Zia Yusuf confirms Reform UK will look to use injunctions, judicial reviews and planning laws to block housing asylum seekers in hotels in areas they govern https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1918943321445007690
Sounds expensive.
Aside from the expense where do they expect the asylum seekers to be moved to ?
They would probably be better off buying the relevant hotels and then demolishing them.
It is all about making a scene and then claiming the blob stopped them. That's why i wouldn't be surprised if they pull the bus them to Ed Miliband seat as a stunt. There will be outrage and headlines and legal proceedings, but i don't think they will care.
How are they going to get them on the bus ?
Illegal immigrants in Texas border towns had an incentive to get flown to New York.
Council workers are lazy and inefficient. They’ll go to court over migrants in their council area and the press will lap it up . They can gain more media attention than they already have by these publicity stunts . Even if their councils crash and burn the real audience is the wider electorate .
Then we have the “ youth of today are un-patriotic “ and need re-education which the blue rinse brigade will lap up .
A lot of the youth of today are supporting Reform.
Demographically, Reform are much more representative of modern multiracial Britain than the Lib Dems.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It is complete madness. The fact that both major parties allowed this to happen has somehow led to their supporters thinking it is normal/defensible. No one I know in real life thinks it is anything other than utter lunacy
If they were all given brand new cars to drive around in, would they be considered second hand once they've turned on the ignition?
“You don’t understand. Yes we give a new Porsche to every asylum seeker, which you pay for, but within a week the depreciation is incredible. Doesn’t that make it better?”
Question for the PB community in light of Reform's flagship policy of banning free biscuits.
Has anyone ever worked in an organisation providing free biscuits?
Not in teaching, no free anything really, until I got a job in a private school.
In the various public sector jobs I've had they usually provide biscuits if they're doing an outreach event involving the public. They usually order too many so technically yes the staff enjoy free biscuits for a lot of the year.
So for the last 2 years I've had a digital subscription to the Telegraph cost £29.99 a year.
They've just upped the price to £199.99 so that's being cancelled on Tuesday morning especially as I have to ring up to cancel.
Its all part of the stupid marketing ploy all these media companies are using. They will offer you the same again or even cheaper. Last time I renewed my Athletic subscription they practically gave it away for free.
Its like the online e-commerce businesses, looking at you THG, the price is never the price. They just want you to sign up for everything to get the daily spam email in which there is the 99% off coupon.
I am not sure how much Labour have taken on board the rise of Reform, but as of now large parts of England will have councillors dedicated to stopping the boats and housing migrants in hotels, DOGE style cost cutting and ending DEI, firmly anti net zero with opposition to solar farms and pylons and in Tice words 'every means possible will be used to prevent these developments'
Apparently Andrea Jenkyns has said that in Lincolnshire migrants will not be housed in hotels but tents !!!
Politics has just become extremely divisive
Good morning Big G. The fascinating thing will be how Reform manage expectations. DEI is one of those things where practically everyone has been tales of diversity officers taking a fortune at councils and in the NHS etc etc. in reality it’s mostly fiction. Dame Andrea Finger pledged to sack the DEI officers at her council. And there aren't any.
As for DOGE, I have no principled objection to cutting waste. I’m an advocate for wholesale reconstruction of services because we’re spending money in the wrong way. But - and it’s a very big but. DOGE appears to have save $0. Actual savings a fraction of what was claimed, the immediate cost of making those savings is the same dollar value as what was cut, and the down the line costs remain unknown but likely a lot.
This is the problem with crayon politics. It’s easy when it’s slogans. Less easy when it’s policy.
The real reason for DOGE was to make life hell for bureacrats, so that many as possible of the "deep state" would quit their jobs.
There is a quote from Russ Vought, the OMB Chief, saying that : “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains ... We want to put them in trauma.”
Council workers are lazy and inefficient. They’ll go to court over migrants in their council area and the press will lap it up . They can gain more media attention than they already have by these publicity stunts . Even if their councils crash and burn the real audience is the wider electorate .
Then we have the “ youth of today are un-patriotic “ and need re-education which the blue rinse brigade will lap up .
A lot of the youth of today are supporting Reform.
Demographically, Reform are much more representative of modern multiracial Britain than the Lib Dems.
The architects of multiculturalism, Lord Lester & Roy Jenkins, admitted 40 years ago that they hadn’t properly thought it through, and didn’t realise it would lead to sectarianism. Yet their disciples cling on to the original sin
So for the last 2 years I've had a digital subscription to the Telegraph cost £29.99 a year.
They've just upped the price to £199.99 so that's being cancelled on Tuesday morning especially as I have to ring up to cancel.
They will offer you the £29 again, or at least they did to me a couple of weeks ago.
It's the having to ring up in working hours that annoys me most - the law should be you can cancel the way the item was purchased.
That is something really easy (and free) the government could legislate for and it would be really popular.
Having a pop at the Live Nation / Ticketmaster monopoly is another...I have just been quoted $500 per ticket for an concert in the US for an artist that isn't even Taylor Swift or whatever, just because Live Nation can. Its starting to happen here now as well.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It's the same with 'two tier' being a dog whistle. When the sentencing council has literally attempted to enshrine two tier sentencing in legal guidance and police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against. This stuff is written down - it is actively publicised. That's not a dog whistle, or a 'political correctness gone mad' punchline from a right-on comedian - IT IS HAPPENING NOW.
So one of the Reform proposals (note not mentoned in Kent) is that asylum seekers shouldn't be placed outside the area where they arrived.
so given that they have control of Kent how are they in Kent going to manage their newly implemented rule that all asylum seekers arriving in Kent should remain there.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It's the same with 'two tier' being a dog whistle. When the sentencing council has literally attempted to enshrine two tier sentencing in legal guidance and police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against. This stuff is written down - it is actively publicised. That's not a dog whistle, or a 'political correctness gone mad' punchline from a right-on comedian - IT IS HAPPENING NOW.
Yep. And thus Nigel Farage, PM. And quite possibly something much harder, thereafter
Zia Yusuf confirms Reform UK will look to use injunctions, judicial reviews and planning laws to block housing asylum seekers in hotels in areas they govern https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1918943321445007690
Sounds expensive.
Aside from the expense where do they expect the asylum seekers to be moved to ?
They would probably be better off buying the relevant hotels and then demolishing them.
It is all about making a scene and then claiming the blob stopped them. That's why i wouldn't be surprised if they pull the bus them to Ed Miliband seat as a stunt. There will be outrage and headlines and legal proceedings, but i don't think they will care.
How are they going to get them on the bus ?
Illegal immigrants in Texas border towns had an incentive to get flown to New York.
I was half joking. But if they have been moved to "up nuuuurfff" along the North sea and you come from Africa its bloody cold for people from the UK let along Africa, and somebody promises you a bus ride to London....and perhaps they have a relation already living in London (it is why many make the crossing as they know somebody already here).
There's a lot of 'if' and 'perhaps' doing a lot of work in your idea.
There's also a problem that any council encouraging asylum seekers to disappear into the community might find itself in various legal difficulties.
So for the last 2 years I've had a digital subscription to the Telegraph cost £29.99 a year.
They've just upped the price to £199.99 so that's being cancelled on Tuesday morning especially as I have to ring up to cancel.
They will offer you the £29 again, or at least they did to me a couple of weeks ago.
It's the having to ring up in working hours that annoys me most - the law should be you can cancel the way the item was purchased.
I agree with you and feel the same, but also find it quite weird how actually talking to a human about buying or cancelling a service now feels a big hassle.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
I am not sure how much Labour have taken on board the rise of Reform, but as of now large parts of England will have councillors dedicated to stopping the boats and housing migrants in hotels, DOGE style cost cutting and ending DEI, firmly anti net zero with opposition to solar farms and pylons and in Tice words 'every means possible will be used to prevent these developments'
Apparently Andrea Jenkyns has said that in Lincolnshire migrants will not be housed in hotels but tents !!!
Politics has just become extremely divisive
Good morning Big G. The fascinating thing will be how Reform manage expectations. DEI is one of those things where practically everyone has been tales of diversity officers taking a fortune at councils and in the NHS etc etc. in reality it’s mostly fiction. Dame Andrea Finger pledged to sack the DEI officers at her council. And there aren't any.
As for DOGE, I have no principled objection to cutting waste. I’m an advocate for wholesale reconstruction of services because we’re spending money in the wrong way. But - and it’s a very big but. DOGE appears to have save $0. Actual savings a fraction of what was claimed, the immediate cost of making those savings is the same dollar value as what was cut, and the down the line costs remain unknown but likely a lot.
This is the problem with crayon politics. It’s easy when it’s slogans. Less easy when it’s policy.
The real reason for DOGE was to make life hell for bureacrats, so that many as possible of the "deep state" would quit their jobs.
There is a quote from Russ Vought, the OMB Chief, saying that : “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains ... We want to put them in trauma.”
One of the depressing lessons from recent elections in various countries is that people really want their politicians to be arseholes, so long as they are being arseholes to types of people they don’t like.
So one of the Reform proposals (note not mentoned in Kent) is that asylum seekers shouldn't be placed outside the area where they arrived.
so given that they have control of Kent how are they in Kent going to manage their newly implemented rule that all asylum seekers arriving in Kent should remain there.
