants.
Voting Conservative instead of Labour isn't going to materially improve the fortunes of the nation's young.
I entirely agree - which is why the Tories are doubly fucked
In the end a party will address this problem. It would be nice if it was one of the main democratic parties rather than a British version of AfD
Leon, 2029
‘Starmer has broken all his promises, Cons are a disaster, so it is with a heavy heart* that I will vote for AfUK today.’
*knocks several pensioners over in rush to the polling station.
No, it will be a postal vote from Cambodia by 2028.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
Tough shit
The country cannot afford to absorb half a million people PLUS a year: the impact of migration on that scale is not paid by the universities, is it? They just cream the profits. It is everyone else that pays, in greater pressure on the NHS, housing, infra, and a general dissolution of social cohesion
Unis will have to get used to fewer foreign students
There is a grain of truth in this, but perhaps only in the big uni cities. The whole area around my flat in Leith is getting covered in student accommodation, which are roughly equivalent to Scandinavian jail cells but with insane rents for the developers.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
The mistake you are making is lumping all universities into the same bracket. Some are indeed great for jobs, research and education but they are not the ones pumping up the numbers. There are plenty of universities that contribute little to the economy or research (and the same for courses) except to pay the salaries of university employees.
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
The West Rim has worse views and you get completely screwed over by the Native American tribe who own the land, who'll charge you an arm and a leg to visit a few specific spots on the canyon. Also, the Skywalk is complete crap and mostly just another opportunity for gouging.
The South Rim has better views, more freedom to walk around and also much cheaper. It is much further away from Vegas - but still doable in a day, and fine if you hire a car and share the driving. Can also fit in Hoover Dam on the way (also applies to the West Rim).
I've never done the helicopter trip - from what I hear, it isn't worth it.
I've been to the Grand Canyon multiple times in my job. It is always put on every itinerary in the American West. I've seen it from every angle and I've been down it
The chopper ride is THE way to see it. It is the only one that truly gives you scale and drama - to the extent you might shit yourself - all the rest are weirdly disappointing - "here's a big thing, it's a long hole in the ground, oh"
If you’re one of the PBers who thinks Biden is gonna win this year then it might be worth finding better odds on the 2028 POTUS elex
Coz if Biden wins in 24 there is no way Americans will give it to the Dems AGAIN in 28. And by then Trump will (surely) have disappeared. So I reckon a GOP victory is extremely likely (if Biden wins this year)
Both Vivek and Haley would be very strong candidates in 2028?
Only problem
1. You’d be tying up your money for about 23,000 years
2. I can’t actually find odds on the victor of POTUS 2028
Other than that I heartily recommend this BETTING TIP
I disagree. I think if Biden does win this year it suggests that the GOP has just gone too far right to hold together it's white majority coalition of white-middle class and white-working class voters (with the white-middle class jumping ship to the Dems in greater numbers). This race is looking strange in that Biden is doing better with older / whiter voters then the average Dem, and Trump is doing better with voters of colour than the average GOPer (see the 9% point lead Biden has in NY for his underperformance, but the closeness in Ohio for his overperformance). These coalitional changes make it possible, for example, for Trump to potentially win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote this year (as a few analysts are already talking about).
Either way, Trumpism has won in the GOP, and that is a sure fire way for more politicians like DeSantis who have all the cruelty but none of the charisma of Trump; and are therefore unelectable outside the asylum that is Florida. The Dems, on the other hand, can double down on reflecting shifts in white sensibilities by continuing to elect stale, pale and male politicians who talk a good talk and then govern like Bush Sr. Which will be Newsom in 2028.
If Trump wins the GOP nomination and Biden centrism loses the general election however I expect the Dems to go full populist left in 2028, maybe even pick AOC or Sanders if he is still going.
If Trump (or Haley) lose then DeSantis looks a good bet for the GOP nomination next time agreed (and he has also by withdrawing made a pitch to be Trump's VP if he wins)
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
Tough shit
The country cannot afford to absorb half a million people PLUS a year: the impact of migration on that scale is not paid by the universities, is it? They just cream the profits. It is everyone else that pays, in greater pressure on the NHS, housing, infra, and a general dissolution of social cohesion
Unis will have to get used to fewer foreign students
Genuine students are likely to return and shouldn't be included in immigration figures (or there should be two sets of figures published). Bringing dependents over is a different matter, and is part of a wider question which *does* need addressing, of dependents / spouses-to-be immigrating.
Small but astonishing moment in this mornng's evidence at the PO Inquiry.
The witness is another 'Investigator' and it emerged that when he submitted his cv for the job, he put forward his wife's qualifications as his own!
The PO certainly found some pond life to carry out its dirty work.
There is an obvious recruitment flaw. If you had the ability to be an investigator - which is a very considerable skill - then you would look for a job in a field which needed those skills and was properly regarded. Law, police, forensic accounting and a few others.
Bottom of the pile would come investigating Mrs Goggins and Postman Pat for not being good at computers. So the applicants are not going to be much good. Evidence: The entire team either failed properly to investigate the computer system or colluded in overlooking it.
I'd say the government has done a good job in getting the combination of general support on energy, specific support for the vulnerable and encouraging energy efficiency about right.
Government support has been fantastic for pensioners (quelle surprise) with an automatic £500-600 payment. It's been terrible for those on low incomes (means tested £150).
I often think back to the working mum of two behind the bar at my old local commenting that she was paying £600 a month heating her house last winter. And then I wonder how many people stopped heating their houses entirely.
How much were they paying the winter before that ?
And if they stopped heating their houses entirely how were they paying £600 per month ?
Not to mention the £400 the government gave everyone toward energy bills last winter or the extra £650 those on low incomes received in 2022 or the £150 council tax rebate. **
And who are all these people who have been getting £900 this last year:
Eight million people on means-tested benefits will receive a final instalment of cost-of-living payments in February.
Those on benefits such as universal credit will be paid directly, without the need to make a claim, between 6 February and 22 February.
It is the last of three instalments that total £900.
** How many of us are aware of all these extra benefits which have been paid ? Even if you receive them they're often quickly forgotten - I'd forgotten about the council tax rebate of 2022.
Read my comment. I didn't say *they* stopped heating their house. I'm just asking how many people on low incomes did. My guess is quite a lot.
I wasn't talking about people on benefits. Plenty of people on low incomes, believe it or not, not claiming benefits.
I have no idea how much they were paying the winter before that, because it's a single anecdote from a worker in a pub I used to drink in last winter. I'm not going back to question them on it. Quite possibly the figure was their combined gas + electricity bill. I didn't ask. Or quite possibly they lived in a house with electricity only, and no gas. I only know that is how much they were paying a month.
However I can tell you that my boiler costs one pound seventy something an hour to run, so you'd only need to be running it 8 hours a day to spend four hundred quid a month on gas central heating. Pretty possible for a poorly insulated three bedroom home in the depths of winter. A house with electric heating would be way over that.
Anecdotes have a habit of 'enlarging' in the telling.
And running a boiler eight hours a day ? I don't think I've ever done that and last winter was mild.
If you’re one of the PBers who thinks Biden is gonna win this year then it might be worth finding better odds on the 2028 POTUS elex
Coz if Biden wins in 24 there is no way Americans will give it to the Dems AGAIN in 28. And by then Trump will (surely) have disappeared. So I reckon a GOP victory is extremely likely (if Biden wins this year)
Both Vivek and Haley would be very strong candidates in 2028?
Only problem
1. You’d be tying up your money for about 23,000 years
2. I can’t actually find odds on the victor of POTUS 2028
Other than that I heartily recommend this BETTING TIP
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
I live to help. I have actually done the Grand Canyon helicopter ride. It is definitely worth the money for a once-in-a-lifetime experience
But be warned it is quite hair raising. I've done multiple helicopter rides - I've done microflight rides halfway up K2 - and this is the only one that has freaked me out. It is quite scary, and you get intense and various thermals from the desert and the canyon
I cannot remember which particular one we did. I remember we had to get a bus from LV which took about 30-60 minutes to some anonymous landing strip. It was the day Notre Dame burned down - news which came as light relief after that ride
Cheers @leon. Appreciated. Having barrel rolled twice and done a fast roll twice in a Pitts Special I suspect I can handle it (although next was going to be the loop de loop and I was feeling too sick to do that, although I have had a go in an acrobatics glider). And for anyone who hasn't done it a Pitts Special is something worth doing once (and once only).
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
I live to help. I have actually done the Grand Canyon helicopter ride. It is definitely worth the money for a once-in-a-lifetime experience
But be warned it is quite hair raising. I've done multiple helicopter rides - I've done microflight rides halfway up K2 - and this is the only one that has freaked me out. It is quite scary, and you get intense and various thermals from the desert and the canyon
I cannot remember which particular one we did. I remember we had to get a bus from LV which took about 30-60 minutes to some anonymous landing strip. It was the day Notre Dame burned down - news which came as light relief after that ride
I was all lined up to fly myself solo over the Grand Canyon, out of San Diego, but the day before some tw*t crashed a plane and the FAA closed the airfield. A big regret, as that chance won't come again.
Oh no, what a shame.
You could rent a plane out there with an EASA licence, or did you have to get an FAA conversion?
I had my (then JAA) UK PPL and the conversion paperwork for FAA, but - to their credit - they put me through the paces at Gillespie Field and I spent a week with one of their instructors effectively going through the US PPL training, until they were satisfied that I was safe, and familar with FAA rules and US radio procedure. After that they let me fly solo over Los Angeles to Van Nuys, along the Mexican border, landing back at French Valley, and over the mountains to Palm Springs. The flight to the canyon was going to be the highlight and culmination of two weeks' flying, but it sadly wasn't to be.
