Excitable prediction of the day. If there is even a scintilla of truth in it, UKIP are an obvious buy on the spread markets.
Paul Waugh retweeted
BBC Radio Kent @BBCRADIOKENT · 10 hrs10 hours ago Matthew Goodwin says if UKIP win there is a risk the floodgates will open - could be more than 40 defections. #RSVOTE
Only 38 MPs voted against passing power over Justice and Home Affairs to the EU. MPs who did not oppose that probably wouldn't be acceptable to UKIP.
IMO, UKIP should not run candidates against those 38. Any other Conservative "Eurosceptic" is fair game.
ECJ rules that EU migrants are not eligible for German benefits. Quite a turn up because this sets a real precedent. If its good enough for the a Germans is good enough for us.
Actually I work quite a bit in Germany and my German colleagues here in the UK. We have always agreed that the movement of the workforce is a very good thing however purely economic migrants are not. In other words have a job to come too before you arrive. Stop giving people houses and money when they arrive in the back of lorry's and deport to the last known country ( ok the final one is tricky)
You seem to be conflating two different things there: Moving somewhere to claim benefits and moving somewhere to find a job.
The latter is a key part of movement of the workforce: Job-hunting in a foreign country without being there is way harder than just going there and doing it, even with the internet.
We won't ever solve the deficit unless we solve the immigration crisis. 120 bn a decade is the best case scenario for the cost of non EU immigration. We will have to cut social provision to just a basic level if we continue on as we are, the Conservative party is just as dishonest on this as the Labour party even if they have at least have reintroduced some restrictions.
What are you going to do about he native population crisis? They cost £591 billion over the same period.
Stop importing immigrants that undercut them and force them on to unemployment and low wage benefits?
Doesn't work, you reduce economic activity and move the jobs out of the country.
Big deal , at present we are paying for them twice in any case. If they go we at least only have to pay once.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
The eligibility of in work benefits might be a bigger issue for the UK.
"there were 5.3 million working age benefit claimants at February 2014 – a decrease of 386,000 in the year to February 2014"
That looks like a pretty good story to me if we look at the overall picture rather than cherrypicking statistics to paint a doom-and-gloom picture. It certainly doesn't suggest that migrants are forcing British people into benefits.
You're highlighting 5 million people of working age, are on out of work benefits.
That's not a statistic that supports open door immigration.
Since it's dropping fairly rapidly while we have what you would no doubt consider to be open door immigration, it seems to me to support current immigration policies perfectly well.
It is a disgrace that we have so many people apparently unable to perform valuable work, but we must deal with the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be. Wishing them to be capable of performing valuable work will not make them capable of performing valuable work. They are going to need longer term help to get back into the workplace (help that will in some cases be supplied by immigrants, incidentally).
While these numbers are falling, it cannot sensibly be said that immigration is harming these people's work chances.
'What can we learn betting wise when eminent logic has failed spectacularly?'
By-elections as with the Euro elections are a free hit,nothing is going to change so voters act accordingly.
Keep believing that and I predict you will lose a lot of money at the GE
Nevertheless, Mike and richard are fabled political gamblers, and I think they were aware this was a by election, and took that into account don't you?
So why were they so wrong?
Are you not looking at things through Ukip tinged glasses though - is that a good betting strategy?
Well I actually do use the Euros as a decent pointer for the by elections, and, combined with 2010 results as pointers for next years GE. A lot of people dismiss the euros as insignificant, but I think that is the same lazy thinking that enabled me to lay ukip under 10% on here at 4/6 last year
I only really look at ukip friendly seats as I have been researching them in particular, so yes most bets are 'back ukip' or 'don't bet'
But I have to say the strategy has worked very well so far. I don't bet with any tinted glasses, just my own milk bottles! I don't bet with my heart except in small stakes for bravado on occasions here
ECJ rules that EU migrants are not eligible for German benefits. Quite a turn up because this sets a real precedent. If its good enough for the a Germans is good enough for us.
Actually I work quite a bit in Germany and my German colleagues here in the UK. We have always agreed that the movement of the workforce is a very good thing however purely economic migrants are not. In other words have a job to come too before you arrive. Stop giving people houses and money when they arrive in the back of lorry's and deport to the last known country ( ok the final one is tricky)
Seems an obvious solution really. Why are we paying for hotels in France so they can wash and change before boarding the nearest lorry in Calais?
No doubt this makes me a racist and a little Englander.
Excellent news for David Cameron if accurate. I would certainly agree free movement of labour is a good thing if people are moving from job to job across the EU. I think you get into choppier waters when dismissing all economic migrants. The truth is economic migration is often disguised as visiting the family - that's what Mrs Stodge did when she first came here from NZ - she didn't have a job and on your basis wouldn't have been allowed in.