"My mind is made up, do not confuse me with facts!"
Zia Yusuf confirms Reform UK will look to use injunctions, judicial reviews and planning laws to block housing asylum seekers in hotels in areas they govern https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1918943321445007690
Sounds expensive.
That's a "throw 58 things at it and see what sticks" strategy.
He's got several objectives:
1 - Media: Keep the asylum issue (and Reform talking points) at the front of the news. 2 - Create narratives around Keir Starmer as "soft on asylum seekers". 3 - Keep his supporters engaged and wanting more.
In terms of practicalities:
1 - Expensive. 2 - Tactics borrowed from both Trump and the likes of Greenpeace opposing development. Delay delay delay and make it expensive for the Govt to do. 3 - Judicial Reviews will struggle, as there are objective tests around starting the process. 4 - They will try things around Change of Use, maybe Article 4 Directions (eg ban HMOs from a postcode without PP, then refuse to give PP - as used on Student Houses.) That will force decisions to be Planning Inspectorate or call-in by the Minister, which feeds narrative 2 and feeds "we are the resistance" - Nimby tactics. 5 - "Injunctions" looks speculative. They also have objective tests. 6 - They will also be looking at things like PSPOs and "Anti-Social Behaviour". PSPOs are very easy to manipulate by a Council majority who have a target in mind. And also certain aspects of rental law.
Zia Yusuf confirms Reform UK will look to use injunctions, judicial reviews and planning laws to block housing asylum seekers in hotels in areas they govern https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1918943321445007690
Sounds expensive.
That's a "throw 58 things at it and see what sticks" strategy.
He's got several objectives:
1 - Media: Keep the asylum issue (and Reform talking points) at the front of the news. 2 - Create narratives around Keir Starmer as "soft on asylum seekers". 3 - Keep his supporters engaged and wanting more.
In terms of practicalities:
1 - Expensive. 2 - Tactics borrowed from both Trump and the likes of Greenpeace opposing development. Delay delay delay and make it expensive for the Govt to do. 3 - Judicial Reviews will struggle, as there are objective tests around starting the process. 4 - They will try things around Change of Use, maybe Article 4 Directions (eg ban HMOs from a postcode without PP, then refuse to give PP - as used on Student Houses.) That will force decisions to be Planning Inspectorate or call-in by the Minister, which feeds narrative 2 and feeds "we are the resistance" - Nimby tactics. 5 - "Injunctions" looks speculative. They also have objective tests. 6 - They will also be looking at things like PSPOs and "Anti-Social Behaviour". PSPOs are very easy to manipulate by a Council majority who have a target in mind. And also certain aspects of rental law.
Their main policy for councils seems to be to get "The Auditors" in asap. Do they know what auditors charge, and what they do?
Surely if there is so much waste, the Refukkers have a long list of things they want to cut, beyond the DEI officers of course.
Choosing Liz Truss did. If they had gone straight to Rishi it would have been a normal defeat, as would sticking with Bozo.
Rubbish. The polling does not support this, and it's a nakedly political take that any self-respecting PBer should be embarrassed to utter.
This thread header is an alternative history. Not having Liz Truss elected is another piece of alternative history but it's hard to imagine a worse result for the tory party than 2024 so it's very likely that if Truss had never been PM the Tory party would have 180 seats rather than 120.
Yes, the self-destructive antics of Boris Johnson was the leading cause.
The Conservative party should have appointed a H&S officer and a financial ethics officer to keep him under some sort of control.
An even loonier take than none of the above's. Do you people even look at the polling?
Why are you in denial that Boris flouting his own covid restrictions had an negative effect on public opinion ?
Or that the ever increasing financial misbehaviour and general dishonesty of Boris in particular and the Conservatives in general was also hurting them electorally.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
It’s gonna have to be something like Rwanda. WHICH I HAVE SAID FROM THE START
Offshore processing. Immediate deportation to somewhere faraway and dismal (but safe) where it will take a year or two. Maybe for 3-4 years we suspend asylum altogether except for unique cases: Ukraine, HK
It will be bloody expensive and a hassle. But then, taking in tens of thousands of asylum seekers and putting them in hotels is costing us literal billions and it’s getting worse and it is breeding vast social discontent
Also, I am pretty sure that after a few months of this - maybe weeks - when the asylum seekers and the gangs realise that crossing the channel is pointless they will simply stop. The boats will stop. The problem will thus solve itself
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It is complete madness. The fact that both major parties allowed this to happen has somehow led to their supporters thinking it is normal/defensible. No one I know in real life thinks it is anything other than utter lunacy
If they were all given brand new cars to drive around in, would they be considered second hand once they've turned on the ignition?
“You don’t understand. Yes we give a new Porsche to every asylum seeker, which you pay for, but within a week the depreciation is incredible. Doesn’t that make it better?”
In 2016 immigration was comparable to someone having half a bottle of wine every night, but getting blackout drunk at the weekends. Some is ok but you are overdoing it a bit.
The advent of the boat people mean it's someone smoking a crack pipe every morning
So for the last 2 years I've had a digital subscription to the Telegraph cost £29.99 a year.
They've just upped the price to £199.99 so that's being cancelled on Tuesday morning especially as I have to ring up to cancel.
They will offer you the £29 again, or at least they did to me a couple of weeks ago.
It's the having to ring up in working hours that annoys me most - the law should be you can cancel the way the item was purchased.
I agree with you and feel the same, but also find it quite weird how actually talking to a human about buying or cancelling a service now feels a big hassle.
It always has for me - which I used to put down to one of those things but I now put down to the undiagnosed ADHD / Autism which is obvious when you look at my daughter with that diagnose and then look at both me, my Dad and my Grandad.
Eight men, including seven Iranian nationals, have been arrested by police in two separate counter-terrorism operations across England.
Five of the suspects were detained in raids on Saturday as part of an alleged plot to target “a specific premises,” the Metropolitan police said.
The force did not reveal the site but said it had been identified with the advice and support from counter-terror officers.
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the arrests were sparked by “serious events that demonstrate the ongoing requirement to adapt our response to national security threats”.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
Declare safe third countries, pay them to take anyone who lands in the UK illegally. Suspend all asylum and all low wage legal immigration for a period of 5 years. The nation is simply full. The only immigration we should accept is people above a very high wage threshold who will add to the skills base of the nation. It's not about sending illegal immigrants home so much as it is about deporting them and making sure they can't stay here. Where we send them is basically irrelevant and it will be up to them to make their own way home afterwards. Take fingerprints, DNA samples and iris scans to ensure they can never come back and if they try they are caught and reported again.
If it means suspending the HRA then get on with it. The alternative is Nige as PM who will send us down the Trump path.
Zia Yusuf confirms Reform UK will look to use injunctions, judicial reviews and planning laws to block housing asylum seekers in hotels in areas they govern https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1918943321445007690
Sounds expensive.
That's a "throw 58 things at it and see what sticks" strategy.
He's got several objectives:
1 - Media: Keep the asylum issue (and Reform talking points) at the front of the news. 2 - Create narratives around Keir Starmer as "soft on asylum seekers". 3 - Keep his supporters engaged and wanting more.
In terms of practicalities:
1 - Expensive. 2 - Tactics borrowed from both Trump and the likes of Greenpeace opposing development. Delay delay delay and make it expensive for the Govt to do. 3 - Judicial Reviews will struggle, as there are objective tests around starting the process. 4 - They will try things around Change of Use, maybe Article 4 Directions (eg ban HMOs from a postcode without PP, then refuse to give PP - as used on Student Houses.) That will force decisions to be Planning Inspectorate or call-in by the Minister, which feeds narrative 2 and feeds "we are the resistance" - Nimby tactics. 5 - "Injunctions" looks speculative. They also have objective tests. 6 - They will also be looking at things like PSPOs and "Anti-Social Behaviour". PSPOs are very easy to manipulate by a Council majority who have a target in mind. And also certain aspects of rental law.
Their main policy for councils seems to be to get "The Auditors" in asap. Do they know what auditors charge, and what they do?
Surely if there is so much waste, the Refukkers have a long list of things they want to cut, beyond the DEI officers of course.
I doubt they mean actual auditors but rather some pound shop local DOGE wannabes which will result in a lot of legal action.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
It’s gonna have to be something like Rwanda. WHICH I HAVE SAID FROM THE START
Offshore processing. Immediate deportation to somewhere faraway and dismal (but safe) where it will take a year or two. Maybe for 3-4 years we suspend asylum altogether except for unique cases: Ukraine, HK
It will be bloody expensive and a hassle. But then, taking in tens of thousands of asylum seekers and putting them in hotels is costing us literal billions and it’s getting worse and it is breeding vast social discontent
Also, I am pretty sure that after a few months of this - maybe weeks - when the asylum seekers and the gangs realise that crossing the channel is pointless they will simply stop. The boats will stop. The problem will thus solve itself
Yup, declare safe third countries, deport any and all illegal arrivals and suspend asylum applications for at least 5 years and deport to those countries existing asylum applications not from Ukraine/HK or anyone who has been specifically invited. Labour and the Tories both need to sign up to this or something similar or we are heading for a Reform majority government.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
Incidentally what is Reform's policy tom stop illegal immigration ?
If they're serious then they need to advocate sinking the rubber dinghies with drones.