Still, having flown solo over LAX and managed the landing at Van Nuys - which is described at a "GA" airfield but when I got there was like Birmingham International with parallel runways both in use and a complete mix of aircraft from single-engine lights through to passenger jets landing there - and the other trips, I still came back with some great memories, and a few photos taken while flying the plane one-handed.
in the end this was bound to happen - or it will happen. Mass immigration raises rents and house prices and that expecially impacts the young, who nonetheless vote Labour. The cognitive dissonance cannot continue forever
So who do you vote for if you want lower rents and house prices? The Conservatives have overseen 13 years of mass immigration, restricted housing supply and stupid schemes to prop up house prices like "help to buy" and the stamp duty holiday. Plus Osborne's ridiculous wheeze to end mortgage interest payments being a deductible expense for landlords, which, unsurprisingly, led to a constriction of supply as well as a surge in rents as landlords passed the extra cost on to tenants.
Voting Conservative instead of Labour isn't going to materially improve the fortunes of the nation's young.
I entirely agree - which is why the Tories are doubly fucked
In the end a party will address this problem. It would be nice if it was one of the main democratic parties rather than a British version of AfD
Leon, 2029
‘Starmer has broken all his promises, Cons are a disaster, so it is with a heavy heart* that I will vote for AfUK today.’
*knocks several pensioners over in rush to the polling station.
No, it will be a postal vote from Cambodia by 2028.
As I look out over my new neighborhood - Bassac Lane - that seems quite possible
in the end this was bound to happen - or it will happen. Mass immigration raises rents and house prices and that expecially impacts the young, who nonetheless vote Labour. The cognitive dissonance cannot continue forever
So who do you vote for if you want lower rents and house prices? The Conservatives have overseen 13 years of mass immigration, restricted housing supply and stupid schemes to prop up house prices like "help to buy" and the stamp duty holiday. Plus Osborne's ridiculous wheeze to end mortgage interest payments being a deductible expense for landlords, which, unsurprisingly, led to a constriction of supply as well as a surge in rents as landlords passed the extra cost on to tenants.
Voting Conservative instead of Labour isn't going to materially improve the fortunes of the nation's young.
I entirely agree - which is why the Tories are doubly fucked
In the end a party will address this problem. It would be nice if it was one of the main democratic parties rather than a British version of AfD
Leon, 2029
‘Starmer has broken all his promises, Cons are a disaster, so it is with a heavy heart* that I will vote for AfUK today.’
*knocks several pensioners over in rush to the polling station.
AFUK is a great name for a party and I'll be amazed if there isn't one by the GE after the next one. It's pithy, memorable and a bit meme-y.
I'd say the government has done a good job in getting the combination of general support on energy, specific support for the vulnerable and encouraging energy efficiency about right.
Government support has been fantastic for pensioners (quelle surprise) with an automatic £500-600 payment. It's been terrible for those on low incomes (means tested £150).
I often think back to the working mum of two behind the bar at my old local commenting that she was paying £600 a month heating her house last winter. And then I wonder how many people stopped heating their houses entirely.
And yet Sunak has binned required minimum energy performance standards for rented housing, and abandoned any move to apply them to owner-occupied housing.
Speaking as a small LL who has always kept well ahead of this (renovating to a C or D for for than a decade), I have just no idea where things are now - with the Govt leaving policies which have by their nature to be long term just flapping about in the political wind.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
And apparently the treasury is recommending that we increase immigration even more:
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
Biden cannot restore the protections of Roe v Wade. That is not true. He could try a variety of things that may help, and he is doing many of those things. He signed executive order 14076, for example. He faces a hostile Supreme Court, however, who will overturn what they can. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a bill, but they’re obviously not going to, so he’s appealing to the voters instead, because you need the voters to vote for a different Congress.
It seems odd that you call for him to “stand on the bully pulpit” to fight for abortion rights, while criticising him for… well, doing exactly that. This is him campaigning for abortion rights.
It is depressing, Mike. Even if Donald Trump fails to become president again (still my confident call) it's intensely dispiriting that so many Americans remain in thrall to this repellent individual.
It poses an interesting question, though - what isn't within Trump's mandate if he runs against the courts who are prosecuting him, and the Dems and Deep State who he is arguing is leading those prosecutions, if he wins? Surely that is as close to being elected dictator as anything post Rome.
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
This is all bollocks. The GOP don't "just do" their stated aims. Trump wanted a wall, he didn't get a wall. He wanted to repeal ObamaCare, he couldn't repeal ObamaCare. They've been wanting to privatize medicare forever, they never got it done. They got enough judges to overturn Roe v Wade, but it took them *50 years* of evangelicals voting for whoever the GOP put up instead of bitching about it.
I don't know what the thing about federal sites is supposed to be but your idea that Biden could have got a different result using the "bully pulpit" is total fantasy. The House passed a bill codifying Roe vs Wade, the Senate didn't. He needed 60 votes, he only had 50. Alternatively he needed to get rid of the filibuster which would need 50 votes, and there was no way Joe Manchin (representing a Trump +35% state) was going to vote for that. It doesn't matter how much he screams: You cannot attract GOP senators by screaming. They need 50 senators who will vote to get rid of the filibuster to pass the abortion law, and that genuinely is in the hands of the voters.
It was harder for Obama than you make out: He had 60 votes very, very briefly, it relied on a senator who was really sick, and several of them were anti-abortion so they wouldn't have voted for codifying Roe v Wade. He had more senators, but more of them were conservatives who were against abolishing the filibuster. He used that tiny window to pass ObamaCare, which made a huge difference to millions of people who couldn't get medical insurance. If he'd spent the time on abortion instead he'd have passed no ObamaCare, and also nothing on abortion.
A quick Google search throws up the news story of the plane crash that trashed my Canyon trip. It got a lot of media coverage because the propellor slashed the high-pressure sewerage pipe and sent a spout of muck up into the air, covering the entire scene.
My recollection is that subsequent investigation found that the pilot, who was a newbie, panicked when he saw that his fuel guage was on zero, and ended up crashing while looking for a safe place to land (possibly on the adjacent road). It turned out the guage was faulty and he had more than enough fuel.
in the end this was bound to happen - or it will happen. Mass immigration raises rents and house prices and that expecially impacts the young, who nonetheless vote Labour. The cognitive dissonance cannot continue forever
So who do you vote for if you want lower rents and house prices? The Conservatives have overseen 13 years of mass immigration, restricted housing supply and stupid schemes to prop up house prices like "help to buy" and the stamp duty holiday. Plus Osborne's ridiculous wheeze to end mortgage interest payments being a deductible expense for landlords, which, unsurprisingly, led to a constriction of supply as well as a surge in rents as landlords passed the extra cost on to tenants.
Voting Conservative instead of Labour isn't going to materially improve the fortunes of the nation's young.
I entirely agree - which is why the Tories are doubly fucked
In the end a party will address this problem. It would be nice if it was one of the main democratic parties rather than a British version of AfD
Leon, 2029
‘Starmer has broken all his promises, Cons are a disaster, so it is with a heavy heart* that I will vote for AfUK today.’
*knocks several pensioners over in rush to the polling station.
AFUK is a great name for a party and I'll be amazed if there isn't one by the GE after the next one. It's pithy, memorable and a bit meme-y.
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
I live to help. I have actually done the Grand Canyon helicopter ride. It is definitely worth the money for a once-in-a-lifetime experience
But be warned it is quite hair raising. I've done multiple helicopter rides - I've done microflight rides halfway up K2 - and this is the only one that has freaked me out. It is quite scary, and you get intense and various thermals from the desert and the canyon
I cannot remember which particular one we did. I remember we had to get a bus from LV which took about 30-60 minutes to some anonymous landing strip. It was the day Notre Dame burned down - news which came as light relief after that ride
Cheers @leon. Appreciated. Having barrel rolled twice and done a fast roll twice in a Pitts Special I suspect I can handle it (although next was going to be the loop de loop and I was feeling too sick to do that, although I have had a go in an acrobatics glider). And for anyone who hasn't done it a Pitts Special is something worth doing once (and once only).
Just to make clear (as it appears half of you on here are pilots) I was a passenger. I have flown gliders, but never solo and not an aerobatics glider and the stick on the Pitts Special was so twitchy I only held it for about a nano second.
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
Biden cannot restore the protections of Roe v Wade. That is not true. He could try a variety of things that may help, and he is doing many of those things. He signed executive order 14076, for example. He faces a hostile Supreme Court, however, who will overturn what they can. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a bill, but they’re obviously not going to, so he’s appealing to the voters instead, because you need the voters to vote for a different Congress.
It seems odd that you call for him to “stand on the bully pulpit” to fight for abortion rights, while criticising him for… well, doing exactly that. This is him campaigning for abortion rights.
The bully pulpit is called such to bully politicians to pass policy, not bully voters into the lesser of two evils nonsense.
Biden could, for example, say that all federal medical facilities in any state will be open to the public to have safe abortions. He has not done that. He has not organised the Dems to pass a bill to legislate the protections of Roe v Wade and then forced the GOP into discussing their position (which is to pass a federal ban on abortion) which is hugely unpopular. The Dems are complacent. Tweeting is not a political campaign, it is gesture politics. The day, the day, the leak came out the Dems should have had a game plan on what they should do next (the GOP had already done that with multiple states having laws on the books that came into effect if / when Roe was overturned). Instead you had Dem leadership shrugging and saying "who could have seen this coming". And they have done basically nothing since as red states restrict abortion access further and further, going so far in some states as to threaten the ability for their citizens to do inter-state travel (by passing laws that criminalise going to another state to get an abortion). Women are being prosecuted for miscarriages.
Again - when the GOP don't have a majority in Congress, they play hard ball. Dems negotiate down within their own caucus even before going to the GOP (see the ACA where Obama negotiated with Dems to take out the public option, then negotiated with the GOP to take out other provisions, and still not a single GOP pol voted for it - yet what passed still had all their negotiated changes in it).
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also the elephant in the room of balance of payments. Foreign money that’s buying education or holidays, isn’t buying up businesses.
However the dependents thing does seem very weird and should be restricted to postgraduates, most of whom we’ll be wanting to keep anyway as they’ll be net contributors to society.
There was a scandal a few years ago, of some very dodgy educational institutions which were besically a front for immigration, I wonder if there’s something similar happening behind the scenes now, involving more regular institutions?
If you’ve got dependents, you’ve got dependents. Why distinguish between under- and postgrad?