I suspect that's increasingly true of other migrants. The younger ones come over and find work and then bring over their parents and the old men finish up drinking on the street corner or outside the bookies. As for the non-EU migrants, it's back then to Fortress Europe with a huge NATO naval presence in the Med to stop boats coming from North Africa or do we try something else ?
Excitable prediction of the day. If there is even a scintilla of truth in it, UKIP are an obvious buy on the spread markets.
Paul Waugh retweeted
BBC Radio Kent @BBCRADIOKENT · 10 hrs10 hours ago Matthew Goodwin says if UKIP win there is a risk the floodgates will open - could be more than 40 defections. #RSVOTE
Only 38 MPs voted against passing power over Justice and Home Affairs to the EU. MPs who did not oppose that probably wouldn't be acceptable to UKIP.
IMO, UKIP should not run candidates against those 38. Any other Conservative "Eurosceptic" is fair game.
I haven't checked the list but based on the principle that where you sit determines where you stand, I'd imagine UKIP would have to give up a lot of their best pickup opportunities if they wanted to give the 38 a clear run.
Where I part company with the Osbornians is in two aspects of the recovery - first, the jobs created seem to be overwhelmingly low-paid so are not helping the overall public finance problem. Indeed, some of those now in work can still claim benefits and aren't paying much if anything in tax. The second aspect is that while labour is so cheap and plentiful to hire, there's little incentive for companies to make the serious capital investment in technology that would move them forward.
This rather undermines the notion of one third of jobs being carried out by robots in the next 20 years - is that just one third of all writers or one third of all jobs done by people called Robert ?
As for the polls, huge divergence again yesterday - Ashcroft had the duopoly at 59%, ICM at 63 and Populus at 70. Statistically, that's absurd - I assume some of the gap could be down to weightings and other methodology but it still seems vast.
Productivity is key and a major worry, symptomatic of our policies of deskilling our workforce due to low IQ immigration and expanding the labour pool de-incentivising capital investment.
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
The eligibility of in work benefits might be a bigger issue for the UK.
"there were 5.3 million working age benefit claimants at February 2014 – a decrease of 386,000 in the year to February 2014"
That looks like a pretty good story to me if we look at the overall picture rather than cherrypicking statistics to paint a doom-and-gloom picture. It certainly doesn't suggest that migrants are forcing British people into benefits.
HMG claimed it created 598,000 new jobs last year, if only 386,000 people came off benefit, 212,000 jobs were taken by people not on benefits (ie migrants), those 212,000 jobs could have been taken by British people, but werent.
Lord AshcroftVerified account @LordAshcroft The Ashcroft poll of Rochester & Strood will be released at 4pm today. Reminder it's a snapshot not a prediction!!
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
The eligibility of in work benefits might be a bigger issue for the UK.
"there were 5.3 million working age benefit claimants at February 2014 – a decrease of 386,000 in the year to February 2014"
That looks like a pretty good story to me if we look at the overall picture rather than cherrypicking statistics to paint a doom-and-gloom picture. It certainly doesn't suggest that migrants are forcing British people into benefits.
I thought people subject to benefit sanctions and or persuaded to become self employed whilst still doing nothing were excluded. These amount to well over 400.000 if true
The Labour lady supported by the Lib Dem in the Rochester debate-seemingly against the tide-made a strong case for EU immigration. They argued that public services owe a massive debt to the efforts of immigrants and without them our public services would collapse. The audience gave her the cheer of the night.
It occured to me that perhaps it's time for those who don't take the narrow UKIP/Tory view to go on the offensive. There was this ad from the 70's that might be the way to go
Open Europe @OpenEurope 33m33 minutes ago #BREAKING: #ECJ rules that it is lawful to exclude EU migrants from receiving German unemployment benefits (HartzIV). #Germany
Playing right into Farage's hands - oh wait..
Benefits aren't the issue when migrants are forcing british people into them
With Britain having record absolute numbers of people in employment and rapidly approaching record percentages of people in employment, fortunately that seems to be an entirely theoretical problem.
The eligibility of in work benefits might be a bigger issue for the UK.
"there were 5.3 million working age benefit claimants at February 2014 – a decrease of 386,000 in the year to February 2014"
That looks like a pretty good story to me if we look at the overall picture rather than cherrypicking statistics to paint a doom-and-gloom picture. It certainly doesn't suggest that migrants are forcing British people into benefits.
HMG claimed it created 598,000 new jobs last year, if only 386,000 people came off benefit, 212,000 jobs were taken by people not on benefits (ie migrants), those 212,000 jobs could have been taken by British people, but werent.
Two obvious flaws in your logic:
1) you assume that all of those jobs could have been filled by British people 2) you assume that none of those jobs were themselves created by immigrants (directly or indirectly)
Betfair's implied probabilities for GE2010, as at mid-November 2009:
Con Maj 72% Hung Parliament 22%
On the current situation, I agree with Nick P that the implied probability for Hung Parliament is too high. That means one or both of Con Maj/Lab Maj are more likely than the markets are currently showing, and the one which looks more wrong is Con Maj.