Paying someone to stand in a Dover car park looking out to sea through a pair of binoculars would be a start, so far as most ill-informed voters are concerned. In practice, it does not really matter, any more than it mattered what Ukip thought should happen after Brexit.
Yes, the self-destructive antics of Boris Johnson was the leading cause.
The Conservative party should have appointed a H&S officer and a financial ethics officer to keep him under some sort of control.
An even loonier take than none of the above's. Do you people even look at the polling?
Why are you in denial that Boris flouting his own covid restrictions had an negative effect on public opinion ?
Or that the ever increasing financial misbehaviour and general dishonesty of Boris in particular and the Conservatives in general was also hurting them electorally.
We know what the negative effect on the polling of Boris's general grubbiness was - the Tories were about 4 points behind when Boris left. That cannot be 'the leading cause' of a defeat the scale of Sunak's.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
If Labour don't see a clear and present danger that the next Government could well be from the Trumpian far right they deserve to hang up their government boots now. If they drop the RedTory Nasty Party mantle but nonetheless address concerns over immigration they may have faint hope. If Labour fail we still have the LDs.
It is the Conservatives that concern me most. Reform are in the vanguard, they have captured the zeitgeist with the single issue of immigration. It worked for them over Brexit. The Conservatives then see immigration as their magic bullet too. That is absurd. On LBC on Friday former racist Tories all said the same thing. "Boris Johnson created the current wave of immigration so I can't see a doctor/dentist because of the small boats". The Tories need to go centrist to survive.
If the Tories go centralist they are targetting the same pond as Labour / Lib Dems with a toxic brand and worse will be attracting away the voters that Labour need if they have any chance of winning the 2028/9 election against reform.
But isn’t there some brand of conservatism that isn’t Lab/LD territory, but also rejects the fantasies of the radical right? Talking about aspiration, business, rule of law, traditional institutions, value of families, making work pay, but rejecting grievance, racism, conspiratorial thinking?
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It is complete madness. The fact that both major parties allowed this to happen has somehow led to their supporters thinking it is normal/defensible. No one I know in real life thinks it is anything other than utter lunacy
If they were all given brand new cars to drive around in, would they be considered second hand once they've turned on the ignition?
“You don’t understand. Yes we give a new Porsche to every asylum seeker, which you pay for, but within a week the depreciation is incredible. Doesn’t that make it better?”
In 2016 immigration was comparable to someone having half a bottle of wine every night, and getting blackout drunk at the weekends. Some is ok but you are overdoing it a bit.
The advent of the boat people mean it's someone smoking a crack pipe every morning
If you really want to understand how mad our migration/asylum policies are, try explaining it to someone educated from a long way away. I’ve done it. In Uruguay, Thailand etc
“So, they illegally land on your beaches, why don’t you stop them”
“Because we’re worried they will drown.”
“Ok, that’s very generous, but they’re still illegal. Then they go to jail?”
“No.”
“Some kind of camp, an open prison then?”
“No. We put them in hotels. Often quite nice hotels”
“What?? But what about the British people, who use the hotel?”
“They’re not allowed to use it any more. Only asylum seekers can use it”
Head:desk
“But how do the illegal asylum seekers pay for a nice hotel???”
“They don’t. The local British people who can no longer use the hotel pay for the illegal migrants to live in the hotel. It costs us £4bn a year and rising but it’s ok because the illegal migrants get better healthcare and dental care than British people”
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
Declare safe third countries, pay them to take anyone who lands in the UK illegally. Suspend all asylum and all low wage legal immigration for a period of 5 years. The nation is simply full. The only immigration we should accept is people above a very high wage threshold who will add to the skills base of the nation. It's not about sending illegal immigrants home so much as it is about deporting them and making sure they can't stay here. Where we send them is basically irrelevant and it will be up to them to make their own way home afterwards. Take fingerprints, DNA samples and iris scans to ensure they can never come back and if they try they are caught and reported again.
If it means suspending the HRA then get on with it. The alternative is Nige as PM who will send us down the Trump path.
Farage is not Trump - he might copy the odd flourish, but he's a very different and experienced political operator.
Question for the PB community in light of Reform's flagship policy of banning free biscuits.
Has anyone ever worked in an organisation providing free biscuits?
Not in teaching, no free anything really, until I got a job in a private school.
In the various public sector jobs I've had they usually provide biscuits if they're doing an outreach event involving the public. They usually order too many so technically yes the staff enjoy free biscuits for a lot of the year.
Google, a private company, are praised for giving all sorts of food and drink-related perks to their employees. Don’t we want the public sector to learn from the private sector?
Zia Yusuf confirms Reform UK will look to use injunctions, judicial reviews and planning laws to block housing asylum seekers in hotels in areas they govern https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1918943321445007690
Sounds expensive.
That's a "throw 58 things at it and see what sticks" strategy.
He's got several objectives:
1 - Media: Keep the asylum issue (and Reform talking points) at the front of the news. 2 - Create narratives around Keir Starmer as "soft on asylum seekers". 3 - Keep his supporters engaged and wanting more.
In terms of practicalities:
1 - Expensive. 2 - Tactics borrowed from both Trump and the likes of Greenpeace opposing development. Delay delay delay and make it expensive for the Govt to do. 3 - Judicial Reviews will struggle, as there are objective tests around starting the process. 4 - They will try things around Change of Use, maybe Article 4 Directions (eg ban HMOs from a postcode without PP, then refuse to give PP - as used on Student Houses.) That will force decisions to be Planning Inspectorate or call-in by the Minister, which feeds narrative 2 and feeds "we are the resistance" - Nimby tactics. 5 - "Injunctions" looks speculative. They also have objective tests. 6 - They will also be looking at things like PSPOs and "Anti-Social Behaviour". PSPOs are very easy to manipulate by a Council majority who have a target in mind. And also certain aspects of rental law.
Their main policy for councils seems to be to get "The Auditors" in asap. Do they know what auditors charge, and what they do?
Surely if there is so much waste, the Refukkers have a long list of things they want to cut, beyond the DEI officers of course.
Is that list written down anywhere?
The basic problem with that is that Councils need 30-40% MORE money, not 30-40% less, to deliver decent, effective services - and just to put them back where they were 15 or so years ago.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
They are staying in buildings that were run down 4 star hotels of the 80s/90s which were usually slowly dying where the Government has given them one final massive pile of money to solve a problem...
The issue is that people see the 4 star hotel and miss the fact the full sentence was a formerly 4 star but now dingy, dying with no customers due to needing a complete refurbishment is now 100% leased to immigration
Not only that, the asylum seekers are usually two to a room with a stranger who they didn't previously know, and no use of the 4* facilities.
If only PB had a journalist used to 4*+ accommodation and interest in exotic people's to do an under cover report from these facilities. I expect the room service for that G and T will be very poor indeed.
Yes, the self-destructive antics of Boris Johnson was the leading cause.
The Conservative party should have appointed a H&S officer and a financial ethics officer to keep him under some sort of control.
An even loonier take than none of the above's. Do you people even look at the polling?
Why are you in denial that Boris flouting his own covid restrictions had an negative effect on public opinion ?
Or that the ever increasing financial misbehaviour and general dishonesty of Boris in particular and the Conservatives in general was also hurting them electorally.
We know what the negative effect on the polling of Boris's general grubbiness was - the Tories were about 4 points behind when Boris left. That cannot be 'the leading cause' of a defeat the scale of Sunak's.
The Truss disaster was a direct consequence of Boris's self-destruction.
If Boris had managed self-control the Conservatives would likely have won in 2024.
Question for the PB community in light of Reform's flagship policy of banning free biscuits.
Has anyone ever worked in an organisation providing free biscuits?
Not in teaching, no free anything really, until I got a job in a private school.
In the various public sector jobs I've had they usually provide biscuits if they're doing an outreach event involving the public. They usually order too many so technically yes the staff enjoy free biscuits for a lot of the year.
Google, a private company, are praised for giving all sorts of food and drink-related perks to their employees. Don’t we want the public sector to learn from the private sector?
Lots of the perks have gone these days at Google. They have got so tight they even cut back on staplers, let alone how often you can request a new laptop.
In the early days, the really lavish perks were less about being perks and more about nudging you into staying in the office longer as no need to cook, do you laundry, etc.
Zia Yusuf confirms Reform UK will look to use injunctions, judicial reviews and planning laws to block housing asylum seekers in hotels in areas they govern https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1918943321445007690
Sounds expensive.
That's a "throw 58 things at it and see what sticks" strategy.
He's got several objectives:
1 - Media: Keep the asylum issue (and Reform talking points) at the front of the news. 2 - Create narratives around Keir Starmer as "soft on asylum seekers". 3 - Keep his supporters engaged and wanting more.
In terms of practicalities:
1 - Expensive. 2 - Tactics borrowed from both Trump and the likes of Greenpeace opposing development. Delay delay delay and make it expensive for the Govt to do. 3 - Judicial Reviews will struggle, as there are objective tests around starting the process. 4 - They will try things around Change of Use, maybe Article 4 Directions (eg ban HMOs from a postcode without PP, then refuse to give PP - as used on Student Houses.) That will force decisions to be Planning Inspectorate or call-in by the Minister, which feeds narrative 2 and feeds "we are the resistance" - Nimby tactics. 5 - "Injunctions" looks speculative. They also have objective tests. 6 - They will also be looking at things like PSPOs and "Anti-Social Behaviour". PSPOs are very easy to manipulate by a Council majority who have a target in mind. And also certain aspects of rental law.