There is an extensive monitoring system imposed on universities to ensure education visas are being followed correctly. We have lots of education visas being given out because it has been government policy to increase numbers.
Voters generally say they’re fine with overseas students. Voters will not be happy with the higher fees for themselves or their kids that will result if universities can’t recruit as many overseas students.
in the end this was bound to happen - or it will happen. Mass immigration raises rents and house prices and that expecially impacts the young, who nonetheless vote Labour. The cognitive dissonance cannot continue forever
So who do you vote for if you want lower rents and house prices? The Conservatives have overseen 13 years of mass immigration, restricted housing supply and stupid schemes to prop up house prices like "help to buy" and the stamp duty holiday. Plus Osborne's ridiculous wheeze to end mortgage interest payments being a deductible expense for landlords, which, unsurprisingly, led to a constriction of supply as well as a surge in rents as landlords passed the extra cost on to tenants.
Voting Conservative instead of Labour isn't going to materially improve the fortunes of the nation's young.
I entirely agree - which is why the Tories are doubly fucked
In the end a party will address this problem. It would be nice if it was one of the main democratic parties rather than a British version of AfD
Leon, 2029
‘Starmer has broken all his promises, Cons are a disaster, so it is with a heavy heart* that I will vote for AfUK today.’
*knocks several pensioners over in rush to the polling station.
AFUK is a great name for a party and I'll be amazed if there isn't one by the GE after the next one. It's pithy, memorable and a bit meme-y.
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
I live to help. I have actually done the Grand Canyon helicopter ride. It is definitely worth the money for a once-in-a-lifetime experience
But be warned it is quite hair raising. I've done multiple helicopter rides - I've done microflight rides halfway up K2 - and this is the only one that has freaked me out. It is quite scary, and you get intense and various thermals from the desert and the canyon
I cannot remember which particular one we did. I remember we had to get a bus from LV which took about 30-60 minutes to some anonymous landing strip. It was the day Notre Dame burned down - news which came as light relief after that ride
Cheers @leon. Appreciated. Having barrel rolled twice and done a fast roll twice in a Pitts Special I suspect I can handle it (although next was going to be the loop de loop and I was feeling too sick to do that, although I have had a go in an acrobatics glider). And for anyone who hasn't done it a Pitts Special is something worth doing once (and once only).
If you want absolute horror, do the microlight up Annapurna. As I did, in Nepal
For some reason the Grand Canyon scared me more - probably the bumps from the thermals - but in terms of sheer danger that flight in the Himalayas was surely way worse
Gives me shivers thinking about it now. Only cost about £20
in the end this was bound to happen - or it will happen. Mass immigration raises rents and house prices and that expecially impacts the young, who nonetheless vote Labour. The cognitive dissonance cannot continue forever
So who do you vote for if you want lower rents and house prices? The Conservatives have overseen 13 years of mass immigration, restricted housing supply and stupid schemes to prop up house prices like "help to buy" and the stamp duty holiday. Plus Osborne's ridiculous wheeze to end mortgage interest payments being a deductible expense for landlords, which, unsurprisingly, led to a constriction of supply as well as a surge in rents as landlords passed the extra cost on to tenants.
Voting Conservative instead of Labour isn't going to materially improve the fortunes of the nation's young.
I entirely agree - which is why the Tories are doubly fucked
In the end a party will address this problem. It would be nice if it was one of the main democratic parties rather than a British version of AfD
Leon, 2029
‘Starmer has broken all his promises, Cons are a disaster, so it is with a heavy heart* that I will vote for AfUK today.’
*knocks several pensioners over in rush to the polling station.
AFUK is a great name for a party and I'll be amazed if there isn't one by the GE after the next one. It's pithy, memorable and a bit meme-y.
Reform is/was quite a clever name I think. They can plonk it into whatever they’re saying without shouting ‘WE ARE CALLED REFORM”
I read a bit of their policy page the other day to see if they were in favour of PR. They use the word reform as a verb (I think) ie
“Our public services are paid for and valued by us all. The faster our economy grows by having lower, simpler taxes, the more money there is to invest in public services. With reform, they can work better, faster, and more efficiently.”
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
This is all bollocks. The GOP don't "just do" their stated aims. Trump wanted a wall, he didn't get a wall. He wanted to repeal ObamaCare, he couldn't repeal ObamaCare. They've been wanting to privatize medicare forever, they never got it done. They got enough judges to overturn Roe v Wade, but it took them *50 years* of evangelicals voting for whoever the GOP put up instead of bitching about it.
I don't know what the thing about federal sites is supposed to be but your idea that Biden could have got a different result using the "bully pulpit" is total fantasy. The House passed a bill codifying Roe vs Wade, the Senate didn't. He needed 60 votes, he only had 50. Alternatively he needed to get rid of the filibuster which would need 50 votes, and there was no way Joe Manchin (representing a Trump +35% state) was going to vote for that. It doesn't matter how much he screams: You cannot attract GOP senators by screaming. They need 50 senators who will vote to get rid of the filibuster to pass the abortion law, and that genuinely is in the hands of the voters.
It was harder for Obama than you make out: He had 60 votes very, very briefly, it relied on a senator who was really sick, and several of them were anti-abortion so they wouldn't have voted for codifying Roe v Wade. He had more senators, but more of them were conservatives who were against abolishing the filibuster. He used that tiny window to pass ObamaCare, which made a huge difference to millions of people who couldn't get medical insurance. If he'd spent the time on abortion instead he'd have passed no ObamaCare, and also nothing on abortion.
It's also doubtful that abortion is something that Congress can legislate on, rather than it being the province of the states. At best, it can regulate (and assure) travel to states where abortion is legal cannot be punished by those states where it isn't.
Roe v Wade was always vulnerable as the SCOTUS took ambitious legal jumps to find arguments to decide as they so did - because in effect, the Court wasn't handing down a legal judgement but was acting as a pseudo-legislature. Going back to basics - the constitution - was always likely to overturn that. It didn't need zealous right-wing evangelists to do so; just people deciding on the basis of the texts.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
The mistake you are making is lumping all universities into the same bracket. Some are indeed great for jobs, research and education but they are not the ones pumping up the numbers. There are plenty of universities that contribute little to the economy or research (and the same for courses) except to pay the salaries of university employees.
University employees are part of the economy. Even the most useless degree course, that’s still foreign money coming in to the UK to pay those employees, and to pay students’ rent, and to pay for students’ food and IT needs!
We are seeing big increases in overseas student numbers across the sector. Two of the top 5 universities by % increase are Russell Group.
in the end this was bound to happen - or it will happen. Mass immigration raises rents and house prices and that expecially impacts the young, who nonetheless vote Labour. The cognitive dissonance cannot continue forever
So who do you vote for if you want lower rents and house prices? The Conservatives have overseen 13 years of mass immigration, restricted housing supply and stupid schemes to prop up house prices like "help to buy" and the stamp duty holiday. Plus Osborne's ridiculous wheeze to end mortgage interest payments being a deductible expense for landlords, which, unsurprisingly, led to a constriction of supply as well as a surge in rents as landlords passed the extra cost on to tenants.
Voting Conservative instead of Labour isn't going to materially improve the fortunes of the nation's young.
I entirely agree - which is why the Tories are doubly fucked
In the end a party will address this problem. It would be nice if it was one of the main democratic parties rather than a British version of AfD
Leon, 2029
‘Starmer has broken all his promises, Cons are a disaster, so it is with a heavy heart* that I will vote for AfUK today.’
*knocks several pensioners over in rush to the polling station.
AFUK is a great name for a party and I'll be amazed if there isn't one by the GE after the next one. It's pithy, memorable and a bit meme-y.
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
This is all bollocks. The GOP don't "just do" their stated aims. Trump wanted a wall, he didn't get a wall. He wanted to repeal ObamaCare, he couldn't repeal ObamaCare. They've been wanting to privatize medicare forever, they never got it done. They got enough judges to overturn Roe v Wade, but it took them *50 years* of evangelicals voting for whoever the GOP put up instead of bitching about it.
I don't know what the thing about federal sites is supposed to be but your idea that Biden could have got a different result using the "bully pulpit" is total fantasy. The House passed a bill codifying Roe vs Wade, the Senate didn't. He needed 60 votes, he only had 50. Alternatively he needed to get rid of the filibuster which would need 50 votes, and there was no way Joe Manchin (representing a Trump +35% state) was going to vote for that. It doesn't matter how much he screams: You cannot attract GOP senators by screaming. They need 50 senators who will vote to get rid of the filibuster to pass the abortion law, and that genuinely is in the hands of the voters.
It was harder for Obama than you make out: He had 60 votes very, very briefly, it relied on a senator who was really sick, and several of them were anti-abortion so they wouldn't have voted for codifying Roe v Wade. He had more senators, but more of them were conservatives who were against abolishing the filibuster. He used that tiny window to pass ObamaCare, which made a huge difference to millions of people who couldn't get medical insurance. If he'd spent the time on abortion instead he'd have passed no ObamaCare, and also nothing on abortion.
The idea of a bully pulpit, as I've said, is to bully politicians into having a conversation they don't want to have. The GOP do not want to have to talk about how their preferred policy option is a federal abortion ban. Roe protections are hugely popular, so screaming at every opportunity you have that the GOP are holding up those protections in the House is a big thing to do. Even if it doesn't ever pass, by making a big deal out of it it becomes the national story.
I disagree with your position on Trump - he won on the wall, it exists (and did before he became POTUS) - it's just that complaining about hoards of immigrants is always a good talking point for a right wing demagogue. Sure, they didn't fully repeal the ACA, but that's in part because they didn't have anything to replace it with that would stabilise the health insurance economy. They did, on the other hand, start not enforcing large swathes of it and stopped taking states to court who were not enforcing their parts of it. As for Medicare - Trump ran specifically on not touching Medicare (which is part of why he was more popular than the average GOP politician). But, again, what the GOP can't win in one final victory they are winning via death of a thousand cuts.
Dems do not take the fight to the GOP; the GOP are always setting the terms of the fight and taking it to the Dems. That is the issue.