Productivity is key and a major worry, symptomatic of our policies of deskilling our workforce due to low IQ immigration and expanding the labour pool de-incentivising capital investment.
I believe there's plenty of statistical evidence that even though the number of hours worked has risen, the productivity levels have either stagnated or actually fallen.
It does, as you say, raise some questions about capital investment, training and r&d across the whole economy. I'll be honest - although in some respects, the technology I work with is light years ahead of where it was, in many respects it hasn't. Take out the keyboard and replace with a typewriter and it's the same in many businesses.
There's a lot of really good stuff out there but people seem locked into some archaic workplace cultures.
I do appreciate the solutions are not as simple and agree your various points. There are easy ways to differentiate though and I doubt Mrs Stodge entered clinging to the back of an P&O container box.
On the other hand the challenge of finding work is indeed increased if you are not there in the country concerned. Other countries manage this process quite well such as the USA and even AUstralia. It just seems we are a soft touch for anyone that comes our way and at the end of the day all of us are paying for that. Once they are on our soil they become our problem.
We are now being blamed for the build up in France despite the fact is no our borders they all crossed before they arrive at the Calais Hilton.
I've just watched the panel of candidates for Rochester and Strood which Andy kindly posted (post 1 on this thread).
I have to say Mark Reckless is an impressive candidate. The Labour lady is also good. The big surprise though is how badly the Conservative candidate comes accross. Sneering and aggressive. With this candidate I can't see the Tories standing a chance.
If this is the result of open primaries then better the old system of a panel who can consider personality and who can see at close quarters how suitable or unsuitable a candidate might be
Roger in Tories are awful shocker. No surprise there. No doubt you will soon be telling us what an asset Bercow is to the HOC.
Roger would never (From what I have noted in his posts) vote UKIP or Conservative so I think he is telling it as he sees it between Reckless and Tolhurst.
Rog and Rod agree.
1m Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson After watching the Rochester candidates' debate, Rod Liddle expects UKIP will win by 10,000. His report: http://specc.ie/1xtC5dq
Reckless is the sort of candidate that the majority want as their MP.
An MP that does spectacular U turns over housing developments? One does wonder about the constituents in Rochester.
I've always wanted a snivelling coward who lies then jumps ship at the first whiff that he might lose his cushy gig as an MP - who hasn't ?
Ha Ha. That's pretty much what Watcher's better half spat at the TV screen last night when Carswell appeared on News at Ten. Surprised me, as I'm normally on the receiving end of an admonishment for getting worked up about similar things.
Hardens my view that we need to turf most MP's out. Or lock them up in the HoC and throw away the key.
I include Forage and Co in that list of undesirables - they're part of the problem however much he likes to play the Anti-Establsihment figure. Dulwich, The City, Freemasonry and lunches in Whites and Brooks with his puppet masters are very much the opposite of what he claims to be.
There's a ridiculous news story about a falconry centre in Puxton where single men without children are banned, because they might be a paedophile.
Fundamentally it will come down to legal exposure.
If the park didn't have that policy and, God forbid, an attack took place on their premises, I'd expect they would be sued to high heaven. It's in their interests to minimise that risk.
Where I part company with the Osbornians is in two aspects of the recovery - first, the jobs created seem to be overwhelmingly low-paid so are not helping the overall public finance problem. Indeed, some of those now in work can still claim benefits and aren't paying much if anything in tax. The second aspect is that while labour is so cheap and plentiful to hire, there's little incentive for companies to make the serious capital investment in technology that would move them forward.
This rather undermines the notion of one third of jobs being carried out by robots in the next 20 years - is that just one third of all writers or one third of all jobs done by people called Robert ?
As for the polls, huge divergence again yesterday - Ashcroft had the duopoly at 59%, ICM at 63 and Populus at 70. Statistically, that's absurd - I assume some of the gap could be down to weightings and other methodology but it still seems vast.
Productivity is key and a major worry, symptomatic of our policies of deskilling our workforce due to low IQ immigration and expanding the labour pool de-incentivising capital investment.
Low IQ immigration was a political decision taken by the Labour party to shore up their vote.
Betfair's implied probabilities for GE2010, as at mid-November 2009:
Con Maj 72% Hung Parliament 22%
On the current situation, I agree with Nick P that the implied probability for Hung Parliament is too high. That means one or both of Con Maj/Lab Maj are more likely than the markets are currently showing, and the one which looks more wrong is Con Maj.
I thought people subject to benefit sanctions and or persuaded to become self employed whilst still doing nothing were excluded. These amount to well over 400.000 if true
"Employment had continued to increase robustly, both in numbers employed and hours worked, and by more than the Committee had expected at the time of the May Report. In the three months to April, the number of people in employment had risen by almost 350,000, the strongest increase on record and one largely accounted for by a pickup in full-time employees. Average hours worked had also risen further."