Their main policy for councils seems to be to get "The Auditors" in asap. Do they know what auditors charge, and what they do?
Surely if there is so much waste, the Refukkers have a long list of things they want to cut, beyond the DEI officers of course.
Is that list written down anywhere?
The basic problem with that is that Councils need 30-40% MORE money, not 30-40% less, to deliver decent, effective services - and just to put them back where they were 15 or so years ago.
Yep but we also need to decide what a council actually does because while we think we are voting for local services in reality we are voting for the executive board for social care where the board members have both hands tied behind their backs.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
Declare safe third countries, pay them to take anyone who lands in the UK illegally. Suspend all asylum and all low wage legal immigration for a period of 5 years. The nation is simply full. The only immigration we should accept is people above a very high wage threshold who will add to the skills base of the nation. It's not about sending illegal immigrants home so much as it is about deporting them and making sure they can't stay here. Where we send them is basically irrelevant and it will be up to them to make their own way home afterwards. Take fingerprints, DNA samples and iris scans to ensure they can never come back and if they try they are caught and reported again.
If it means suspending the HRA then get on with it. The alternative is Nige as PM who will send us down the Trump path.
The paradox goes roughly like this, though.
Anywhere that is a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to agree to the scheme. Or do you think that being unkeen on foreign people is a uniquely British trait?
Anywhere that isn't a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to be safe. I mean, look around the world.
There may be a place where the two grey areas overlap, but it's not clear where.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
Declare safe third countries, pay them to take anyone who lands in the UK illegally. Suspend all asylum and all low wage legal immigration for a period of 5 years. The nation is simply full. The only immigration we should accept is people above a very high wage threshold who will add to the skills base of the nation. It's not about sending illegal immigrants home so much as it is about deporting them and making sure they can't stay here. Where we send them is basically irrelevant and it will be up to them to make their own way home afterwards. Take fingerprints, DNA samples and iris scans to ensure they can never come back and if they try they are caught and reported again.
If it means suspending the HRA then get on with it. The alternative is Nige as PM who will send us down the Trump path.
Farage is not Trump - he might copy the odd flourish, but he's a very different and experienced political operator.
Also, to be fair to Farage, he may be unpleasant and his policies may be based on ignorance, but he is neither stupid nor obviously suffering from advanced senile decay. Nor, so far as I know, has he ever been accused of multiple sexual offences. And while he may have got his fingers burned over his EU expenses being misused that's a far cry from the rampaging tax evasion Trump has indulged in.
I am not sure how much Labour have taken on board the rise of Reform, but as of now large parts of England will have councillors dedicated to stopping the boats and housing migrants in hotels, DOGE style cost cutting and ending DEI, firmly anti net zero with opposition to solar farms and pylons and in Tice words 'every means possible will be used to prevent these developments'
Apparently Andrea Jenkyns has said that in Lincolnshire migrants will not be housed in hotels but tents !!!
Politics has just become extremely divisive
Good morning Big G. The fascinating thing will be how Reform manage expectations. DEI is one of those things where practically everyone has been tales of diversity officers taking a fortune at councils and in the NHS etc etc. in reality it’s mostly fiction. Dame Andrea Finger pledged to sack the DEI officers at her council. And there aren't any.
As for DOGE, I have no principled objection to cutting waste. I’m an advocate for wholesale reconstruction of services because we’re spending money in the wrong way. But - and it’s a very big but. DOGE appears to have save $0. Actual savings a fraction of what was claimed, the immediate cost of making those savings is the same dollar value as what was cut, and the down the line costs remain unknown but likely a lot.
This is the problem with crayon politics. It’s easy when it’s slogans. Less easy when it’s policy.
The real reason for DOGE was to make life hell for bureacrats, so that many as possible of the "deep state" would quit their jobs.
There is a quote from Russ Vought, the OMB Chief, saying that : “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains ... We want to put them in trauma.”
DOGE looks likely to have created a net cost to the US because their cuts to IRS staff has hit tax revenues. Whether that was Musk’s intention all along or just incompetence, it’s hard to say.
Yes, the self-destructive antics of Boris Johnson was the leading cause.
The Conservative party should have appointed a H&S officer and a financial ethics officer to keep him under some sort of control.
An even loonier take than none of the above's. Do you people even look at the polling?
Why are you in denial that Boris flouting his own covid restrictions had an negative effect on public opinion ?
Or that the ever increasing financial misbehaviour and general dishonesty of Boris in particular and the Conservatives in general was also hurting them electorally.
We know what the negative effect on the polling of Boris's general grubbiness was - the Tories were about 4 points behind when Boris left. That cannot be 'the leading cause' of a defeat the scale of Sunak's.
The Truss disaster was a direct consequence of Boris's self-destruction.
If Boris had managed self-control the Conservatives would likely have won in 2024.
So for the last 2 years I've had a digital subscription to the Telegraph cost £29.99 a year.
They've just upped the price to £199.99 so that's being cancelled on Tuesday morning especially as I have to ring up to cancel.
£269 according to the Telegraph's subscription page. I too might need to reconsider when renewal time rolls around. Funnily enough I only subscribed in order to follow now-deceased PBer Plato's links. https://secure.telegraph.co.uk/customer/subscribe/
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It is complete madness. The fact that both major parties allowed this to happen has somehow led to their supporters thinking it is normal/defensible. No one I know in real life thinks it is anything other than utter lunacy
If they were all given brand new cars to drive around in, would they be considered second hand once they've turned on the ignition?
“You don’t understand. Yes we give a new Porsche to every asylum seeker, which you pay for, but within a week the depreciation is incredible. Doesn’t that make it better?”
In 2016 immigration was comparable to someone having half a bottle of wine every night, and getting blackout drunk at the weekends. Some is ok but you are overdoing it a bit.
The advent of the boat people mean it's someone smoking a crack pipe every morning
If you really want to understand how mad our migration/asylum policies are, try explaining it to someone educated from a long way away. I’ve done it. In Uruguay, Thailand etc
“So, they illegally land on your beaches, why don’t you stop them”
“Because we’re worried they will drown.”
“Ok, that’s very generous, but they’re still illegal. Then they go to jail?”
“No.”
“Some kind of camp, an open prison then?”
“No. We put them in hotels. Often quite nice hotels”
“What?? But what about the British people, who use the hotel?”
“They’re not allowed to use it any more. Only asylum seekers can use it”
Head:desk
“But how do the illegal asylum seekers pay for a nice hotel???”
“They don’t. The local British people who can no longer use the hotel pay for the illegal migrants to live in the hotel. It costs us £4bn a year and rising but it’s ok because the illegal migrants get better healthcare and dental care than British people”
“Let me guess, you Brits pay for that, as well?”
“Yes”
And supporters of the main two parties nod along struggling to see the problem
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
Declare safe third countries, pay them to take anyone who lands in the UK illegally. Suspend all asylum and all low wage legal immigration for a period of 5 years. The nation is simply full. The only immigration we should accept is people above a very high wage threshold who will add to the skills base of the nation. It's not about sending illegal immigrants home so much as it is about deporting them and making sure they can't stay here. Where we send them is basically irrelevant and it will be up to them to make their own way home afterwards. Take fingerprints, DNA samples and iris scans to ensure they can never come back and if they try they are caught and reported again.
If it means suspending the HRA then get on with it. The alternative is Nige as PM who will send us down the Trump path.
The paradox goes roughly like this, though.
Anywhere that is a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to agree to the scheme. Or do you think that being unkeen on foreign people is a uniquely British trait?
Anywhere that isn't a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to be safe. I mean, look around the world.
There may be a place where the two grey areas overlap, but it's not clear where.
West Falkland. It’s empty cold grey and safe
And, likesay, once the “asylum seekers” realise they’ve ALL got to spend 2 years in the far south Atlantic then the boats will stop by themselves quite quickly
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It's the same with 'two tier' being a dog whistle. When the sentencing council has literally attempted to enshrine two tier sentencing in legal guidance and police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against. This stuff is written down - it is actively publicised. That's not a dog whistle, or a 'political correctness gone mad' punchline from a right-on comedian - IT IS HAPPENING NOW.
WRITING ALL IN CAPITALS DOESN’T MAKE YOUR LIES TRUE.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It's the same with 'two tier' being a dog whistle. When the sentencing council has literally attempted to enshrine two tier sentencing in legal guidance and police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against. This stuff is written down - it is actively publicised. That's not a dog whistle, or a 'political correctness gone mad' punchline from a right-on comedian - IT IS HAPPENING NOW.
WRITING ALL IN CAPITALS DOESN’T MAKE YOUR LIES TRUE.
Lie is a strong word. Perhaps you'd like to point out anything I have said that is a lie.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
Declare safe third countries, pay them to take anyone who lands in the UK illegally. Suspend all asylum and all low wage legal immigration for a period of 5 years. The nation is simply full. The only immigration we should accept is people above a very high wage threshold who will add to the skills base of the nation. It's not about sending illegal immigrants home so much as it is about deporting them and making sure they can't stay here. Where we send them is basically irrelevant and it will be up to them to make their own way home afterwards. Take fingerprints, DNA samples and iris scans to ensure they can never come back and if they try they are caught and reported again.
