Like a lot of issues, if it became the number one focus and goal you could solve it quickly. All councils will have teams working on this, but sadly there are too many people prepared to fly-tip to make a quick buck. Ultimately the people who use these people are part of the issue. Paying in cash? Should be suspect.
Well quite. Someone knocks the door and offers to take rubbish away for a few quid. Got to be bogus. Still a neighbour fell for it.
While I'm here, let me just say that CCS (carbon capture and storage) is stupid and CDR (carbon dioxide removal) is colossally stupid. I hope that helps.
I believe GGR (Greenhouse Gas Removal) is the approved term for DACCS, BECCS, etc.
I prefer reforestation. Self-replicating direct air capture devices, with a volunteer workforce (squirrels and jays) lending a hand.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
Even I don't think we should have zero immigration - that's unworkable for lots of reasons.
However, the country is fundamentally full. We're building houses at an astonishing pace, the infrastructure is creaking at the seams, and we're not even keeping up with the growth in demand driven by immigration alone. We already have too many people for the country to remain a pleasant place to live, so we should stop adding more.
The fix? We should have an net zero immigration rule - for simplicity we permit in as a maximum, the number of people who left the year before. The best part of half a million people left last year, so it's not like we won't have many spaces available.
We then prioritise for visas relatives/partners of British citizens, probably once they've been British citizens for a minimum qualifying period (say 15 years) to make it really difficult to game the system by immigrating, aquiring citizenship and then importing your extended family.
And then we should auction the remaining visas to the highest bidder, with a substantial price floor (£50k?). If your business really needs someone high value to come from abroad, you'll pay. But it won't be worth it to import Deliveroo Drivers.
Oh and the students, before people raise that boggieman. Take them out of the system, and the numbers, but three conditions. 1) No dependants 2) The cannot work or access social security 3) There is no route for them to remain once their course is finished other than bidding for visas like everyone else.
None of this is hard to do. Yes, there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from those whose business model is run on cheap imported labour, or who expect a McDonald's delivered in 5 mins at and time of the day or night - but tough. We're currently running an immigration ponzi scheme. It always hurts to drop out of one, but the longer you stay in, the worse the pain when it finally ends.
The number of people in the country depends on multiple factors: immigration, emigration, birth rate, death rate. If the real problem is that we're "creaking at the seams" (and it isn't), then having a policy that tackles immigration but ignores births and deaths doesn't make sense. Why not discourage births? Or, why not encourage emigration?
But the bigger issue is that we're not creaking at the seams. That's just a story that those opposed to immigration have propagated. Plenty of countries have higher population densities and work fine. We are not remotely building houses "at an astonishing pace". That's laughable. We're building way fewer than at many points in the past.
We should be building more houses. We should be investing in infrastructure. Those are real problems. Fix those. Stop blaming immigration.
So it turns out Bezos claiming to have principles - freedom, the free market, free speech - was a load of bollocks, and history will remember him as a lying hypocritical greedy unprincipled coward.
OK no surprise, I guess. But actually why does he want to be remembered as such a pathetic loser?
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
The key factor is that we need to have a controlled immigration system rather than an uncontrolled shambles.
Let's say we had a system where each year we issue 100,000 economic visas to the sectors most in need of workers using a points-based system AND we issue 10,000 asylum visas focusing on families in refugee camps who are most in need AND x'000 student visas AND 1,000 golden visas for wealthy entrepreneurs. And let's say we can deport anyone who commits a serious crime or overstays, while we give people the chance to apply for citizenship if they work hard and contribute. I think most reasonable people wouldn't have a problem with that.
The issue is we have uncontrolled migration using small boats, consisting of young men who are claiming asylum but are not the most in need, but who would also be unlikely to qualify using a points-based system. Stop the boats and a lot of the anxiety around immigration would diminish.
When "controlled immigration" is running at a million in the Boriswave, the odd few thousand in small boats are just a rounding error.
It's tens of thousands but thinking it is all a numbers game is very foolish. They are overwhelmingly young men from very different cultures to ours who have paid people smugglers to get here. Exactly the sort of migration that worries people the most.
What, like this Roadman wannabe in posh Windsor. Made me laugh TBH.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
Even I don't think we should have zero immigration - that's unworkable for lots of reasons.
However, the country is fundamentally full. We're building houses at an astonishing pace, the infrastructure is creaking at the seams, and we're not even keeping up with the growth in demand driven by immigration alone. We already have too many people for the country to remain a pleasant place to live, so we should stop adding more.
The fix? We should have an net zero immigration rule - for simplicity we permit in as a maximum, the number of people who left the year before. The best part of half a million people left last year, so it's not like we won't have many spaces available.
We then prioritise for visas relatives/partners of British citizens, probably once they've been British citizens for a minimum qualifying period (say 15 years) to make it really difficult to game the system by immigrating, aquiring citizenship and then importing your extended family.