"A striking feature of the recent labour market data had been the strength in self-employment. Self-employment had risen by over 200,000 in the three months to January at the same time as there had been a fall in the number of employees. And self-employment had accounted for almost half of the rise in employment since 2010. It was possible that some of the increase had come about in reaction to benefit caps, changes in pension entitlements and rules surrounding access to in-work benefits. A key question was whether the amount of slack in the labour market was understated by measured unemployment, as might be the case if many of the self-employed were underemployed and searching for work as employees. There was some evidence against this. First, part of the rise in self-employment appeared to be a continuation of a longer-term secular trend, rather than a cyclical response to a lack of other employment opportunities. Consistent with that, higher self-employment did not appear to have been associated with inflows of people recently made redundant. Second, survey evidence suggested that the self-employed were only slightly more likely to be looking for another job than were employees.For some, self-employment might have been chosen as an alternative to retirement, rather than as an alternative to employment. Nevertheless, it was possible that some of the self-employed were underemployed and would be more productive as employees were more jobs to become available. Members of the Committee held a range of views about the extent to which self-employment represented a form of labour market slack. They noted that this would be tested when more jobs became available."
Betfair's implied probabilities for GE2010, as at mid-November 2009:
Con Maj 72% Hung Parliament 22%
On the current situation, I agree with Nick P that the implied probability for Hung Parliament is too high. That means one or both of Con Maj/Lab Maj are more likely than the markets are currently showing, and the one which looks more wrong is Con Maj.
I can't see a CON majority but I'm not going to lay off at 6.8 !
NOM +188 Con Maj +100 Lab Maj -245 feels OK for the main market at this stage.
You only need a job paying £20,500 to come here and a multinational company willing to sponsor you, so not really that difficult.
If you work for a multinational company that wants to move you to Britain then it's not very difficult. If you're a normal educated person, however, it is. This is a deliberate policy to stop people coming to Britain to work, and it's somewhat effective in doing that.
There are some arguments in favour of that policy, but you shouldn't be surprised if having shut those people out while you let in your Bangladeshi housewives you end up with a net deficit.
I just checked it again. £20,500 is enough on a skilled visa with any job offer and sponsorship - not necessarily a MNC.
A job offer and sponsorship is a huge pain in the arse for a small business, and basically impossible if you're self-employed. The system's designed for (mainly large) companies to say, "I need to bring in that particular person from overseas, and I need them so much that I'll jump through a bunch of hoops to get them", not to allow people to move to Britain and find jobs.
A lot of people will agree with that system, but like I say don't be surprised that the people you wouldn't let in don't pay you taxes.
If a small business wants someone high skilled, and can't get them here, they will quite happily fill out a few forms and pay a few hundred quid. The fact is that you need to be about two thirds up the income distribution to be a net benefit to the exchequer in this country, over a lifetime, and we are continuing to let in people earning substantially less than that. People like you just want more immigration and will come up with these superficial arguments to justify it, and then refuse to listen when someone else deconstructs them.
It's not just a few forms and a few hundred quid, it's a few forms, who knows how much money, and an unspecified amount of time, when the reason to hire is because you don't have enough time to do the work you need done. Not to mention you had to find the particular person you want to hire in the first place. This isn't a superficial argument - it's a huge disincentive to hiring people from overseas. I don't know why you can't see this - the disincentive is there by design. It's the whole point of the policy.
If the policy was to allow above-average earners into the country so they'd be a net benefit to the exchequer, you wouldn't need any of that sponsorship bureaucracy. You'd just show up at a foreign embassy with evidence of what you were currently earning and they'd give you a visa.
There's a ridiculous news story about a falconry centre in Puxton where single men without children are banned, because they might be a paedophile.
Fundamentally it will come down to legal exposure.
If the park didn't have that policy and, God forbid, an attack took place on their premises, I'd expect they would be sued to high heaven. It's in their interests to minimise that risk.
I do appreciate the solutions are not as simple and agree your various points. There are easy ways to differentiate though and I doubt Mrs Stodge entered clinging to the back of an P&O container box.
On the other hand the challenge of finding work is indeed increased if you are not there in the country concerned. Other countries manage this process quite well such as the USA and even AUstralia. It just seems we are a soft touch for anyone that comes our way and at the end of the day all of us are paying for that. Once they are on our soil they become our problem.
We are now being blamed for the build up in France despite the fact is no our borders they all crossed before they arrive at the Calais Hilton.
*little Englander mode off*
Indeed not in the case of Mrs Stodge but she was an economic migrant. She came to the UK to look for work because she couldn't find any in NZ at that time (late 1980s).
In truth, we could argue the non-EU migrant has "crossed our border" as soon as they've entered the EU because once inside the EU they can go more or less anywhere it seems.