If it means suspending the HRA then get on with it. The alternative is Nige as PM who will send us down the Trump path.
The paradox goes roughly like this, though.
Anywhere that is a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to agree to the scheme. Or do you think that being unkeen on foreign people is a uniquely British trait?
Anywhere that isn't a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to be safe. I mean, look around the world.
There may be a place where the two grey areas overlap, but it's not clear where.
There's plenty of precedent around the globe for countries that will agree to such schemes. Safe, but poor countries.
From the perspective of those countries they have 2 reasons to accept people.
1: Money. They get paid to accept people and they can do with the money. 2: The people don't want to go there in the first place, so will then typically ASAP get out of the country and try their luck somewhere else.
They're basically acting like a glorified bus stop. We pay them to move on the individuals, the individuals get moved on, they take the money but don't get overly concerned with what happens to the individuals next.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
Declare safe third countries, pay them to take anyone who lands in the UK illegally. Suspend all asylum and all low wage legal immigration for a period of 5 years. The nation is simply full. The only immigration we should accept is people above a very high wage threshold who will add to the skills base of the nation. It's not about sending illegal immigrants home so much as it is about deporting them and making sure they can't stay here. Where we send them is basically irrelevant and it will be up to them to make their own way home afterwards. Take fingerprints, DNA samples and iris scans to ensure they can never come back and if they try they are caught and reported again.
If it means suspending the HRA then get on with it. The alternative is Nige as PM who will send us down the Trump path.
The paradox goes roughly like this, though.
Anywhere that is a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to agree to the scheme. Or do you think that being unkeen on foreign people is a uniquely British trait?
Anywhere that isn't a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to be safe. I mean, look around the world.
There may be a place where the two grey areas overlap, but it's not clear where.
Hence declaring them safe countries, we do not have a duty of care to illegal immigrants. They came to the country uninvited, we can send them to wherever will take them, not to where they would prefer to go and if they don't like that they can return to their home country voluntarily. The government needs to act on this now or we will sleepwalk into a Reform majority government. The government's priority should be to British citizens, not to international treaties which place illegal immigrants above British citizens and prevent us from deporting foreign criminals.
Question for the PB community in light of Reform's flagship policy of banning free biscuits.
Has anyone ever worked in an organisation providing free biscuits?
Not in teaching, no free anything really, until I got a job in a private school.
In the various public sector jobs I've had they usually provide biscuits if they're doing an outreach event involving the public. They usually order too many so technically yes the staff enjoy free biscuits for a lot of the year.
Google, a private company, are praised for giving all sorts of food and drink-related perks to their employees. Don’t we want the public sector to learn from the private sector?
I had a very nice free lunch in the Google canteen in Chicago last Tuesday.
Zia Yusuf confirms Reform UK will look to use injunctions, judicial reviews and planning laws to block housing asylum seekers in hotels in areas they govern https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1918943321445007690
Sounds expensive.
That's a "throw 58 things at it and see what sticks" strategy.
He's got several objectives:
1 - Media: Keep the asylum issue (and Reform talking points) at the front of the news. 2 - Create narratives around Keir Starmer as "soft on asylum seekers". 3 - Keep his supporters engaged and wanting more.
In terms of practicalities:
1 - Expensive. 2 - Tactics borrowed from both Trump and the likes of Greenpeace opposing development. Delay delay delay and make it expensive for the Govt to do. 3 - Judicial Reviews will struggle, as there are objective tests around starting the process. 4 - They will try things around Change of Use, maybe Article 4 Directions (eg ban HMOs from a postcode without PP, then refuse to give PP - as used on Student Houses.) That will force decisions to be Planning Inspectorate or call-in by the Minister, which feeds narrative 2 and feeds "we are the resistance" - Nimby tactics. 5 - "Injunctions" looks speculative. They also have objective tests. 6 - They will also be looking at things like PSPOs and "Anti-Social Behaviour". PSPOs are very easy to manipulate by a Council majority who have a target in mind. And also certain aspects of rental law.
Their main policy for councils seems to be to get "The Auditors" in asap. Do they know what auditors charge, and what they do?
Surely if there is so much waste, the Refukkers have a long list of things they want to cut, beyond the DEI officers of course.
They seem to be unaware of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, which lays out existing rules for regular audits of local government. It’s just another populist right fantasy.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
Declare safe third countries, pay them to take anyone who lands in the UK illegally. Suspend all asylum and all low wage legal immigration for a period of 5 years. The nation is simply full. The only immigration we should accept is people above a very high wage threshold who will add to the skills base of the nation. It's not about sending illegal immigrants home so much as it is about deporting them and making sure they can't stay here. Where we send them is basically irrelevant and it will be up to them to make their own way home afterwards. Take fingerprints, DNA samples and iris scans to ensure they can never come back and if they try they are caught and reported again.
If it means suspending the HRA then get on with it. The alternative is Nige as PM who will send us down the Trump path.
The paradox goes roughly like this, though.
Anywhere that is a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to agree to the scheme. Or do you think that being unkeen on foreign people is a uniquely British trait?
Anywhere that isn't a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to be safe. I mean, look around the world.
There may be a place where the two grey areas overlap, but it's not clear where.
West Falkland. It’s empty cold grey and safe
And, likesay, once the “asylum seekers” realise they’ve ALL got to spend 2 years in the far south Atlantic then the boats will stop by themselves quite quickly
Job done
What will you do when the new majority population declares independence and requests federation with Argentina ?
Zia Yusuf confirms Reform UK will look to use injunctions, judicial reviews and planning laws to block housing asylum seekers in hotels in areas they govern https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1918943321445007690
Sounds expensive.
That's a "throw 58 things at it and see what sticks" strategy.
He's got several objectives:
1 - Media: Keep the asylum issue (and Reform talking points) at the front of the news. 2 - Create narratives around Keir Starmer as "soft on asylum seekers". 3 - Keep his supporters engaged and wanting more.
In terms of practicalities:
1 - Expensive. 2 - Tactics borrowed from both Trump and the likes of Greenpeace opposing development. Delay delay delay and make it expensive for the Govt to do. 3 - Judicial Reviews will struggle, as there are objective tests around starting the process. 4 - They will try things around Change of Use, maybe Article 4 Directions (eg ban HMOs from a postcode without PP, then refuse to give PP - as used on Student Houses.) That will force decisions to be Planning Inspectorate or call-in by the Minister, which feeds narrative 2 and feeds "we are the resistance" - Nimby tactics. 5 - "Injunctions" looks speculative. They also have objective tests. 6 - They will also be looking at things like PSPOs and "Anti-Social Behaviour". PSPOs are very easy to manipulate by a Council majority who have a target in mind. And also certain aspects of rental law.
Their main policy for councils seems to be to get "The Auditors" in asap. Do they know what auditors charge, and what they do?
Surely if there is so much waste, the Refukkers have a long list of things they want to cut, beyond the DEI officers of course.
Is that list written down anywhere?
The basic problem with that is that Councils need 30-40% MORE money, not 30-40% less, to deliver decent, effective services - and just to put them back where they were 15 or so years ago.
Yep but we also need to decide what a council actually does because while we think we are voting for local services in reality we are voting for the executive board for social care where the board members have both hands tied behind their backs.
To be honest, social care should be tied into NHS with funding etc, hence a national government issue. If it means raising tax to cover it then so be it.
Another interesting alt-history is Brown calling an election in the narrow window afer he became PM (perhaps autumn 2007) and before everyone realised he was Gordon Brown, and before we all learned that 'no more boom and bust' was strangely fictional.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
Only the UK government could invent a system where fake asylum seekers from North Africa end up in four-star hotels, while the locals who voted for border control can’t get a dentist
And then PB wonders why Reform are prospering
This is true. You and I both know that “asylum seeker put up in 4 star hotel” makes it sound like they are in an actual hotel with a bar and room service and a sauna. Which they’re not as it’s now just a building with bunk beds installed in many of the rooms.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
Declare safe third countries, pay them to take anyone who lands in the UK illegally. Suspend all asylum and all low wage legal immigration for a period of 5 years. The nation is simply full. The only immigration we should accept is people above a very high wage threshold who will add to the skills base of the nation. It's not about sending illegal immigrants home so much as it is about deporting them and making sure they can't stay here. Where we send them is basically irrelevant and it will be up to them to make their own way home afterwards. Take fingerprints, DNA samples and iris scans to ensure they can never come back and if they try they are caught and reported again.
If it means suspending the HRA then get on with it. The alternative is Nige as PM who will send us down the Trump path.
The paradox goes roughly like this, though.
Anywhere that is a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to agree to the scheme. Or do you think that being unkeen on foreign people is a uniquely British trait?
Anywhere that isn't a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to be safe. I mean, look around the world.
There may be a place where the two grey areas overlap, but it's not clear where.
West Falkland. It’s empty cold grey and safe
And, likesay, once the “asylum seekers” realise they’ve ALL got to spend 2 years in the far south Atlantic then the boats will stop by themselves quite quickly
Job done
What will you do when the new majority population declares independence and requests federation with Argentina ?
Yes. It stands out. It stands out because when Rishi came in with his 'grown ups' he had a polling bounce after the Truss debacle.