It is depressing, Mike. Even if Donald Trump fails to become president again (still my confident call) it's intensely dispiriting that so many Americans remain in thrall to this repellent individual.
It poses an interesting question, though - what isn't within Trump's mandate if he runs against the courts who are prosecuting him, and the Dems and Deep State who he is arguing is leading those prosecutions, if he wins? Surely that is as close to being elected dictator as anything post Rome.
There have been a lot of elected dictators since 49BC. I'm sure we can all think of more recent examples. (Plus, Julius Caesar wasn't popularly elected Dictator but appointed to that role by the Senate).
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
Abortions in a Post Office? It's an idea I suppose.
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
This is all bollocks. The GOP don't "just do" their stated aims. Trump wanted a wall, he didn't get a wall. He wanted to repeal ObamaCare, he couldn't repeal ObamaCare. They've been wanting to privatize medicare forever, they never got it done. They got enough judges to overturn Roe v Wade, but it took them *50 years* of evangelicals voting for whoever the GOP put up instead of bitching about it.
I don't know what the thing about federal sites is supposed to be but your idea that Biden could have got a different result using the "bully pulpit" is total fantasy. The House passed a bill codifying Roe vs Wade, the Senate didn't. He needed 60 votes, he only had 50. Alternatively he needed to get rid of the filibuster which would need 50 votes, and there was no way Joe Manchin (representing a Trump +35% state) was going to vote for that. It doesn't matter how much he screams: You cannot attract GOP senators by screaming. They need 50 senators who will vote to get rid of the filibuster to pass the abortion law, and that genuinely is in the hands of the voters.
It was harder for Obama than you make out: He had 60 votes very, very briefly, it relied on a senator who was really sick, and several of them were anti-abortion so they wouldn't have voted for codifying Roe v Wade. He had more senators, but more of them were conservatives who were against abolishing the filibuster. He used that tiny window to pass ObamaCare, which made a huge difference to millions of people who couldn't get medical insurance. If he'd spent the time on abortion instead he'd have passed no ObamaCare, and also nothing on abortion.
It's also doubtful that abortion is something that Congress can legislate on, rather than it being the province of the states. At best, it can regulate (and assure) travel to states where abortion is legal cannot be punished by those states where it isn't.
Roe v Wade was always vulnerable as the SCOTUS took ambitious legal jumps to find arguments to decide as they so did - because in effect, the Court wasn't handing down a legal judgement but was acting as a pseudo-legislature. Going back to basics - the constitution - was always likely to overturn that. It didn't need zealous right-wing evangelists to do so; just people deciding on the basis of the texts.
This is BS. The GOP are openly stating that they want a federal ban on abortion, and SCOTUS is just another avenue for them to reaffirm their political desires. If the GOP did ban abortion federally, SCOTUS would defend it. They do not care about textualism or what the constitution says or means (if they did, their recent jurisprudence would be consistent, and it hasn't been) - they mean about meeting right wing ends.
I think people are supporting Trump as a protest vote against the general incompetence of American government over recent years. It's not because they like him as a person.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
I think people are supporting Trump as a protest vote against the general incompetence of American government over recent years. It's not because they like him as a person.
I'd say the government has done a good job in getting the combination of general support on energy, specific support for the vulnerable and encouraging energy efficiency about right.
Government support has been fantastic for pensioners (quelle surprise) with an automatic £500-600 payment. It's been terrible for those on low incomes (means tested £150).
I often think back to the working mum of two behind the bar at my old local commenting that she was paying £600 a month heating her house last winter. And then I wonder how many people stopped heating their houses entirely.
How much were they paying the winter before that ?
And if they stopped heating their houses entirely how were they paying £600 per month ?
Not to mention the £400 the government gave everyone toward energy bills last winter or the extra £650 those on low incomes received in 2022 or the £150 council tax rebate. **
And who are all these people who have been getting £900 this last year:
Eight million people on means-tested benefits will receive a final instalment of cost-of-living payments in February.
Those on benefits such as universal credit will be paid directly, without the need to make a claim, between 6 February and 22 February.
It is the last of three instalments that total £900.
** How many of us are aware of all these extra benefits which have been paid ? Even if you receive them they're often quickly forgotten - I'd forgotten about the council tax rebate of 2022.
Read my comment. I didn't say *they* stopped heating their house. I'm just asking how many people on low incomes did. My guess is quite a lot.
I wasn't talking about people on benefits. Plenty of people on low incomes, believe it or not, not claiming benefits.
I have no idea how much they were paying the winter before that, because it's a single anecdote from a worker in a pub I used to drink in last winter. I'm not going back to question them on it. Quite possibly the figure was their combined gas + electricity bill. I didn't ask. Or quite possibly they lived in a house with electricity only, and no gas. I only know that is how much they were paying a month.
However I can tell you that my boiler costs one pound seventy something an hour to run, so you'd only need to be running it 8 hours a day to spend four hundred quid a month on gas central heating. Pretty possible for a poorly insulated three bedroom home in the depths of winter. A house with electric heating would be way over that.
Anecdotes have a habit of 'enlarging' in the telling.
And running a boiler eight hours a day ? I don't think I've ever done that and last winter was mild.
Well, I can tell you that my well insulated flat has needed between 4-6 hours a day over the last couple of months for a comfortable level of heat. 8 hours doesn't sound far off for a poorly insulated house, especially if you're worried about your kids catching cold.
The bar lady's figure was quite specific, and I had no reason to doubt her. This was the onset of winter 2022-2023, when prices had just started to rise. Quite possibly she was unaware of the rise and was caught unawares with her first bill on the new rates. Who knows. All I know is that was her heating bill for the month, and yes, I'll have another two stellas, please.
It's an anecdote that rings absolutely true based on how much it costs to run my boiler / heat my flat to an acceptable level.
I wonder why you're so hell bent on arguing this with me?
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
Tough shit
The country cannot afford to absorb half a million people PLUS a year: the impact of migration on that scale is not paid by the universities, is it? They just cream the profits. It is everyone else that pays, in greater pressure on the NHS, housing, infra, and a general dissolution of social cohesion
Unis will have to get used to fewer foreign students
Genuine students are likely to return and shouldn't be included in immigration figures (or there should be two sets of figures published). Bringing dependents over is a different matter, and is part of a wider question which *does* need addressing, of dependents / spouses-to-be immigrating.
About 85% of students return (and that proportion is rising), but some do stay, transferring over to work visas or sometimes family visas (fall in love and marry a local).
I’ve not seen anything suggesting that dependents don’t also return with the student. If they come with the student and return with the student, what’s the problem?
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
Abortions in a Post Office? It's an idea I suppose.
Or on federal military sites where there are already medical centres.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
The mistake you are making is lumping all universities into the same bracket. Some are indeed great for jobs, research and education but they are not the ones pumping up the numbers. There are plenty of universities that contribute little to the economy or research (and the same for courses) except to pay the salaries of university employees.
University employees are part of the economy. Even the most useless degree course, that’s still foreign money coming in to the UK to pay those employees, and to pay students’ rent, and to pay for students’ food and IT needs!
We are seeing big increases in overseas student numbers across the sector. Two of the top 5 universities by % increase are Russell Group.
Hardly surprising - the finances of must universities are dire, and the outlook on future income is worse.
One Russell group uni announced last week that the required grades for a course is AAA but for overseas students BBB is acceptable because they need every penny they can get.
Oh and if enough overseas students appear next year’s grades could be AAA* for UK students
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
Tough shit
The country cannot afford to absorb half a million people PLUS a year: the impact of migration on that scale is not paid by the universities, is it? They just cream the profits. It is everyone else that pays, in greater pressure on the NHS, housing, infra, and a general dissolution of social cohesion
Unis will have to get used to fewer foreign students
Foreign students (UG) for the most part go home after their course. Some post grads may move on to Post Doc positions etc but the vast majority are not staying here. I think that covid is still being worked through in the numbers.
If you’re one of the PBers who thinks Biden is gonna win this year then it might be worth finding better odds on the 2028 POTUS elex
Coz if Biden wins in 24 there is no way Americans will give it to the Dems AGAIN in 28. And by then Trump will (surely) have disappeared. So I reckon a GOP victory is extremely likely (if Biden wins this year)
Both Vivek and Haley would be very strong candidates in 2028?
Only problem
1. You’d be tying up your money for about 23,000 years
2. I can’t actually find odds on the victor of POTUS 2028
Other than that I heartily recommend this BETTING TIP
I disagree. I think if Biden does win this year it suggests that the GOP has just gone too far right to hold together it's white majority coalition of white-middle class and white-working class voters (with the white-middle class jumping ship to the Dems in greater numbers). This race is looking strange in that Biden is doing better with older / whiter voters then the average Dem, and Trump is doing better with voters of colour than the average GOPer (see the 9% point lead Biden has in NY for his underperformance, but the closeness in Ohio for his overperformance). These coalitional changes make it possible, for example, for Trump to potentially win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote this year (as a few analysts are already talking about).
Either way, Trumpism has won in the GOP, and that is a sure fire way for more politicians like DeSantis who have all the cruelty but none of the charisma of Trump; and are therefore unelectable outside the asylum that is Florida. The Dems, on the other hand, can double down on reflecting shifts in white sensibilities by continuing to elect stale, pale and male politicians who talk a good talk and then govern like Bush Sr. Which will be Newsom in 2028.
If Trump wins the GOP nomination and Biden centrism loses the general election however I expect the Dems to go full populist left in 2028, maybe even pick AOC or Sanders if he is still going.
If Trump (or Haley) lose then DeSantis looks a good bet for the GOP nomination next time agreed (and he has also by withdrawing made a pitch to be Trump's VP if he wins)
I agree, although I also somewhat doubt the likelihood that the US will have free and fair elections if Trump wins this year, so *shrug*
I think people are supporting Trump as a protest vote against the general incompetence of American government over recent years. It's not because they like him as a person.
I can think of one person who was in charge for four of those years of incompetence.
I'd be interested in the views of our Scottish and Doncastrian correspondents.