We therefore need to be helping those trying to prevent the migration in Africa rather than worrying about it at Calais - the Government seems not to want to be involved in all that though.
Lord AshcroftVerified account @LordAshcroft The Ashcroft poll of Rochester & Strood will be released at 4pm today. Reminder it's a snapshot not a prediction!!
Yep after yesterday in parliament the end result will be an even bigger Tory loss...
In truth, we could argue the non-EU migrant has "crossed our border" as soon as they've entered the EU because once inside the EU they can go more or less anywhere it seems.
I do appreciate the solutions are not as simple and agree your various points. There are easy ways to differentiate though and I doubt Mrs Stodge entered clinging to the back of an P&O container box.
On the other hand the challenge of finding work is indeed increased if you are not there in the country concerned. Other countries manage this process quite well such as the USA and even AUstralia. It just seems we are a soft touch for anyone that comes our way and at the end of the day all of us are paying for that. Once they are on our soil they become our problem.
We are now being blamed for the build up in France despite the fact is no our borders they all crossed before they arrive at the Calais Hilton.
*little Englander mode off*
Indeed not in the case of Mrs Stodge but she was an economic migrant. She came to the UK to look for work because she couldn't find any in NZ at that time (late 1980s).
In truth, we could argue the non-EU migrant has "crossed our border" as soon as they've entered the EU because once inside the EU they can go more or less anywhere it seems.
We therefore need to be helping those trying to prevent the migration in Africa rather than worrying about it at Calais - the Government seems not to want to be involved in all that though.
Actually Mrs Stodge is from a commonwealth country so doesn't really apply (to a point).
Where I part company with the Osbornians is in two aspects of the recovery - first, the jobs created seem to be overwhelmingly low-paid so are not helping the overall public finance problem. Indeed, some of those now in work can still claim benefits and aren't paying much if anything in tax. The second aspect is that while labour is so cheap and plentiful to hire, there's little incentive for companies to make the serious capital investment in technology that would move them forward.
This rather undermines the notion of one third of jobs being carried out by robots in the next 20 years - is that just one third of all writers or one third of all jobs done by people called Robert ?
As for the polls, huge divergence again yesterday - Ashcroft had the duopoly at 59%, ICM at 63 and Populus at 70. Statistically, that's absurd - I assume some of the gap could be down to weightings and other methodology but it still seems vast.
Productivity is key and a major worry, symptomatic of our policies of deskilling our workforce due to low IQ immigration and expanding the labour pool de-incentivising capital investment.
I thought the figures showed immigrants were more likely to have a degree that Brits. Not altogether surprising of course, given that immigrants are younger, but IIRC it still apllies if you compare immigrants with their British age group.
I seem to dimly recall, from my time in SE Lancs in the 60’s, that immigrants were employed to keep night-shifts going.
You only need a job paying £20,500 to come here and a multinational company willing to sponsor you, so not really that difficult.
If you work for a multinational company that wants to move you to Britain then it's not very difficult. If you're a normal educated person, however, it is. This is a deliberate policy to stop people coming to Britain to wot deficit.
I just checked it again. £20,500 is enough on a skilled visa with any job offer and sponsorship - not necessarily a MNC.
A job offer and sponsorship is a huge pain in the arse for a small business, and basically impossible if you're self-employed. The system's designed for (mainly large) companies to say, "I need to bring in that particular person from overseas, and I need them so much that I'll jump through a bunch of hoops to get them", not to allow people to move to Britain and find jobs.
A lot of people will agree with that system, but like I say don't be surprised that the people you wouldn't let in don't pay you taxes.
If a small business wants someone high skilled, and can't get them here, they will quite happily fill out a few forms and pay a few hundred quid. The fact is that you need to be about two thirds up the income distribution to be a net benefit to the exchequer in this country, over a lifetime, and we are continuing to let in people earning substantially less than that. People like you just want more immigration and will come up with these superficial arguments to justify it, and then refuse to listen when someone else deconstructs them.
It's not just a few forms and a few hundred quid, it's a few forms, who knows how much money, and an unspecified amount of time, when the reason to hire is because you don't have enough time to do the work you need done. Not to mention you had to find the particular person you want to hire in the first place. This isn't a superficial argument - it's a huge disincentive to hiring people from overseas. I don't know why you can't see this - the disincentive is there by design. It's the whole point of the policy.
If the policy was to allow above-average earners into the country so they'd be a net benefit to the exchequer, you wouldn't need any of that sponsorship bureaucracy. You'd just show up at a foreign embassy with evidence of what you were currently earning and they'd give you a visa.
Perhaps it might be easier to hire and train a local then, clearly the business does not have a compelling need to employ a foreigner if they can't be bothered to fill in a few forms.