He then proceeded slowly and surely to lose that polling bounce and return to polling at mid-Truss bond crisis levels, despite there being no crisis. That polling decline is owned entirely by Sunak - it cannot be blamed on Truss, because there was a polling recovery after she left. If the polling had never recovered from the Truss Government, it would be legitimate to blame that Government.
Or if the Sunak recovery had just flattened at its high point and had never achieved anything higher, that could also be blamed on Truss, because you could argue that her crisis had placed a ceiling on the Tory vote.
But Sunak's decline from Sunak's own poll bounce can only be blamed on Sunak. It was based on bread and butter issues of living in Britain during a cost of living crisis and the Government was perceived (rightly in my view) to be managing decline and failing on the main issues of the day.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It's the same with 'two tier' being a dog whistle. When the sentencing council has literally attempted to enshrine two tier sentencing in legal guidance and police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against. This stuff is written down - it is actively publicised. That's not a dog whistle, or a 'political correctness gone mad' punchline from a right-on comedian - IT IS HAPPENING NOW.
WRITING ALL IN CAPITALS DOESN’T MAKE YOUR LIES TRUE.
Lie is a strong word. Perhaps you'd like to point out anything I have said that is a lie.
“police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against”: doing so would be against UK employment law. You are talking about very moderate schemes to encourage some underrepresented groups to apply more and get considered. Likewise, the Sentencing Council was not trying “to enshrine two tier sentencing”: the proposals were not about sentencing, but about reports prior to sentencing, while two tier sentencing would again be illegal under UK law.
As James Callaghan famously said, if everyone's a special case, no-one's a special case.
There should perhaps be a national inquiry to establish WTF is going on with mental health. Is the explosion due to long Covid, a new environmental pollutant, or just rampant self-diagnosis (or self-misdiagnosis). Whatever the cause, between SEND, PIP and unemployability, and in some severe cases, institutional care, it is costing a fortune. And there are probably humane arguments as well.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Reading YouTube comments on any channel is a rapid route to madness.
Very interesting piece. It would have altered my life too. No farting about in a deregulated City, making a fast buck and little else. Instead I would have been doing something in academia, or perhaps working with my hands.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
Local authorities are actually run by their salaried staff, who are a much ignored and underestimated force for fairly dull decency across the country. Public service and an ethos to match still hangs on in some places, sometimes by a thread.
They occasionally give the elected people little jobs to do, but thankfully not often. I exaggerate but not much.
Few elected people could reliably tell you whether a bridge on a country back road is going to collapse under the weight of X tons. Lives depend on these people. Some elected people don't understand a 100 page budget either.
Another interesting alt-history is Brown calling an election in the narrow window afer he became PM (perhaps autumn 2007) and before everyone realised he was Gordon Brown, and before we all learned that 'no more boom and bust' was strangely fictional.
Tory majority at the next election, and no subsequent coalition, I expect ?
The Reunion on R4 was quite interesting. Clegg apparently lacked the bottle to make it clear to Brown that any deal with Labour would mean his going. Danny Alexander had to do so - and Brown pretended not to have heard.
Very interesting piece. It would have altered my life too. No farting about in a deregulated City, making a fast buck and little else. Instead I would have been doing something in academia, or perhaps working with my hands.
We have someone on here that is an assiduous worker with his hands, or at least one of them. Let that stand as a warning to you.
Thanks RCS for a fascinating alternative history header. In Oct 1978 I think Callaghan would have won a small majority, but that not all of the consequences would have fallen the way you lay out.
1) I think Thatcher would have stayed on as LOTO. The tradition of dumping a leader after a single unsuccessful election (or even an anticipated defeat) is a very recent one. Both Wilson and Heath fought several elections, as did Attlee and Churchill in the 1950s.
2) I think membership of the EEC (as then was) would have divided Callaghans party as much as it divided the Tories in the 2010s. The Gang of Four broke away from the Labour Party as much over Euroscepticism in the Labour Party as anything else.
3) Whilst militant trade unions were part of the industrial malaise of the 70s and early 80s, the other reasons for the malaise would still be there, in particular short termist management, an over valued pound (because of that North Sea Oil) and the international stagflation (it did in Carter too), so deindustrialisation would still have happened.
3) Argentina invaded the Falklands for its own reasons, so still would have done so. The Falklands debate in 1982 had another very good Foot* speech. Far from being defeatist, Foot was as jingoistic as any Tory. Foot was very anti-appeasement, making his name calling out the guilty men appeasing the Nazis, but LOTO Thatcher would have backed sending the fleet.
*Foot would fairly certainly been in Callaghans cabinet, alongside Benn and Healey.
4) So I would see the 1983 election not so much as a khaki election, but one where the choice was between a Labour Party running out of ideas, broken over Europe, and blamed for continuing stagnation and rising unemployment, vs a strident Thatcher enamoured with monetarily ideas, fervently pro EEC and pointing to the success or Reagan as an example.
So Thatcher takes power in 1983, and starts from there. The march of history is fundamentally the same, the timetable delayed 4 years, and perhaps the EU being the chillies heel of Labour rather than the Tories for the next decades.
The reactions to this GB News are quite interesting, as a potential guide to questions where reality and reason will have no impact, and others means are needed to wash the sandcastle away. It's like a found poem.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
eg - @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago STARMER IS DELUSIONAL Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY" - @mrseddie5971 1 day ago Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie. - @janeevans1859 - 12 hours ago @oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it - @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
Labour needs confidence. It just doesn’t project that at the moment. Trump, Farage, Thatcher, Blair show how much (or how little) you can get away with if you do it with utter confidence and assurance.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
As a Leftie, and proud to be one, I rarely agree with you. But on this occasion I do. (On many points anyway; our local Green councillor seems very good.) I know that Reform claim they've vetted their council candidates, but it's all gone too quickly. I have lived in an area where one party had control, but couldn't keep Councillors, so there was always, shortly before election time, a desperate search in the local relevant political club for someone, anyone, who would stand in X, Y and Z wards. And if these people hung about, on the Buggins Turn principle, they got to be Chairman. (Or woman, although in my experience the real deadbeats were usually male.) Shambles.
Lab MP. A Scottish one so on the very lowest step of having any influence, but still.
Brian Leishman @BrianLeishmanMP Albert was right when he said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Quote Keir Starmer @Keir_Starmer 3 May Most Prime Ministers would respond to these local elections with the same old excuses. My response is simple: I get it. We’re moving in the right direction, but people must feel the benefits of change. I will go further and faster to make that happen.
An incoherent answer I thought. I'm beginning to think Starmer isn't very good at this politics lark. He had two choices. Either argue that the results weren't too bad under the circumstances. Reasonably fair. Or that it takes a while to turn an oil tanker round and as you've got us for the next four years you better get used to it
I think Starmer is trying to say it is choice no 2 - this will take time, deal with it - and not choice no 1 - actually these are OKish results. But that implies the voters are wrong, hopefully only temporarily from his perspective, that he isn't implementing beneficial change. So he doesn't really "get it".
I think Rogar's right; Starmer isn't very good at politics.
Yes. On welfare cuts two explanations are at least defensible in my view:
1. We're prioritising welfare on the people who really need it. So Winter Fuel Allowance, which goes to everyone including people who don't need it, is not as good as welfare that makes a big difference to those that need it, eg Pension Credit take-up.
Or
2. The welfare budget is unsustainable given our fiscal position, which means have to reduce costs, while making sure that the people most in need continue to get the help they need.
Saying this is the right thing but change takes time is meaningless.
Whilst I increased my vote slightly by 171 (2021 share in brackets) by persuading Labour and Green voters to support me against the Conservatives clearly our tactics of not mentioning Reform were a mistake. The Reform candidate did not put out any literature. From a few hours standing at polling stations, I think that many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time. I expect in future elections to expend effort encouraging non voters (turnout was 38%) of the dangers of not voting.
County Council result Bruntingthorpe Division (very rural South Leicestershire) Reform 34% (New) Conservative 31% (60%) Liberal Democrat 21% (18%) Labour 7% (13%) Green 7% (9%)
FPT-ing @Icarus in order to highlight this: many of the Reform voters did not usually bother to vote in local elections but had turned out this time.
This supports two contentions: Reform is NOTA; Reform support was underestimated by most pollsters and canvassers because they miss (or avoid or discount) habitual non-voters.
And hence if Reform sells out to, or turns into, the ‘old politics’, many of those folks will go back to sitting polling day out in their armchairs.
They may well find the next vehicle for their desire for someone to listen to them.
Exactly.
The thing is Reform may or may not have the answers. However to lots of left behind communities at least Reform are talking to them. All they get from the other parties and their supporters is being told they’re stupid etc etc. Hardly a plan to win these voters back.
I’m pleased to see some in Labour get it, like my MP. But then you have Lucy Powell and her performance on AQ’s to show Labour has a long way to go.
I'll have to listen to that. As I mentioned the spat was with Tim Montgomerie, who is perhaps trying to demonstrate his new Reform credentials (joined last December?).
My view is that Reform deal precisely in dog whistles and fictional narratives, to the exclusion of much else.
"Illegal immigrants in 4* hotels" is one such, as is "Two Tier Keir", and others.