And then we should auction the remaining visas to the highest bidder, with a substantial price floor (£50k?). If your business really needs someone high value to come from abroad, you'll pay. But it won't be worth it to import Deliveroo Drivers.
Oh and the students, before people raise that boggieman. Take them out of the system, and the numbers, but three conditions. 1) No dependants 2) The cannot work or access social security 3) There is no route for them to remain once their course is finished other than bidding for visas like everyone else.
None of this is hard to do. Yes, there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from those whose business model is run on cheap imported labour, or who expect a McDonald's delivered in 5 mins at and time of the day or night - but tough. We're currently running an immigration ponzi scheme. It always hurts to drop out of one, but the longer you stay in, the worse the pain when it finally ends.
The number of people in the country depends on multiple factors: immigration, emigration, birth rate, death rate. If the real problem is that we're "creaking at the seams" (and it isn't), then having a policy that tackles immigration but ignores births and deaths doesn't make sense. Why not discourage births? Or, why not encourage emigration?
But the bigger issue is that we're not creaking at the seams. That's just a story that those opposed to immigration have propagated. Plenty of countries have higher population densities and work fine. We are not remotely building houses "at an astonishing pace". That's laughable. We're building way fewer than at many points in the past.
We should be building more houses. We should be investing in infrastructure. Those are real problems. Fix those. Stop blaming immigration.
It's legitimate for people to oppose immigration regardless of whether it is or isn't causing some particular economic problem. If you don't accept this then you are not a democrat.
Peter Navarro on CNBC reacts to the shrinking GDP number by insisting it's actually good news because if you strip out the effect of tariffs "you have 3 percent growth. So we really like where we're at now."
Reminds me of when I worked. Our GM would say. ‘We’ve had a great year. Had we not lost these orders from company ‘X’ we’d actually have grown 5%.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
The key factor is that we need to have a controlled immigration system rather than an uncontrolled shambles.
Let's say we had a system where each year we issue 100,000 economic visas to the sectors most in need of workers using a points-based system AND we issue 10,000 asylum visas focusing on families in refugee camps who are most in need AND x'000 student visas AND 1,000 golden visas for wealthy entrepreneurs. And let's say we can deport anyone who commits a serious crime or overstays, while we give people the chance to apply for citizenship if they work hard and contribute. I think most reasonable people wouldn't have a problem with that.
The issue is we have uncontrolled migration using small boats, consisting of young men who are claiming asylum but are not the most in need, but who would also be unlikely to qualify using a points-based system. Stop the boats and a lot of the anxiety around immigration would diminish.
The numbers coming over on small boats are small compared to total immigration. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06077/SN06077.pdf says "Altogether this suggests that around 10% of immigration was accounted for by asylum seekers and refugees (around 133,000 individuals in total). This is using the ONS’s revised estimate of long-term immigration to the UK in 2023, which was 1,316,000 people." Note that 10% is people coming over on small boats and other refugees, so roughly half of that number are from Ukraine.
Asylum seekers and immigration are, thus, almost completely different questions in practice. If your concern is total immigration, then asylum seekers are a rounding error.
"let's say we can deport anyone who commits a serious crime or overstays": We can deport anyone who overstays, unless they apply for some other category that allows them to stay. So, a visa overstayer could be caught and then apply for asylum, but that's rare, I believe. If you can claim asylum, you want to do so as soon as possible. We're not very good at finding visa overstayers and you can't deport someone you can't find. We can deport most people on visas who commit a serious crime, although in a minority of cases, we don't deport people to war zones/totalitarian regimes.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
I think this is true to an extent, but it depends on where you live and which immigrants. Why has there been little outcry about the number of Ukranians? Partly because of the war, partly because 'they look like us" and have a similar culture. If Ukranians were Muslim and followed very restrictive forms of female dress, for instance, then there would be more reaction. Most people are nice, kind, friendly. Most people just want to get on with their lives. But it ought to be undeniable that adding 1 to 2 million people to a country without increasing the housing supply will make it harder to buy and rent a house. And yes much of the health service is depending on immigrants, but it is also true that adding 1-2 million more people will also increase the demand on the health service.
We must always beware of the simplistic answer. Thats what the Nazis did in in Germany and we all know how that ended up. Immigration isn't the root of all our problems any more than membership/non-membership of the EU is. But its equally childish not to question whether we have the balance right and whether we should do more on housing, jobs, the NHS and integration.
Adding 1-2 million people to the UK will have a small effect on the housing situation. The main effects on the housing situation are about property prices being too high, economic inequality between different parts of the country, problems with planning, and changes in household structures (more people living alone).