It seems a lot of people on here are way to the left of The Guardian when it comes to the effects of economic migration
'This year I visited Wisbech – where a third of the 30,000 population is now estimated to be from overseas – and what was happening there spoke loud truths about why free movement has become so politicised. For all that recently arrived families have started to settle, and their children are acquiring new, hybrid identities, there are still glaring problems. Young men from eastern Europe often live four or five to a room, and work impossibly long hours; with echoes of Europe’s macroeconomic asymmetries, the local labour market is divided between insufficient jobs that be can be done by people with families and mortgages, and a surfeit of opportunities for those who will work whenever they are required for a relative pittance.
This creates endless tension. There have also been inevitable problems surrounding how far schools and doctors’ surgeries have been stretched. Is anyone surprised? Moreover, even if such places represent socioeconomic extremes, similar problems surface whenever large-scale migration fuses with the more precarious parts of the economy. In modern Britain, this obviously happens often, and the under-reported consequences of austerity have hardly helped.
What passes for the modern left tends to be far too blase about all this. Perhaps those who reduce people’s worries and fears to mere bigotry should go back to first principles, and consider whether, in such laissez-faire conditions, free movement has been of most benefit to capital or labour. They might also think about the dread spectacle of people from upscale London postcodes passing judgment on people who experience large-scale migration as something real.'
Lord AshcroftVerified account @LordAshcroft The Ashcroft poll of Rochester & Strood will be released at 4pm today. Reminder it's a snapshot not a prediction!!
Yep after yesterday in parliament the end result will be an even bigger Tory loss...
The likes of Cooper should be looking over their shoulders then, whining about the lack of debate, whilst attempting to pull the rug from under any discussion through parliamentary process. Utterly shameful politicking. She was caught out fair and square for this on Today earlier.
Mr Flag, there was a major argument over this a few years ago I seem to recall, regarding appropriately qualified chefs for Indian & Bangladeshi restuarants.
ECJ rules that EU migrants are not eligible for German benefits. Quite a turn up because this sets a real precedent. If its good enough for the a Germans is good enough for us.
Actually I work quite a bit in Germany and my German colleagues here in the UK. We have always agreed that the movement of the workforce is a very good thing however purely economic migrants are not. In other words have a job to come too before you arrive. Stop giving people houses and money when they arrive in the back of lorry's and deport to the last known country ( ok the final one is tricky)
You seem to be conflating two different things there: Moving somewhere to claim benefits and moving somewhere to find a job.
The latter is a key part of movement of the workforce: Job-hunting in a foreign country without being there is way harder than just going there and doing it, even with the internet.
How do you tell the difference at the point of immigration. You only have the immigrants word that he will start looking for a job, and wheezes that attempt to throw people out of X months if they haven't done something by then always fail, often because they have managed to find a partner and arrange to have a "right to family life".
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Higher Corporation Tax does mean pain. There is a trade off.
The pain that comes from lower profits and lower potential profits is a lower share price, less investment and less employment.
In turn lower share price means less capital tains tax; less investment means less tax on profits in future, and less employment means less income tax is paid.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Ha ha it's pretty fundamental this. The left just don;t understand it at all. Ben thinks the tax cut is just money straight into "fat cats" pockets which they immediately blow on ferraris and champagne which never sees the light of day in the economy again, instead of in reality reinvesting it in the economy by hiring more people, expanding, investing. The left would rather all money was controlled by the government, the right wants the government to take a minimum amount to provide the essential services of the state. By those measures all recent governments have been pretty left wing sadly.
Gordon Brown encapsulated it in a nutshell in the TV debates at the last election when he criticised Cameron for his planned non-implementation of some tax rise (I forget the details) as "taking money out of the economy". 180 degrees, 100% wrong. That's your lefty for you.
"The European Court of Justice has ruled that unemployed EU citizens who go to another member state to claim benefits may be barred from some benefits.
The ruling on so-called "benefit tourism", relating to a case in Germany, could set an important legal precedent for the rest of the EU."
There's a ridiculous news story about a falconry centre in Puxton where single men without children are banned, because they might be a paedophile.
Fundamentally it will come down to legal exposure.
If the park didn't have that policy and, God forbid, an attack took place on their premises, I'd expect they would be sued to high heaven. It's in their interests to minimise that risk.
How would you propose to address that problem?
Statutory Right of Equal Access. If you let one sort of person in, you have to let all sorts of people in provided they adhere to the same standards of behaviour etc. It would stop all this silliness about men only golf clubs, and allow places like the falconry centre to disclaim responsibility legally as they wouldn't be able to restrict access in a way that conflicted with that right... Failing that sue the centre for sex discrimination, since the same rules are not applied to women without children - sauce for the goose.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
ECJ rules that EU migrants are not eligible for German benefits. Quite a turn up because this sets a real precedent. If its good enough for the a Germans is good enough for us.