Those who now have Reform Councils are about to find that out, because the Councillors in said Councils are about to discover that Farage's windy rhetoric does not quite fit reality as it exists outside the political rally, the pub, or the TV studio - so they will need to shout even more loudly to give the impression of doing something.
I'm currently wondering how I can tackle a Reform lead Notts County Council to further a mobility aid accessible network of Public Rights of Way and other paths, in accordance with the law. I need to 4 dimensional chess, and influencing strategies.
Nigel has declared war on one of the pieces of legislation that requires the Local Highways Authority to provide access, but it's also his own voter base which he will increasingly be taking rights away from. And one of his positions depends on the Supreme Courts clarified understanding of the Equality Act which he is out to destroy.
He needs some 4-dimensional chess as well if he isn't going to shoot himself in both feet.
Yep - that's the issue with Reform they generate lies that are very easy to sell and almost impossible to disprove because the people the lies are targeted at don't care enough to listen to reality.
It's very much Trump's audience where America shows only reality will demonstrate to people the reality involved.
Are you saying it’s a lie that migrants are in 4 star hotels?
So good you said it twice.
And the answer is that there's a narrow sense that it's technically true (some of the buildings used are otherwise used as 4* hotels I'm sure) but utterly dishonest (if you or I booked a weekend at this "so-called 4* hotel" and got the migrant experience, we'd be getting a compo face article in the papers.)
In some circles, technically true but utterly dishonest is a great election-winning argument.
No. Someone said “migrants staying in 4* hotels” is a “fictional narrative”. That is: a lie. No one mentioned “oh the facilities will be changed”
Fact is, asylum seekers are being put in 4 star hotels. I know this from personal experience - here’s one, the Gatwick Copthorne. I’ve stayed there - it’s rather nice. Old manor with lake. Now closed and used by asylum seekers - paid for by all of us
“Copthorne Hotel London Gatwick is not accepting any reservations requests for accommodation.
The rest of our London and UK hotels would be happy to assist you”
So, NOT a fictional narrative. NOT a lie. Perfectly true
Next
Utterly dishonest, though, which is what I said. And nothing you have claimed contradicts that.
People have explained the business model here to you. Perhaps you should get that travel journalist who hangs around you to explain it.
You should use that when canvassing red wall seats
“Yes ok TECHNICALLY they are four star hotels but you don’t understand we close the gym and the breakfast only has two kinds of cereal. Yes ok the rooms are cleaned and all the laundry is done free for the refugees but this is a special business model with hotels that weren’t doing well. Now you get to pay with your taxes for this private company to refurbish their hotel while housing asylum seekers from Ethiopia that you never wanted to allow in so you can’t use the hotel for three years even as the refugees wander around your town freaking you out. Shut up. You voted for this”
Definite winner. Should stop reform in its tracks
It's the same with 'two tier' being a dog whistle. When the sentencing council has literally attempted to enshrine two tier sentencing in legal guidance and police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against. This stuff is written down - it is actively publicised. That's not a dog whistle, or a 'political correctness gone mad' punchline from a right-on comedian - IT IS HAPPENING NOW.
WRITING ALL IN CAPITALS DOESN’T MAKE YOUR LIES TRUE.
Lie is a strong word. Perhaps you'd like to point out anything I have said that is a lie.
“police and councils are bringing in two-tier hiring policies where white males are actively discriminated against”: doing so would be against UK employment law. You are talking about very moderate schemes to encourage some underrepresented groups to apply more and get considered. Likewise, the Sentencing Council was not trying “to enshrine two tier sentencing”: the proposals were not about sentencing, but about reports prior to sentencing, while two tier sentencing would again be illegal under UK law.
For me the standouts on the Sentencing Reports issue was the outstanding cynicism of Jenrick and Philp:
1 - The whole thing had been consulted on, and supported by, Rishi Sunak's Government, in which Jenrick (not sure about Philp) was a Minister. 2 - They did not present a shred of evidence to support their claims that a "problem" existed.
Jenrick was trying to leverage the trope of "racial discrimination against white men", getting the poor darlings to feel oppressed by comparing them with, depending on channel, black people, disabled people, and women.
It's the normal tactic of that type of politics. Firstly, convince your target group that they are victims. Secondly, justify it by creating an "other" for them to resent. Thirdly, get them to follow you down your rabbit hole and become your mushrooms.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
Votes at full council won't be a problem, and the dimmer members can be told what to do.
It will be all the responsibility stuff, audit, scrutiny and appeals panels, that will be the problem. Not glamorous, very time-consuming, but the bulk of what backbench councillors do these days.
As for policy... What normally happens when the members aren't up to it is that the officers run the show. We've seen that in here in Havering since the Residents' Association has taken control. The catch is that Reform's whole raison d'etre is to shake things up and not listen to the technocrats.
Buckle up, everyone, even those of you who think that is nanny state nonsense.
I was a Tory Councillor for 24 years and a member of a National Park Authority for 15.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties. I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
In Staffordshire every single one of Reform's 53 councillors is newly elected. I don't think any of them have even defected having previously served other parties.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
Gosh. I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers". Unfortunately, they don't have any. Next will be to recruit auditors. Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
Very interesting piece. It would have altered my life too. No farting about in a deregulated City, making a fast buck and little else. Instead I would have been doing something in academia, or perhaps working with my hands.
We have someone on here that is an assiduous worker with his hands, or at least one of them. Let that stand as a warning to you.
Comments
They've just upped the price to £199.99 so that's being cancelled on Tuesday morning especially as I have to ring up to cancel.
The Conservative party should have appointed a H&S officer and a financial ethics officer to keep him under some sort of control.
Its like the online e-commerce businesses, looking at you THG, the price is never the price. They just want you to sign up for everything to get the daily spam email in which there is the 99% off coupon.
There is a quote from Russ Vought, the OMB Chief, saying that :
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains ... We want to put them in trauma.”
Any workplace that doesn't put tea and coffee in its staffroom doesn't value its staff.
Having a pop at the Live Nation / Ticketmaster monopoly is another...I have just been quoted $500 per ticket for an concert in the US for an artist that isn't even Taylor Swift or whatever, just because Live Nation can. Its starting to happen here now as well.
so given that they have control of Kent how are they in Kent going to manage their newly implemented rule that all asylum seekers arriving in Kent should remain there.
There's also a problem that any council encouraging asylum seekers to disappear into the community might find itself in various legal difficulties.
Anyway, point is that this county *is* broken, and asylum seekers wind people up. So what do we do? You propose crayon policies, taking the essence of reality and selectively pulling at bits of it so that the “solution” sounds great on paper until you actually think through the detail.
How do we remove the asylum seekers? This is the challenge now being faced by MAGA, where they’re publicly acting like banhammers to performatively look like they’re citing whereas the reality is that “just send them home” needs a vast logistical operation they are incapable of thinking through.
He's got several objectives:
1 - Media: Keep the asylum issue (and Reform talking points) at the front of the news.
2 - Create narratives around Keir Starmer as "soft on asylum seekers".
3 - Keep his supporters engaged and wanting more.
In terms of practicalities:
1 - Expensive.
2 - Tactics borrowed from both Trump and the likes of Greenpeace opposing development. Delay delay delay and make it expensive for the Govt to do.
3 - Judicial Reviews will struggle, as there are objective tests around starting the process.
4 - They will try things around Change of Use, maybe Article 4 Directions (eg ban HMOs from a postcode without PP, then refuse to give PP - as used on Student Houses.) That will force decisions to be Planning Inspectorate or call-in by the Minister, which feeds narrative 2 and feeds "we are the resistance" - Nimby tactics.
5 - "Injunctions" looks speculative. They also have objective tests.
6 - They will also be looking at things like PSPOs and "Anti-Social Behaviour". PSPOs are very easy to manipulate by a Council majority who have a target in mind. And also certain aspects of rental law.
Being a scientist we used to make our own coffees in the prep room.
Surely if there is so much waste, the Refukkers have a long list of things they want to cut, beyond the DEI officers of course.
Or that the ever increasing financial misbehaviour and general dishonesty of Boris in particular and the Conservatives in general was also hurting them electorally.
Offshore processing. Immediate deportation to somewhere faraway and dismal (but safe) where it will take a year or two. Maybe for 3-4 years we suspend asylum altogether except for unique cases: Ukraine, HK
It will be bloody expensive and a hassle. But then, taking in tens of thousands of asylum seekers and putting them in hotels is costing us literal billions and it’s getting worse and it is breeding vast social discontent
Also, I am pretty sure that after a few months of this - maybe weeks - when the asylum seekers and the gangs realise that crossing the channel is pointless they will simply stop. The boats will stop. The problem will thus solve itself
The advent of the boat people mean it's someone smoking a crack pipe every morning
If there is a market on the ‘specific premises’ targeted by the Iranian terrorists, can I have ten pounds on the Iranian Embassy, please?
If it means suspending the HRA then get on with it. The alternative is Nige as PM who will send us down the Trump path.
“So, they illegally land on your beaches, why don’t you stop them”
“Because we’re worried they will drown.”
“Ok, that’s very generous, but they’re still illegal. Then they go to jail?”
“No.”
“Some kind of camp, an open prison then?”
“No. We put them in hotels. Often quite nice hotels”
“What?? But what about the British people, who use the hotel?”