Adding 1-2 million people to the UK will have a small effect on demand in the NHS, but the bigger problems are around the age profile of the country, underfunding of public health and mental health, COVID-19, and how we fund social care.
Yes, of course a country should have a considered policy around immigration, but the idea of immigration as the root cause of many things is scapegoating and distracts us from actually dealing with the big problems.
You start from the conclusion that immigration isn't an issue, and never should be, and simply work back from that.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
Even I don't think we should have zero immigration - that's unworkable for lots of reasons.
However, the country is fundamentally full. We're building houses at an astonishing pace, the infrastructure is creaking at the seams, and we're not even keeping up with the growth in demand driven by immigration alone. We already have too many people for the country to remain a pleasant place to live, so we should stop adding more.
The fix? We should have an net zero immigration rule - for simplicity we permit in as a maximum, the number of people who left the year before. The best part of half a million people left last year, so it's not like we won't have many spaces available.
We then prioritise for visas relatives/partners of British citizens, probably once they've been British citizens for a minimum qualifying period (say 15 years) to make it really difficult to game the system by immigrating, aquiring citizenship and then importing your extended family.
And then we should auction the remaining visas to the highest bidder, with a substantial price floor (£50k?). If your business really needs someone high value to come from abroad, you'll pay. But it won't be worth it to import Deliveroo Drivers.
Oh and the students, before people raise that boggieman. Take them out of the system, and the numbers, but three conditions. 1) No dependants 2) The cannot work or access social security 3) There is no route for them to remain once their course is finished other than bidding for visas like everyone else.
None of this is hard to do. Yes, there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from those whose business model is run on cheap imported labour, or who expect a McDonald's delivered in 5 mins at and time of the day or night - but tough. We're currently running an immigration ponzi scheme. It always hurts to drop out of one, but the longer you stay in, the worse the pain when it finally ends.
The number of people in the country depends on multiple factors: immigration, emigration, birth rate, death rate. If the real problem is that we're "creaking at the seams" (and it isn't), then having a policy that tackles immigration but ignores births and deaths doesn't make sense. Why not discourage births? Or, why not encourage emigration?
But the bigger issue is that we're not creaking at the seams. That's just a story that those opposed to immigration have propagated. Plenty of countries have higher population densities and work fine. We are not remotely building houses "at an astonishing pace". That's laughable. We're building way fewer than at many points in the past.
We should be building more houses. We should be investing in infrastructure. Those are real problems. Fix those. Stop blaming immigration.
It's legitimate for people to oppose immigration regardless of whether it is or isn't causing some particular economic problem. If you don't accept this then you are not a democrat.
It's a fascinating insight into his mindset though, and many established apparatiks.
US economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualised rate of 0.3 percent, after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty undermines spending/investment and raises fears of impending recession.
Come on, you know that looking at 1 day's change doesn't tell us much. And is quickly out of date!
Looking now, the Dow is down 1.6% today, down 5.0% over the last month, and down 5.9% since the beginning of the year. Trump is an economic disaster. The $ is also down 8.3% since the beginning of the year.
Quite. My point exactly. Scott is looking at a 1 day change. He’s also claiming a brutal day in the market when it hadn’t even opened. There will come a time soon enough when markets do not fall on bad news.
Plenty of people saying the S&P was overvalued prior to Trumps idiocy by conventional measures like the Schiller PE index. Jeremy Grantham was calling a 40% pullback in January.
So it turns out Bezos claiming to have principles - freedom, the free market, free speech - was a load of bollocks, and history will remember him as a lying hypocritical greedy unprincipled coward.
OK no surprise, I guess. But actually why does he want to be remembered as such a pathetic loser?
I’m sure he’s devastated by your withering condemnation
So it turns out Bezos claiming to have principles - freedom, the free market, free speech - was a load of bollocks, and history will remember him as a lying hypocritical greedy unprincipled coward.
OK no surprise, I guess. But actually why does he want to be remembered as such a pathetic loser?
I’m sure he’s devastated by your withering condemnation
But no doubt comforted by your hilarious sarcasm so you don't need to worry about him.
While I'm here, let me just say that CCS (carbon capture and storage) is stupid and CDR (carbon dioxide removal) is colossally stupid. I hope that helps.
We have research on carbon dioxide use - can you find a way to use CO2? Far better than CCS, CCU if its possible.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
The key factor is that we need to have a controlled immigration system rather than an uncontrolled shambles.
Let's say we had a system where each year we issue 100,000 economic visas to the sectors most in need of workers using a points-based system AND we issue 10,000 asylum visas focusing on families in refugee camps who are most in need AND x'000 student visas AND 1,000 golden visas for wealthy entrepreneurs. And let's say we can deport anyone who commits a serious crime or overstays, while we give people the chance to apply for citizenship if they work hard and contribute. I think most reasonable people wouldn't have a problem with that.