Actually I work quite a bit in Germany and my German colleagues here in the UK. We have always agreed that the movement of the workforce is a very good thing however purely economic migrants are not. In other words have a job to come too before you arrive. Stop giving people houses and money when they arrive in the back of lorry's and deport to the last known country ( ok the final one is tricky)
You seem to be conflating two different things there: Moving somewhere to claim benefits and moving somewhere to find a job.
The latter is a key part of movement of the workforce: Job-hunting in a foreign country without being there is way harder than just going there and doing it, even with the internet.
How do you tell the difference at the point of immigration. You only have the immigrants word that he will start looking for a job, and wheezes that attempt to throw people out of X months if they haven't done something by then always fail, often because they have managed to find a partner and arrange to have a "right to family life".
That's the main point you can't so you don't. Applications should be made in advance and a review of the status made.
Whenever I go abroad especially to work I commonly have to demonstrate in advance I will go home afterwards( return ticket) I have the mean to support myself ( or my company does) etc etc only then can I get the entry visa. Without the visa I don't even make it out of arrivals hall and I would be placed back on the same aircraft I arrived on. Its the airlines then that have the responsibility so they are very careful before you board. In some cases I also had to provide from the government of the country concerned an " ok to board" letter .
The same can be done for someone actively seeking work and there are many of those also.
Simple things that make the border officers job that much easier.
Excitable prediction of the day. If there is even a scintilla of truth in it, UKIP are an obvious buy on the spread markets.
Paul Waugh retweeted
BBC Radio Kent @BBCRADIOKENT · 10 hrs10 hours ago Matthew Goodwin says if UKIP win there is a risk the floodgates will open - could be more than 40 defections. #RSVOTE
Correction from Mr Goodwin:
"I did not actually say this. I said if Ukip win R&S more defections likely. Cd pick defectors from around 40 disgruntled MPs!"
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Ha ha it's pretty fundamental this. The left just don;t understand it at all. Ben thinks the tax cut is just money straight into "fat cats" pockets which they immediately blow on ferraris and champagne which never sees the light of day in the economy again, instead of in reality reinvesting it in the economy by hiring more people, expanding, investing. The left would rather all money was controlled by the government, the right wants the government to take a minimum amount to provide the essential services of the state. By those measures all recent governments have been pretty left wing sadly.
That was the case when the means of production was owned locally, which is not the case now. Back in the 19th & early to mid 20th C, prosperous businesses invested profits locally, eitrher in the business..... increasing factory floor area, buying new machine (usually from local suppliers) etc, or by local charitable activities. Nowadays those profits go off to Switzerland, Luxembourg, Jersey or the Cayman Islands via several consecutive tax dodges without much re-investment locally.
Actually Mrs Stodge is from a commonwealth country so doesn't really apply (to a point).
What then is the difference between an economic migrant from a Commonwealth country and one from within the EU ?
Good question? Little I suspect.
Its not these that I am really concerned about though the original discussion was about the benefits system and the ECJ decision . That alone would make things more balanced it would deter those not genuinely looking for work and that simply is the bottom line.
Where I part company with the Osbornians is in two aspects of the recovery - first, the jobs created seem to be overwhelmingly low-paid so are not helping the overall public finance problem. Indeed, some of those now in work can still claim benefits and aren't paying much if anything in tax. The second aspect is that while labour is so cheap and plentiful to hire, there's little incentive for companies to make the serious capital investment in technology that would move them forward.
This rather undermines the notion of one third of jobs being carried out by robots in the next 20 years - is that just one third of all writers or one third of all jobs done by people called Robert ?
As for the polls, huge divergence again yesterday - Ashcroft had the duopoly at 59%, ICM at 63 and Populus at 70. Statistically, that's absurd - I assume some of the gap could be down to weightings and other methodology but it still seems vast.
Productivity is key and a major worry, symptomatic of our policies of deskilling our workforce due to low IQ immigration and expanding the labour pool de-incentivising capital investment.
I thought the figures showed immigrants were more likely to have a degree that Brits. Not altogether surprising of course, given that immigrants are younger, but IIRC it still apllies if you compare immigrants with their British age group.
I seem to dimly recall, from my time in SE Lancs in the 60’s, that immigrants were employed to keep night-shifts going.
Not all degrees are created equal. When Mrs Indigo came to the UK we tried to get her Electronics degree recognised by IEEE, once they had stopped laughing they told us that she would have to sit the equivalent of the whole of the final two years of a British degree and pass the equivalent exams before they could recognise it.
ECJ rules that EU migrants are not eligible for German benefits. Quite a turn up because this sets a real precedent. If its good enough for the a Germans is good enough for us.
Actually I work quite a bit in Germany and my German colleagues here in the UK. We have always agreed that the movement of the workforce is a very good thing however purely economic migrants are not. In other words have a job to come too before you arrive. Stop giving people houses and money when they arrive in the back of lorry's and deport to the last known country ( ok the final one is tricky)
You seem to be conflating two different things there: Moving somewhere to claim benefits and moving somewhere to find a job.