“They’re not allowed to use it any more. Only asylum
seekers can use it”
Head:desk
“But how do the illegal asylum seekers pay for a nice hotel???”
“They don’t. The local British people who can no longer use the hotel pay for the illegal migrants to live in the hotel. It costs us £4bn a year and rising but it’s ok because the illegal migrants get better healthcare and dental care than British people”
“Let me guess, you Brits pay for that, as well?”
“Yes”
The basic problem with that is that Councils need 30-40% MORE money, not 30-40% less, to deliver decent, effective services - and just to put them back where they were 15 or so years ago.
If only PB had a journalist used to 4*+ accommodation and interest in exotic people's to do an under cover report from these facilities. I expect the room service for that G and T will be very poor indeed.
If Boris had managed self-control the Conservatives would likely have won in 2024.
In the early days, the really lavish perks were less about being perks and more about nudging you into staying in the office longer as no need to cook, do you laundry, etc.
Anywhere that is a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to agree to the scheme. Or do you think that being unkeen on foreign people is a uniquely British trait?
Anywhere that isn't a well-functioning democracy is unlikely to be safe. I mean, look around the world.
There may be a place where the two grey areas overlap, but it's not clear where.
https://secure.telegraph.co.uk/customer/subscribe/
And, likesay, once the “asylum seekers” realise they’ve ALL got to spend 2 years in the far south Atlantic then the boats will stop by themselves quite quickly
Job done
From the perspective of those countries they have 2 reasons to accept people.
1: Money. They get paid to accept people and they can do with the money.
2: The people don't want to go there in the first place, so will then typically ASAP get out of the country and try their luck somewhere else.
They're basically acting like a glorified bus stop. We pay them to move on the individuals, the individuals get moved on, they take the money but don't get overly concerned with what happens to the individuals next.
Perhaps Reform would like to crack down on this massive waste of resources.
https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/05/miami-grand-prix-2025-pre-race.html
I hear @kinabalu is in retirement. But so were Schwarzenegger, Willis, Stallone in most of their movies.
Time to send Kinabalu for one last job: Lincolnshire council.
I and many of my former Tory colleagues are not unsympathetic to the aspirations of the new Reform Councillors even if we can't abide Farage himself.
But what is to befall these councils where the entire controlling group is new to and ignorant of local government ?
You just have to go over to Guido to see some of the fundamental misconceptions of these people.
Presumably they will be able to scrabble together a Cabinet with some mainly ex-councillors. But how about a leader, deputy leader, chair and VC of Planning and Licencing. Scrutiny ? forget that, always was a way to sideline arseholes.
These people don't seem to be aware of Audit Committees, or Standards. Ironically these can at lease be lead by opposition councillors, and should be.
I know some of the councillors won't hack it. Fortunately for Reform their majorities are usually so great they can have half the councillors just attending every couple of months. That isn't an anti Reform point, a third of councillors are simply too think to do anything beyond sticking up their hand, that was always true and of all parties.
I have yet to meet a Green councillor who meets the basic competency threshold. The couple I saw wouldn't even have been able to brew a cup of tea a la Rachel Reeves.
I know the Tories will have to go for the by-elections which will inevitably follow this coup. Hopefully at least a portion of the electorate will be ready for some measure of competence by then.
He then proceeded slowly and surely to lose that polling bounce and return to polling at mid-Truss bond crisis levels, despite there being no crisis. That polling decline is owned entirely by Sunak - it cannot be blamed on Truss, because there was a polling recovery after she left. If the polling had never recovered from the Truss Government, it would be legitimate to blame that Government.
Or if the Sunak recovery had just flattened at its high point and had never achieved anything higher, that could also be blamed on Truss, because you could argue that her crisis had placed a ceiling on the Tory vote.
But Sunak's decline from Sunak's own poll bounce can only be blamed on Sunak. It was based on bread and butter issues of living in Britain during a cost of living crisis and the Government was perceived (rightly in my view) to be managing decline and failing on the main issues of the day.
I expect it to be utter chaos.
TBF the comments will also include a fair proportion of bots from various place there to stir up patianship.
"Labour on the 'VERGE' of local EXTINCTION after party suffers HUGE blow in recent elections"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsUdNtkWwbg
eg
- @thetimeisnow6822 1 day ago
STARMER IS DELUSIONAL
Everything that he says is the TOTAL OPPOSITE OF REALITY"
- @mrseddie5971 1 day ago
Wages are up more than prices was my personal favourite
(Note: wages are up more than prices.)
- @oriel229 21 hours ago
NHS waiting lists DOWN???? NOBODY is going to buy that lie.
- @janeevans1859
- 12 hours ago
@oriel229 why are the lists so high? I don’t get it
- @einsam_aber_frei 10 hours ago
NHS waiting list is getting shorter because those can’t wait has passed away.
(Note: lists are down, but there's a smidge of truth in the last comment.)
As I see it, Lab needs a media person, and some clued-up communicators - just for a start.
In unrelated news, how is its sale going?
They occasionally give the elected people little jobs to do, but thankfully not often. I exaggerate but not much.
Few elected people could reliably tell you whether a bridge on a country back road is going to collapse under the weight of X tons. Lives depend on these people. Some elected people don't understand a 100 page budget either.
The Reunion on R4 was quite interesting. Clegg apparently lacked the bottle to make it clear to Brown that any deal with Labour would mean his going.
Danny Alexander had to do so - and Brown pretended not to have heard.
1) I think Thatcher would have stayed on as LOTO. The tradition of dumping a leader after a single unsuccessful election (or even an anticipated defeat) is a very recent one. Both Wilson and Heath fought several elections, as did Attlee and Churchill in the 1950s.
2) I think membership of the EEC (as then was) would have divided Callaghans party as much as it divided the Tories in the 2010s. The Gang of Four broke away from the Labour Party as much over Euroscepticism in the Labour Party as anything else.
3) Whilst militant trade unions were part of the industrial malaise of the 70s and early 80s, the other reasons for the malaise would still be there, in particular short termist management, an over valued pound (because of that North Sea Oil) and the international stagflation (it did in Carter too), so deindustrialisation would still have happened.
3) Argentina invaded the Falklands for its own reasons, so still would have done so. The Falklands debate in 1982 had another very good Foot* speech. Far from being defeatist, Foot was as jingoistic as any Tory. Foot was very anti-appeasement, making his name calling out the guilty men appeasing the Nazis, but LOTO Thatcher would have backed sending the fleet.
*Foot would fairly certainly been in Callaghans cabinet, alongside Benn and Healey.
4) So I would see the 1983 election not so much as a khaki election, but one where the choice was between a Labour Party running out of ideas, broken over Europe, and blamed for continuing stagnation and rising unemployment, vs a strident Thatcher enamoured with monetarily ideas, fervently pro EEC and pointing to the success or Reagan as an example.
So Thatcher takes power in 1983, and starts from there. The march of history is fundamentally the same, the timetable delayed 4 years, and perhaps the EU being the chillies heel of Labour rather than the Tories for the next decades.
I have lived in an area where one party had control, but couldn't keep Councillors, so there was always, shortly before election time, a desperate search in the local relevant political club for someone, anyone, who would stand in X, Y and Z wards. And if these people hung about, on the Buggins Turn principle, they got to be Chairman. (Or woman, although in my experience the real deadbeats were usually male.)
Shambles.
1. We're prioritising welfare on the people who really need it. So Winter Fuel Allowance, which goes to everyone including people who don't need it, is not as good as welfare that makes a big difference to those that need it, eg Pension Credit take-up.
Or
2. The welfare budget is unsustainable given our fiscal position, which means have to reduce costs, while making sure that the people most in need continue to get the help they need.
Saying this is the right thing but change takes time is meaningless.
1 - The whole thing had been consulted on, and supported by, Rishi Sunak's Government, in which Jenrick (not sure about Philp) was a Minister.
2 - They did not present a shred of evidence to support their claims that a "problem" existed.
Jenrick was trying to leverage the trope of "racial discrimination against white men", getting the poor darlings to feel oppressed by comparing them with, depending on channel, black people, disabled people, and women.
It's the normal tactic of that type of politics. Firstly, convince your target group that they are victims. Secondly, justify it by creating an "other" for them to resent. Thirdly, get them to follow you down your rabbit hole and become your mushrooms.
https://x.com/timespolitics/status/1918739593735577955
It will be all the responsibility stuff, audit, scrutiny and appeals panels, that will be the problem. Not glamorous, very time-consuming, but the bulk of what backbench councillors do these days.
As for policy... What normally happens when the members aren't up to it is that the officers run the show. We've seen that in here in Havering since the Residents' Association has taken control. The catch is that Reform's whole raison d'etre is to shake things up and not listen to the technocrats.
Buckle up, everyone, even those of you who think that is nanny state nonsense.
Romanians vote in election that could propel ultranationalist Trump ally to power
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/04/romania-election-ultranationalist-trump-ally-george-simion
At least he's not pro-Moscow.
I see Staffs first new policy is to sack all the "diversity officers".
Unfortunately, they don't have any.
Next will be to recruit auditors.
Why did no one ever think of auditing a Council's budget before?
Personally, I think a 1978 election would have led to a hung parliament, and not another Labour victory.
By that time the country was changing fast and Labour was simply behind the times.