The issue is we have uncontrolled migration using small boats, consisting of young men who are claiming asylum but are not the most in need, but who would also be unlikely to qualify using a points-based system. Stop the boats and a lot of the anxiety around immigration would diminish.
When "controlled immigration" is running at a million in the Boriswave, the odd few thousand in small boats are just a rounding error.
It's tens of thousands but thinking it is all a numbers game is very foolish. They are overwhelmingly young men from very different cultures to ours who have paid people smugglers to get here. Exactly the sort of migration that worries people the most.
It worries people the most because right-wing media talk and the last government talked about it a lot. If they'd talked as much about the risk of deaths from equestrian events, that would be what worries people the most. If they'd talked as much about multinational companies using accounting tricks to avoid paying tax in the UK, that would be what worries people the most. If they'd talked as much about social media companies' algorithms radicalising users, that would be what worries people the most.
There's a loop where people say we need to worry about immigration because people are worried about immigration, but where we began this discussion was noting that people don't actually object to most immigration when they think about the details. We also know people are hugely ill-informed about immigration, believing it is higher than it is, believing asylum seekers cost more than they do. A more informed public aren't going to be half as worried.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
I think this is true to an extent, but it depends on where you live and which immigrants. Why has there been little outcry about the number of Ukranians? Partly because of the war, partly because 'they look like us" and have a similar culture. If Ukranians were Muslim and followed very restrictive forms of female dress, for instance, then there would be more reaction. Most people are nice, kind, friendly. Most people just want to get on with their lives. But it ought to be undeniable that adding 1 to 2 million people to a country without increasing the housing supply will make it harder to buy and rent a house. And yes much of the health service is depending on immigrants, but it is also true that adding 1-2 million more people will also increase the demand on the health service.
We must always beware of the simplistic answer. Thats what the Nazis did in in Germany and we all know how that ended up. Immigration isn't the root of all our problems any more than membership/non-membership of the EU is. But its equally childish not to question whether we have the balance right and whether we should do more on housing, jobs, the NHS and integration.
Adding 1-2 million people to the UK will have a small effect on the housing situation. The main effects on the housing situation are about property prices being too high, economic inequality between different parts of the country, problems with planning, and changes in household structures (more people living alone).
Adding 1-2 million people to the UK will have a small effect on demand in the NHS, but the bigger problems are around the age profile of the country, underfunding of public health and mental health, COVID-19, and how we fund social care.
Yes, of course a country should have a considered policy around immigration, but the idea of immigration as the root cause of many things is scapegoating and distracts us from actually dealing with the big problems.
You start from the conclusion that immigration isn't an issue, and never should be, and simply work back from that.
Apart from "The Wealth of Nations" has there ever been a critique of economics which doesn't work from the desired ends to produce the means. And surely Keynes was the very worst.
Comments
I prefer reforestation. Self-replicating direct air capture devices, with a volunteer workforce (squirrels and jays) lending a hand.
https://x.com/bbcdebatenight/status/1917583469808607287
But the bigger issue is that we're not creaking at the seams. That's just a story that those opposed to immigration have propagated. Plenty of countries have higher population densities and work fine. We are not remotely building houses "at an astonishing pace". That's laughable. We're building way fewer than at many points in the past.
We should be building more houses. We should be investing in infrastructure. Those are real problems. Fix those. Stop blaming immigration.
NEW THREAD
They do seem to have credited me for a win with an anonymous bet for £60, though.
No idea where that came from.
OK no surprise, I guess. But actually why does he want to be remembered as such a pathetic loser?
https://x.com/patrickchristys/status/1917358092729176507?s=61
He was a dick too.
Asylum seekers and immigration are, thus, almost completely different questions in practice. If your concern is total immigration, then asylum seekers are a rounding error.
"let's say we can deport anyone who commits a serious crime or overstays": We can deport anyone who overstays, unless they apply for some other category that allows them to stay. So, a visa overstayer could be caught and then apply for asylum, but that's rare, I believe. If you can claim asylum, you want to do so as soon as possible. We're not very good at finding visa overstayers and you can't deport someone you can't find. We can deport most people on visas who commit a serious crime, although in a minority of cases, we don't deport people to war zones/totalitarian regimes.
New Thread
Where all the cool kids are.Plenty of people saying the S&P was overvalued prior to Trumps idiocy by conventional measures like the Schiller PE index. Jeremy Grantham was calling a 40% pullback in January.
Over a year it’s up
Over 5 years it’s up.
There's a loop where people say we need to worry about immigration because people are worried about immigration, but where we began this discussion was noting that people don't actually object to most immigration when they think about the details. We also know people are hugely ill-informed about immigration, believing it is higher than it is, believing asylum seekers cost more than they do. A more informed public aren't going to be half as worried.