The legal situation *as it stands now* would depend on the precise nature of the tenure of Doncaster, I'd think.
The UK Gov response suggests they are open to the idea!
Still wondering whether it counts as personal to David 1 or has pertained to the entire nation of Scotland. About 25 years too late to bring back feudal tenure, but I'll tell you something - any leaseholders in Donny might be very interested indeed.
Small but astonishing moment in this mornng's evidence at the PO Inquiry.
The witness is another 'Investigator' and it emerged that when he submitted his cv for the job, he put forward his wife's qualifications as his own!
The PO certainly found some pond life to carry out its dirty work.
There is an obvious recruitment flaw. If you had the ability to be an investigator - which is a very considerable skill - then you would look for a job in a field which needed those skills and was properly regarded. Law, police, forensic accounting and a few others.
Bottom of the pile would come investigating Mrs Goggins and Postman Pat for not being good at computers. So the applicants are not going to be much good. Evidence: The entire team either failed properly to investigate the computer system or colluded in overlooking it.
The parade of numpties and nasty pieces of work that the PO had working as investigators tells you everything you need to know about the organisation.
They mostly follow a pattern - school leavers at sixteen with minimal qualification, working as a counter clerk for a number of years before being offered a more lucrative and interesting position as an 'investigator', no special aptitude needed other than to fill in proformas and toe the company line, little training undertaken, little curiosity an asset.
The work was not of course investigation in any meaningful sense of the word, it was at best factfinding, but only such facts that supported the PO's presumption that the SPMs were guilty. A more appropriate term for the so-called investigators would have been inquisitors, and they certainly bore some similarities to the famous Spanish mob that used that title. They had no interest in finding out what was really going on. All they wanted was convictions and they were not at all fussy how they got them,
The PO was running an extortion racket, and the 'investigators' were their thugs doing the day to day harrassment.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
I think people are supporting Trump as a protest vote against the general incompetence of American government over recent years. It's not because they like him as a person.
I can think of one person who was in charge for four of those years of incompetence.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
Scottish universities have been saying for years, that they have tough quotas on home students because foreign students pay better.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
The mistake you are making is lumping all universities into the same bracket. Some are indeed great for jobs, research and education but they are not the ones pumping up the numbers. There are plenty of universities that contribute little to the economy or research (and the same for courses) except to pay the salaries of university employees.
University employees are part of the economy. Even the most useless degree course, that’s still foreign money coming in to the UK to pay those employees, and to pay students’ rent, and to pay for students’ food and IT needs!
We are seeing big increases in overseas student numbers across the sector. Two of the top 5 universities by % increase are Russell Group.
At my Uni the start department is management - mainly as it brings in vast numbers of overseas students on masters courses (I should know - I watched them graduate last week). As a result a shiny 27 million pound building for them while I still have a bucket outside my office when it rains...
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
I live to help. I have actually done the Grand Canyon helicopter ride. It is definitely worth the money for a once-in-a-lifetime experience
But be warned it is quite hair raising. I've done multiple helicopter rides - I've done microflight rides halfway up K2 - and this is the only one that has freaked me out. It is quite scary, and you get intense and various thermals from the desert and the canyon
I cannot remember which particular one we did. I remember we had to get a bus from LV which took about 30-60 minutes to some anonymous landing strip. It was the day Notre Dame burned down - news which came as light relief after that ride
I took a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon with my daughter 20 years ago. We drove from LV to I think Grand Canyon Village, detoured via Route 66 and over the Hoover Dam, visiting the enormous generators now closed to visitors. It took about 4 hours I think. Our helicopter pilot was a young New Zealander who announced that we were his first passengers since he qualified. We were supplied with earphones which blasted out the theme from Apocalypse Now and we were off - at great speed about 30 feet off the ground towards the canyon. Suddenly we appeared to stop in mid air as we went over the edge of the canyon and peered a mile down to the bottom.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
The mistake you are making is lumping all universities into the same bracket. Some are indeed great for jobs, research and education but they are not the ones pumping up the numbers. There are plenty of universities that contribute little to the economy or research (and the same for courses) except to pay the salaries of university employees.
University employees are part of the economy. Even the most useless degree course, that’s still foreign money coming in to the UK to pay those employees, and to pay students’ rent, and to pay for students’ food and IT needs!
We are seeing big increases in overseas student numbers across the sector. Two of the top 5 universities by % increase are Russell Group.
Hardly surprising - the finances of must universities are dire, and the outlook on future income is worse.
One Russell group uni announced last week that the required grades for a course is AAA but for overseas students BBB is acceptable because they need every penny they can get.
Oh and if enough overseas students appear next year’s grades could be AAA* for UK students
Link? I'd be surprised that they announced that (would expect it to be policy for internal consumption!)
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
Scottish universities have been saying for years, that they have tough quotas on home students because foreign students pay better.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
Scottish universities have been saying for years, that they have tough quotas on home students because foreign students pay better.
It may be the case but I'd doubt very much they'd say it out loud.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
Don’t you actually work in the university sector?
If so: LOL
if not, less lol more Whatevs
I do, and I'm somewhat torn on international students. My sense, working at a lower tariff uni and knowing others who do: international students are used to make up the financial losses of government cuts and lack of inflationary considerations in funding. Many international students do come over and do not study - they are primarily here to work during their studies and overwork their visa requirements (partly to live here, as it is expensive, and partly to send money home). Most of these students do go home - the study time is 3-4 years and that's the amount of time they typically stay here to earn money (they don't tend to run off and disappear into the ether, because at that point unis would be hit hard by the Home Office). The flip side of that is those international students who do come here primarily for studies and would be boons as graduates have far too many hurdles put in front of them to stay here.
In my mind the main ways of dealing with this is a) properly fund universities and b) have tighter enforcement of employment law but lol Tories aren't going to do that, and I doubt that's what @Leon wants - the government position is essentially some unis should just go bust because we have too many of them but closing them down looks bad, whereas we can blame them if their finances implode.
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
I live to help. I have actually done the Grand Canyon helicopter ride. It is definitely worth the money for a once-in-a-lifetime experience
But be warned it is quite hair raising. I've done multiple helicopter rides - I've done microflight rides halfway up K2 - and this is the only one that has freaked me out. It is quite scary, and you get intense and various thermals from the desert and the canyon
I cannot remember which particular one we did. I remember we had to get a bus from LV which took about 30-60 minutes to some anonymous landing strip. It was the day Notre Dame burned down - news which came as light relief after that ride
I took a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon with my daughter 20 years ago. We drove from LV to I think Grand Canyon Village, detoured via Route 66 and over the Hoover Dam, visiting the enormous generators now closed to visitors. It took about 4 hours I think. Our helicopter pilot was a young New Zealander who announced that we were his first passengers since he qualified. We were supplied with earphones which blasted out the theme from Apocalypse Now and we were off - at great speed about 30 feet off the ground towards the canyon. Suddenly we appeared to stop in mid air as we went over the edge of the canyon and peered a mile down to the bottom.
Excellent description. Chapeau
Yes that’s pretty much exactly what happened to us, except our pilot was a veteran who admitted he was nursing “a god awful hangover” and kept yawning and closing his eyes
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
Biden cannot restore the protections of Roe v Wade. That is not true. He could try a variety of things that may help, and he is doing many of those things. He signed executive order 14076, for example. He faces a hostile Supreme Court, however, who will overturn what they can. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a bill, but they’re obviously not going to, so he’s appealing to the voters instead, because you need the voters to vote for a different Congress.
It seems odd that you call for him to “stand on the bully pulpit” to fight for abortion rights, while criticising him for… well, doing exactly that. This is him campaigning for abortion rights.
The bully pulpit is called such to bully politicians to pass policy, not bully voters into the lesser of two evils nonsense.
Biden could, for example, say that all federal medical facilities in any state will be open to the public to have safe abortions. He has not done that. He has not organised the Dems to pass a bill to legislate the protections of Roe v Wade and then forced the GOP into discussing their position (which is to pass a federal ban on abortion) which is hugely unpopular. The Dems are complacent. Tweeting is not a political campaign, it is gesture politics. The day, the day, the leak came out the Dems should have had a game plan on what they should do next (the GOP had already done that with multiple states having laws on the books that came into effect if / when Roe was overturned). Instead you had Dem leadership shrugging and saying "who could have seen this coming". And they have done basically nothing since as red states restrict abortion access further and further, going so far in some states as to threaten the ability for their citizens to do inter-state travel (by passing laws that criminalise going to another state to get an abortion). Women are being prosecuted for miscarriages.
Again - when the GOP don't have a majority in Congress, they play hard ball. Dems negotiate down within their own caucus even before going to the GOP (see the ACA where Obama negotiated with Dems to take out the public option, then negotiated with the GOP to take out other provisions, and still not a single GOP pol voted for it - yet what passed still had all their negotiated changes in it).
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
Biden cannot restore the protections of Roe v Wade. That is not true. He could try a variety of things that may help, and he is doing many of those things. He signed executive order 14076, for example. He faces a hostile Supreme Court, however, who will overturn what they can. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a bill, but they’re obviously not going to, so he’s appealing to the voters instead, because you need the voters to vote for a different Congress.
It seems odd that you call for him to “stand on the bully pulpit” to fight for abortion rights, while criticising him for… well, doing exactly that. This is him campaigning for abortion rights.
The bully pulpit is called such to bully politicians to pass policy, not bully voters into the lesser of two evils nonsense.
Biden could, for example, say that all federal medical facilities in any state will be open to the public to have safe abortions. He has not done that. He has not organised the Dems to pass a bill to legislate the protections of Roe v Wade and then forced the GOP into discussing their position (which is to pass a federal ban on abortion) which is hugely unpopular. The Dems are complacent. Tweeting is not a political campaign, it is gesture politics. The day, the day, the leak came out the Dems should have had a game plan on what they should do next (the GOP had already done that with multiple states having laws on the books that came into effect if / when Roe was overturned). Instead you had Dem leadership shrugging and saying "who could have seen this coming". And they have done basically nothing since as red states restrict abortion access further and further, going so far in some states as to threaten the ability for their citizens to do inter-state travel (by passing laws that criminalise going to another state to get an abortion). Women are being prosecuted for miscarriages.
Again - when the GOP don't have a majority in Congress, they play hard ball. Dems negotiate down within their own caucus even before going to the GOP (see the ACA where Obama negotiated with Dems to take out the public option, then negotiated with the GOP to take out other provisions, and still not a single GOP pol voted for it - yet what passed still had all their negotiated changes in it).
Dems and pro-choice campaigners have succeeded in getting pro-abortion legislation and state constitutional changes in numerous states. They have not “done basically nothing”. They defeated an anti-abortion ballot measure in Kansas in Aug 2022. California, Michigan and Vermont all passed ballot measures protecting abortion rights in Nov 2022, while Kentucky and Montana voted against anti-abortion ballot measures. Then there was the 2023 vote protecting abortion rights in Ohio.
There have been numerous state legislature and gubernatorial votes where Dems have campaigned hard on abortion rights and won, like the Kentucky governor win in 2023 and elections in Virginia.
Planning a trip to Las Vegas and Death Valley. Suggestions please?
Will do trip to Grand Canyon while in LV as well. I want to go by helicopter, but my wife won't get in one. I also I understand they only go to the West Rim, which doesn't seem the best option. So what do we do? I definitely want the helicopter trip somewhere in it, which I could do at the South Rim, but the trip to there seems a long way by road.
I'm planning this around a Santana concert.
Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions please?
I live to help. I have actually done the Grand Canyon helicopter ride. It is definitely worth the money for a once-in-a-lifetime experience
But be warned it is quite hair raising. I've done multiple helicopter rides - I've done microflight rides halfway up K2 - and this is the only one that has freaked me out. It is quite scary, and you get intense and various thermals from the desert and the canyon
I cannot remember which particular one we did. I remember we had to get a bus from LV which took about 30-60 minutes to some anonymous landing strip. It was the day Notre Dame burned down - news which came as light relief after that ride
I took a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon with my daughter 20 years ago. We drove from LV to I think Grand Canyon Village, detoured via Route 66 and over the Hoover Dam, visiting the enormous generators now closed to visitors. It took about 4 hours I think. Our helicopter pilot was a young New Zealander who announced that we were his first passengers since he qualified. We were supplied with earphones which blasted out the theme from Apocalypse Now and we were off - at great speed about 30 feet off the ground towards the canyon. Suddenly we appeared to stop in mid air as we went over the edge of the canyon and peered a mile down to the bottom.
Sadly you're not allowed to fly into the canyon (i.e. lower than the rim); that would be an adventure.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Also, letting universities fail is fucking stupid, if the reason is solely down to wanting to reduce immigration numbers. Universities are a success story for the UK and deliver jobs, research and education - in no small part paid for by foreigners, which also helps the balance of payments.
The mistake you are making is lumping all universities into the same bracket. Some are indeed great for jobs, research and education but they are not the ones pumping up the numbers. There are plenty of universities that contribute little to the economy or research (and the same for courses) except to pay the salaries of university employees.
University employees are part of the economy. Even the most useless degree course, that’s still foreign money coming in to the UK to pay those employees, and to pay students’ rent, and to pay for students’ food and IT needs!
We are seeing big increases in overseas student numbers across the sector. Two of the top 5 universities by % increase are Russell Group.
Hardly surprising - the finances of must universities are dire, and the outlook on future income is worse.
One Russell group uni announced last week that the required grades for a course is AAA but for overseas students BBB is acceptable because they need every penny they can get.
Oh and if enough overseas students appear next year’s grades could be AAA* for UK students
Link? I'd be surprised that they announced that (would expect it to be policy for internal consumption!)
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
Scottish universities have been saying for years, that they have tough quotas on home students because foreign students pay better.
By foreign they mean English, I think...
Have you visited the West End of Glasgow recently? It is like Chinatown.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
Scottish universities have been saying for years, that they have tough quotas on home students because foreign students pay better.
Which, in Scotland and England, is a result of government policy.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
I think people are supporting Trump as a protest vote against the general incompetence of American government over recent years. It's not because they like him as a person.
Protesting against 'general incompetence' by voting for someone who vastly increased the national debt, attempted to hold on to power after losing the election and stole secret documents is a bit of an over reaction.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
Don’t you actually work in the university sector?
If so: LOL
if not, less lol more Whatevs
I do, and I'm somewhat torn on international students. My sense, working at a lower tariff uni and knowing others who do: international students are used to make up the financial losses of government cuts and lack of inflationary considerations in funding. Many international students do come over and do not study - they are primarily here to work during their studies and overwork their visa requirements (partly to live here, as it is expensive, and partly to send money home). Most of these students do go home - the study time is 3-4 years and that's the amount of time they typically stay here to earn money (they don't tend to run off and disappear into the ether, because at that point unis would be hit hard by the Home Office). The flip side of that is those international students who do come here primarily for studies and would be boons as graduates have far too many hurdles put in front of them to stay here.
In my mind the main ways of dealing with this is a) properly fund universities and b) have tighter enforcement of employment law but lol Tories aren't going to do that, and I doubt that's what @Leon wants - the government position is essentially some unis should just go bust because we have too many of them but closing them down looks bad, whereas we can blame them if their finances implode.
I would agree that some institutions do have students playing the game. I give some lectures as a guest at Bedford on a masters course and I would estimate that half the students are there to learn and half to work. Very obvious with the engagement with the material. They also have strict systems of monitoring attendance - all students swipe in to sessions with their library card. This is something that we do not do at Bath.
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
Scottish universities have been saying for years, that they have tough quotas on home students because foreign students pay better.
It may be the case but I'd doubt very much they'd say it out loud.
It is very obvious during clearing, when for many institutions the first thing the potential applicant has to state is which category of student they are in. In the case of some Scottish unis this is: Scottish, rest of UK, overseas. With English ones just: UK or overseas. They often state explicitly that course X is open to overseas applicants but not domestic.
It is depressing, Mike. Even if Donald Trump fails to become president again (still my confident call) it's intensely dispiriting that so many Americans remain in thrall to this repellent individual.
It poses an interesting question, though - what isn't within Trump's mandate if he runs against the courts who are prosecuting him, and the Dems and Deep State who he is arguing is leading those prosecutions, if he wins? Surely that is as close to being elected dictator as anything post Rome.
He fancies himself as Julius Caesar no doubt. Or he would if he knew who that was. But you do raise an interesting point. If people vote for wicked things should they get them on account of 'democracy'? I say no. I don't believe that being elected 'trumps' (sorry) everything else.
I believe in safeguards to prevent the violation of certain fundamentals, regardless of what voters think, these mechanisms to operate within a nation state (courts and constitution) and at a level above it (international and regional bodies). Whilst the latter often isn't feasible in practice I think it should always be the direction of travel.
Not to make this about Brexit (since it isn't) but this was one of my (many) reasons for voting against that ill-starred project. Wrong direction of travel.
Here is the President of the United States making a statement that is putting onus on voters to do stuff that he can already do. He could, in an Executive Order, say that all federal sites in the US will be usable for legal abortions. He could go to Congress and demand they pass a Roe v Wade bill, and when it gets stalled he could stand on the bully pulpit every day and scream at the top of his lungs that the GOP are refusing to pass it. He could have done these things before SCOTUS ripped it to shreds. Obama, who campaigned on codifying Roe in to law, could have done it when he had a super majority in Congress. And they didn't.
Whereas the GOP - as evil as their stated policy aims are - just do them. Want Roe overturned - we'll give you judges who do that. Want tax cuts for the rich? Done. Want a muslim ban - we'll do it, and when the courts tell us it's illegal we'll do it again, and we'll keep trying until we get tired or the courts give up. And we don't get tired. The GOP fight for their policy preferences.
This is one of the reasons the much bemoaned "faith in democracy" is falling. The right wing use election wins as a mandate to act, the centre / centre-left use it as a way to push the blame for not doing things on to voters (if only you'd given us a bigger mandate!). At least when an authoritarian refuses to bend to public will the public can feel moral when they riot, in a "democratic" system so many goddamn libs and bad faith right wingers argue "that's what the ballot box is for" (despite the fact that when right wingers lose at the ballot box they scream conspiracy and start plotting coups).
This is all bollocks. The GOP don't "just do" their stated aims. Trump wanted a wall, he didn't get a wall. He wanted to repeal ObamaCare, he couldn't repeal ObamaCare. They've been wanting to privatize medicare forever, they never got it done. They got enough judges to overturn Roe v Wade, but it took them *50 years* of evangelicals voting for whoever the GOP put up instead of bitching about it.
I don't know what the thing about federal sites is supposed to be but your idea that Biden could have got a different result using the "bully pulpit" is total fantasy. The House passed a bill codifying Roe vs Wade, the Senate didn't. He needed 60 votes, he only had 50. Alternatively he needed to get rid of the filibuster which would need 50 votes, and there was no way Joe Manchin (representing a Trump +35% state) was going to vote for that. It doesn't matter how much he screams: You cannot attract GOP senators by screaming. They need 50 senators who will vote to get rid of the filibuster to pass the abortion law, and that genuinely is in the hands of the voters.
It was harder for Obama than you make out: He had 60 votes very, very briefly, it relied on a senator who was really sick, and several of them were anti-abortion so they wouldn't have voted for codifying Roe v Wade. He had more senators, but more of them were conservatives who were against abolishing the filibuster. He used that tiny window to pass ObamaCare, which made a huge difference to millions of people who couldn't get medical insurance. If he'd spent the time on abortion instead he'd have passed no ObamaCare, and also nothing on abortion.
It's also doubtful that abortion is something that Congress can legislate on, rather than it being the province of the states. At best, it can regulate (and assure) travel to states where abortion is legal cannot be punished by those states where it isn't.
Roe v Wade was always vulnerable as the SCOTUS took ambitious legal jumps to find arguments to decide as they so did - because in effect, the Court wasn't handing down a legal judgement but was acting as a pseudo-legislature. Going back to basics - the constitution - was always likely to overturn that. It didn't need zealous right-wing evangelists to do so; just people deciding on the basis of the texts.
This is BS. The GOP are openly stating that they want a federal ban on abortion, and SCOTUS is just another avenue for them to reaffirm their political desires. If the GOP did ban abortion federally, SCOTUS would defend it. They do not care about textualism or what the constitution says or means (if they did, their recent jurisprudence would be consistent, and it hasn't been) - they mean about meeting right wing ends.
Well it surely can't be true that the legality of abortion can only be decided at federal level if it is to legalise it? Either states decide it or the federal government does. I have a highly imperfect understanding of the US constitution, but I'm sympathetic to the argument that this is something that should be decided at state level. But if I'm wrong, and it should be decided at federal level, then it seems to me no less consitutional to use federal levers to make abortion harder than to use federal levers to make abortion easier (e.g. Roe vs Wade).
This election is going to play very differently regionally. I expect the Tories to be all but wiped out in London, metropolitan areas and to have a shocker in the South West and Wales. Conversely, I think their vote will be stickier than expected in the midlands and in some northern county/small towns.
I can't speak for the Midlands. For northern England they are going to get absolutely destroyed. Whilst there will remain pockets of shire Tories, all of the places where blue collar Boris Brexit Toryism exploded in 2019 will be lost. All. Maybe keep a random couple if they are lucky and the vote splits right to allow their collapse to still leave them on top.
Why? Because, to get all northern again for a minute, they've done fuck all round here. Too. many morons unexpectedly elected, fed the spin lines by head office which they parrot about all the things they are delivering. Whilst delivering nothing. Voters are used to nothing, but they're not used to being lied to about it.
Worse still is the parochial bigotry that was always close to the surface in many towns now whipped to a frenzy. They voted Brexit and then Boris to get the foreigners out. Gone. Its their fault we can't see a doctor, why the schools are crap, why there's no jobs and no money. And even in 2019 the lure of the further right was strong - the Brexit Party saved Labour in a stack of seats. I expect the number of FUKkers to be even higher this time, and vs 2019 they will mostly be transfers from Tory 2019 totals.
It is going to be a political bloodbath. And well deserved - will be fun to see what Lord Ben I'll Sue Houchen will do with his local support all gone and the wolves closing in on the scent of malfeasance...
Round here a comment I’ve heard often is where have all these coloured people come from.
And it’s not usually as a racist comment we’ve always had a few people of Asian / African descent but there are noticeably more than used to be the case
Granted a lot of the people complaining won’t actually vote but it does show how many people think Bozo and co have utterly failed to deliver what they promised
It's a lot worse than "not delivering", they have done the opposite of delivering. We have had 1.3 million migrants in two years, which is: simply off the dial, unprecedented in our history, changing the country visibly and briskly, and is a larger rate per capita than any annual immigration into the "land of immigrants" - the USA
We are importing more people than America in the era of Ellis Island. Take a minute and grasp that
It is screamingly insane, it is a kind of Ponzi scheme, and all of this is happening as everyone admits the NHS can't cope, our sewage system can't cope, our infrastructure is fucked, and house-ownership is becoming a dream for anyone under 50
The Tories are going to be obliterated, and deservedly, to the extent they may never recover
However, Starmer will then have to tackle this issue. It cannot be ignored. What will he do?
How much off that 1.3 million is Ukraine/Hong Kong and adjustments of student numbers after covid?
I believe about 100-150,000 is Ukraine/HK
Students dunno, but an awful lot of them have brought dependants (much more than usual), and a much higher propertion are now converting their student visas to work visas, so they stay
Now it's great that people want to come here, it's good our unis are attractive, I am sure 98% of these people are fantastic brain surgeons to be, but the simple fact is the UK cannot cope with 700,000 net immigrants a year. Remember when Cameron vowed to get it down to tens of thousands? Now it is SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND
To grasp this nettle will take courage. Does Starmer possess it? I doubt it, and it's not in Labour's nature to clamp down on migration
The easiest way to stop it would be to impose a limit on universities accepting overseas graduates and then be prepared to let universities fail. It actually would not be that hard but the Government will not do it because (1) it is scared of the squealing from the well-paid university vice-chancellors and (2) I think many, particularly in the Treasury but also in Government, see it as a less politically toxic way to get cheap labour in and so offset the effects of Brexit.
Overseas students are a boon to the country. They bring in lots of money (to pay for their courses, obviously, but also to rent somewhere to live, to buy flash cars (often), and if they stay they go into well paid employment paying tax. The idea that having overseas students somehow stops home students attending is nonsense.
Don’t you actually work in the university sector?
If so: LOL
if not, less lol more Whatevs
I do, and I'm somewhat torn on international students. My sense, working at a lower tariff uni and knowing others who do: international students are used to make up the financial losses of government cuts and lack of inflationary considerations in funding. Many international students do come over and do not study - they are primarily here to work during their studies and overwork their visa requirements (partly to live here, as it is expensive, and partly to send money home). Most of these students do go home - the study time is 3-4 years and that's the amount of time they typically stay here to earn money (they don't tend to run off and disappear into the ether, because at that point unis would be hit hard by the Home Office). The flip side of that is those international students who do come here primarily for studies and would be boons as graduates have far too many hurdles put in front of them to stay here.
In my mind the main ways of dealing with this is a) properly fund universities and b) have tighter enforcement of employment law but lol Tories aren't going to do that, and I doubt that's what @Leon wants - the government position is essentially some unis should just go bust because we have too many of them but closing them down looks bad, whereas we can blame them if their finances implode.
I would agree that some institutions do have students playing the game. I give some lectures as a guest at Bedford on a masters course and I would estimate that half the students are there to learn and half to work. Very obvious with the engagement with the material. They also have strict systems of monitoring attendance - all students swipe in to sessions with their library card. This is something that we do not do at Bath.
We have something similar, except that just leads to one person swiping in four or five cards whilst their friends are working. I think we have a UG underattendance rate of like 60% from international students - PG is a lot better tbf.
Comments
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38041098
“BBC business correspondent Joe Lynam said that to make a £1m investment, an Eclipse partner might contribute only £20,000 of their own money and borrow the rest.
“ "The tax relief on the whole amount would have been up to £400,000, or 20 times what they had risked. Here, HMRC may seek to recover the full £400,000," he said.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/the-uk-city-owned-by-scotland-despite-being-150-miles-from-the-scottish-border/ar-BB1h5a5O?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=f419f469e24242f9ab7115217df9bad3&ei=26
I'd be interested in the views of our Scottish and Doncastrian correspondents.
The mitigating factor is that a combination of the crash in fertility rates and the shape of the demographic profile is offsetting the impact of mass immigration at the moment. This is even more pronounced in Scotland; out population has basically flatlined.
The problem is a seismic economic and population shift to already densely populated cities like Edinburgh, London, exacerbated by enormous numbers of students in those cities. It's also where all the economic migrants head to. Housing is affordable elsewhere (Middlesbrough, Greenock), it's just those places barely have an economy to provide jobs.
It's why plastering provincial England with detached housing won't work. And people understand that it's not immigration that is to blame for inner-city rents: it's the geographic inequality that means the pressure on housing and services (along with economic growth) isn't shared across the country.
The South Rim has better views, more freedom to walk around and also much cheaper. It is much further away from Vegas - but still doable in a day, and fine if you hire a car and share the driving. Can also fit in Hoover Dam on the way (also applies to the West Rim).
I've never done the helicopter trip - from what I hear, it isn't worth it.
Either way, Trumpism has won in the GOP, and that is a sure fire way for more politicians like DeSantis who have all the cruelty but none of the charisma of Trump; and are therefore unelectable outside the asylum that is Florida. The Dems, on the other hand, can double down on reflecting shifts in white sensibilities by continuing to elect stale, pale and male politicians who talk a good talk and then govern like Bush Sr. Which will be Newsom in 2028.
However the dependents thing does seem very weird and should be restricted to postgraduates, most of whom we’ll be wanting to keep anyway as they’ll be net contributors to society.
There was a scandal a few years ago, of some very dodgy educational institutions which were besically a front for immigration, I wonder if there’s something similar happening behind the scenes now, involving more regular institutions?
1) Owned by a Russian/Georgian oligarch
2) Sub-scale and doomed to failure
3) EVs were the next big thing for a few years and this was a chance to position #globalbritain at the forefront while Shappsie was calling the shots at the DoT.
‘Starmer has broken all his promises, Cons are a disaster, so it is with a heavy heart* that I will vote for AfUK today.’
*knocks several pensioners over in rush to the polling station.
The EU commissioned a study of the Korean film industry a while back, and they noted that domestic producers did better after the quota restrictions were lifted - competition evidently benefitted the industry. But it's possible that the previous support is what helped have an industry to benefit from the subsequent competition ?
Despite your EU scepticism, perhaps worth a read ?
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/84084/A-JParc-Brussels-vDec-EN-PE.pdf
..The Korean film industry provides a remarkably dynamic and successful story since the late 1990s. This paper comes to the conclusion that this success cannot be attributed to protective policies—import and screen quotas, subsidies, and tax rebates. Contrary to many existing studies, this conclusion relies on robust data and a rigorous analysis incorporating a historical long-term perspective...
The country cannot afford to absorb half a million people PLUS a year: the impact of migration on that scale is not paid by the universities, is it? They just cream the profits. It is everyone else that pays, in greater pressure on the NHS, housing, infra, and a general dissolution of social cohesion
Unis will have to get used to fewer foreign students
You could rent a plane out there with an EASA licence, or did you have to get an FAA conversion?
Oral contraceptives to be over the counter now.
Rent-a-room income now disregarded up to €14,000 in means test for a Medical Card, which gives free access to certain healthcare services. As they put it:
Meanwhile, people who rent out rooms in their house for up to €14,000 a year tax-free will not lose their medical cards, or be deemed ineligible.
And this - why more ATMs near the border? (UK is 75 per 100k people.)
In the west, 96.8pc of the population is within 10km of an ATM. The figure stands at 97.8pc in the midlands and at 99.1pc in the south-east.
Currently, there are 95 ATMs per 100,000 of the population in the Border region and 75 ATMs per 100,000 people in the midlands.
The chopper ride is THE way to see it. It is the only one that truly gives you scale and drama - to the extent you might shit yourself - all the rest are weirdly disappointing - "here's a big thing, it's a long hole in the ground, oh"
It is bloody pricey, tho. IIRC
If Trump (or Haley) lose then DeSantis looks a good bet for the GOP nomination next time agreed (and he has also by withdrawing made a pitch to be Trump's VP if he wins)
Bottom of the pile would come investigating Mrs Goggins and Postman Pat for not being good at computers. So the applicants are not going to be much good. Evidence: The entire team either failed properly to investigate the computer system or colluded in overlooking it.
And running a boiler eight hours a day ? I don't think I've ever done that and last winter was mild.
Trump 2028
Still, having flown solo over LAX and managed the landing at Van Nuys - which is described at a "GA" airfield but when I got there was like Birmingham International with parallel runways both in use and a complete mix of aircraft from single-engine lights through to passenger jets landing there - and the other trips, I still came back with some great memories, and a few photos taken while flying the plane one-handed.
It is intensely charming
https://movetocambodia.com/phnom-penh/bar-hopping-phnom-penhs-bassac-quarter/
Speaking as a small LL who has always kept well ahead of this (renovating to a C or D for for than a decade), I have just no idea where things are now - with the Govt leaving policies which have by their nature to be long term just flapping about in the political wind.
https://x.com/alexwickham/status/1749704261536026748
Perhaps there's a parallel with the Post Office Horizon scandal. People lose the ability to think and defer to the computer.
It seems odd that you call for him to “stand on the bully pulpit” to fight for abortion rights, while criticising him for… well, doing exactly that. This is him campaigning for abortion rights.
I don't know what the thing about federal sites is supposed to be but your idea that Biden could have got a different result using the "bully pulpit" is total fantasy. The House passed a bill codifying Roe vs Wade, the Senate didn't. He needed 60 votes, he only had 50. Alternatively he needed to get rid of the filibuster which would need 50 votes, and there was no way Joe Manchin (representing a Trump +35% state) was going to vote for that. It doesn't matter how much he screams: You cannot attract GOP senators by screaming. They need 50 senators who will vote to get rid of the filibuster to pass the abortion law, and that genuinely is in the hands of the voters.
It was harder for Obama than you make out: He had 60 votes very, very briefly, it relied on a senator who was really sick, and several of them were anti-abortion so they wouldn't have voted for codifying Roe v Wade. He had more senators, but more of them were conservatives who were against abolishing the filibuster. He used that tiny window to pass ObamaCare, which made a huge difference to millions of people who couldn't get medical insurance. If he'd spent the time on abortion instead he'd have passed no ObamaCare, and also nothing on abortion.
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/plane-crash-in-oceanside-2/2095290/
My recollection is that subsequent investigation found that the pilot, who was a newbie, panicked when he saw that his fuel guage was on zero, and ended up crashing while looking for a safe place to land (possibly on the adjacent road). It turned out the guage was faulty and he had more than enough fuel.
BRITONS
Will YOU give AfUK
your vote?
I am not joking.
Biden could, for example, say that all federal medical facilities in any state will be open to the public to have safe abortions. He has not done that. He has not organised the Dems to pass a bill to legislate the protections of Roe v Wade and then forced the GOP into discussing their position (which is to pass a federal ban on abortion) which is hugely unpopular. The Dems are complacent. Tweeting is not a political campaign, it is gesture politics. The day, the day, the leak came out the Dems should have had a game plan on what they should do next (the GOP had already done that with multiple states having laws on the books that came into effect if / when Roe was overturned). Instead you had Dem leadership shrugging and saying "who could have seen this coming". And they have done basically nothing since as red states restrict abortion access further and further, going so far in some states as to threaten the ability for their citizens to do inter-state travel (by passing laws that criminalise going to another state to get an abortion). Women are being prosecuted for miscarriages.
Again - when the GOP don't have a majority in Congress, they play hard ball. Dems negotiate down within their own caucus even before going to the GOP (see the ACA where Obama negotiated with Dems to take out the public option, then negotiated with the GOP to take out other provisions, and still not a single GOP pol voted for it - yet what passed still had all their negotiated changes in it).
There is an extensive monitoring system imposed on universities to ensure education visas are being followed correctly. We have lots of education visas being given out because it has been government policy to increase numbers.
Voters generally say they’re fine with overseas students. Voters will not be happy with the higher fees for themselves or their kids that will result if universities can’t recruit as many overseas students.
For some reason the Grand Canyon scared me more - probably the bumps from the thermals - but in terms of sheer danger that flight in the Himalayas was surely way worse
Gives me shivers thinking about it now. Only cost about £20
I read a bit of their policy page the other day to see if they were in favour of PR. They use the word reform as a verb (I think) ie
“Our public services are paid for and valued by us all. The faster our economy grows by having lower, simpler taxes, the more money there is to invest in public services. With reform, they can work better, faster, and more efficiently.”
and it seems quite natural
https://www.reformparty.uk/reformisessential
If I were Haley I'd definitely carry on for a little bit now it's a 2 horse race.
Roe v Wade was always vulnerable as the SCOTUS took ambitious legal jumps to find arguments to decide as they so did - because in effect, the Court wasn't handing down a legal judgement but was acting as a pseudo-legislature. Going back to basics - the constitution - was always likely to overturn that. It didn't need zealous right-wing evangelists to do so; just people deciding on the basis of the texts.
We are seeing big increases in overseas student numbers across the sector. Two of the top 5 universities by % increase are Russell Group.
I disagree with your position on Trump - he won on the wall, it exists (and did before he became POTUS) - it's just that complaining about hoards of immigrants is always a good talking point for a right wing demagogue. Sure, they didn't fully repeal the ACA, but that's in part because they didn't have anything to replace it with that would stabilise the health insurance economy. They did, on the other hand, start not enforcing large swathes of it and stopped taking states to court who were not enforcing their parts of it. As for Medicare - Trump ran specifically on not touching Medicare (which is part of why he was more popular than the average GOP politician). But, again, what the GOP can't win in one final victory they are winning via death of a thousand cuts.
Dems do not take the fight to the GOP; the GOP are always setting the terms of the fight and taking it to the Dems. That is the issue.
Looks like we wont all be having electric cars
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/23/ftse-100-markets-news-latest-government-debt-jeremy-hunt/
The bar lady's figure was quite specific, and I had no reason to doubt her. This was the onset of winter 2022-2023, when prices had just started to rise. Quite possibly she was unaware of the rise and was caught unawares with her first bill on the new rates. Who knows. All I know is that was her heating bill for the month, and yes, I'll have another two stellas, please.
It's an anecdote that rings absolutely true based on how much it costs to run my boiler / heat my flat to an acceptable level.
I wonder why you're so hell bent on arguing this with me?
I’ve not seen anything suggesting that dependents don’t also return with the student. If they come with the student and return with the student, what’s the problem?
One Russell group uni announced last week that the required grades for a course is AAA but for overseas students BBB is acceptable because they need every penny they can get.
Oh and if enough overseas students appear next year’s grades could be AAA* for UK students
They mostly follow a pattern - school leavers at sixteen with minimal qualification, working as a counter clerk for a number of years before being offered a more lucrative and interesting position as an 'investigator', no special aptitude needed other than to fill in proformas and toe the company line, little training undertaken, little curiosity an asset.
The work was not of course investigation in any meaningful sense of the word, it was at best factfinding, but only such facts that supported the PO's presumption that the SPMs were guilty. A more appropriate term for the so-called investigators would have been inquisitors, and they certainly bore some similarities to the famous Spanish mob that used that title. They had no interest in finding out what was really going on. All they wanted was convictions and they were not at all fussy how they got them,
The PO was running an extortion racket, and the 'investigators' were their thugs doing the day to day harrassment.
If so: LOL
if not, less lol more Whatevs
We drove from LV to I think Grand Canyon Village, detoured via Route 66 and over the Hoover Dam, visiting the enormous generators now closed to visitors. It took about 4 hours I think.
Our helicopter pilot was a young New Zealander who announced that we were his first passengers since he qualified. We were supplied with earphones which blasted out the theme from Apocalypse Now and we were off - at great speed about 30 feet off the ground towards the canyon. Suddenly we appeared to stop in mid air as we went over the edge of the canyon and peered a mile down to the bottom.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/68065785
In my mind the main ways of dealing with this is a) properly fund universities and b) have tighter enforcement of employment law but lol Tories aren't going to do that, and I doubt that's what @Leon wants - the government position is essentially some unis should just go bust because we have too many of them but closing them down looks bad, whereas we can blame them if their finances implode.
Yes that’s pretty much exactly what happened to us, except our pilot was a veteran who admitted he was nursing “a god awful hangover” and kept yawning and closing his eyes
And he did precisely that over the edge. Fuck
The President can't overrule the Supreme Court.
Democrats are getting abortion referenda on states ballots, that will drive turnout and help them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/08/us/politics/abortion-ballot-state-referendums.html
There have been numerous state legislature and gubernatorial votes where Dems have campaigned hard on abortion rights and won, like the Kentucky governor win in 2023 and elections in Virginia.
The Biden administration continues to take action, like https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/biden-pushes-new-emergency-abortion-effort-amid-legal-hurdles from literally yesterday.
The idea around federal medical facilities has significant problems associated with it, which is why the Biden administration hasn’t done it: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/28/politics/white-house-federal-lands-abortion/index.html
And I know other places do it but they are careful enough to keep it quiet
I believe in safeguards to prevent the violation of certain fundamentals, regardless of what voters think, these mechanisms to operate within a nation state (courts and constitution) and at a level above it (international and regional bodies). Whilst the latter often isn't feasible in practice I think it should always be the direction of travel.
Not to make this about Brexit (since it isn't) but this was one of my (many) reasons for voting against that ill-starred project. Wrong direction of travel.