The latter is a key part of movement of the workforce: Job-hunting in a foreign country without being there is way harder than just going there and doing it, even with the internet.
How do you tell the difference at the point of immigration. You only have the immigrants word that he will start looking for a job, and wheezes that attempt to throw people out of X months if they haven't done something by then always fail, often because they have managed to find a partner and arrange to have a "right to family life".
I'm not sure you could ever really block that wheeze at the border, since Romeo could always get a tourist visa or pull a Brit who's overseas... I bang on about this a lot, but border controls are a lot less useful than a lot of people assume they should be, which is why the press always thinks the Home Secretary is screwing them up. (I've found the same is true of other perimeter defences like firewalls - management will often want to spend more money on them than is useful, while neglecting measures that are more helpful in practice like better passwords...)
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Higher Corporation Tax does mean pain. There is a trade off.
The pain that comes from lower profits and lower potential profits is a lower share price, less investment and less employment.
In turn lower share price means less capital tains tax; less investment means less tax on profits in future, and less employment means less income tax is paid.
No evidence at all of that at the higher rate of course.
The pain certainly has been felt after it was lowered - by lower corporation tax revenues.
Where I part company with the Osbornians is in two aspects of the recovery - first, the jobs created seem to be overwhelmingly low-paid so are not helping the overall public finance problem. Indeed, some of those now in work can still claim benefits and aren't paying much if anything in tax. The second aspect is that while labour is so cheap and plentiful to hire, there's little incentive for companies to make the serious capital investment in technology that would move them forward.
This rather undermines the notion of one third of jobs being carried out by robots in the next 20 years - is that just one third of all writers or one third of all jobs done by people called Robert ?
As for the polls, huge divergence again yesterday - Ashcroft had the duopoly at 59%, ICM at 63 and Populus at 70. Statistically, that's absurd - I assume some of the gap could be down to weightings and other methodology but it still seems vast.
Productivity is key and a major worry, symptomatic of our policies of deskilling our workforce due to low IQ immigration and expanding the labour pool de-incentivising capital investment.
I thought the figures showed immigrants were more likely to have a degree that Brits. Not altogether surprising of course, given that immigrants are younger, but IIRC it still apllies if you compare immigrants with their British age group.
I seem to dimly recall, from my time in SE Lancs in the 60’s, that immigrants were employed to keep night-shifts going.
Not all degrees are created equal. When Mrs Indigo came to the UK we tried to get her Electronics degree recognised by IEEE, once they had stopped laughing they told us that she would have to sit the equivalent of the whole of the final two years of a British degree and pass the equivalent exams before they could recognise it.
Works the other way round too. Try getting a British pharmacy degree accredited in the US!
Excitable prediction of the day. If there is even a scintilla of truth in it, UKIP are an obvious buy on the spread markets.
Paul Waugh retweeted
BBC Radio Kent @BBCRADIOKENT · 10 hrs10 hours ago Matthew Goodwin says if UKIP win there is a risk the floodgates will open - could be more than 40 defections. #RSVOTE
Correction from Mr Goodwin:
"I did not actually say this. I said if Ukip win R&S more defections likely. Cd pick defectors from around 40 disgruntled MPs!"
There's a ridiculous news story about a falconry centre in Puxton where single men without children are banned, because they might be a paedophile.
Fundamentally it will come down to legal exposure.
If the park didn't have that policy and, God forbid, an attack took place on their premises, I'd expect they would be sued to high heaven. It's in their interests to minimise that risk.
How would you propose to address that problem?
So presumably no single male should be employed in any capacity working with children because they might be paedophiles? What about single women without children? Can they not be a danger? Any policy which attributes potential guilt on this basis must surely derogate from fundamental human rights.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Higher Corporation Tax does mean pain. There is a trade off.
The pain that comes from lower profits and lower potential profits is a lower share price, less investment and less employment.
In turn lower share price means less capital tains tax; less investment means less tax on profits in future, and less employment means less income tax is paid.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Higher Corporation Tax does mean pain. There is a trade off.
The pain that comes from lower profits and lower potential profits is a lower share price, less investment and less employment.
In turn lower share price means less capital tains tax; less investment means less tax on profits in future, and less employment means less income tax is paid.
No evidence at all of that at the higher rate of course.
The pain certainly has been felt after it was lowered - by lower corporation tax revenues.
In the case of Starbucks, increasing corporation tax was paid for by reducing staff bonuses, and freezing wages.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Ha ha it's pretty fundamental this. The left just don;t understand it at all. Ben thinks the tax cut is just money straight into "fat cats" pockets which they immediately blow on ferraris and champagne which never sees the light of day in the economy again, instead of in reality reinvesting it in the economy by hiring more people, expanding, investing. The left would rather all money was controlled by the government, the right wants the government to take a minimum amount to provide the essential services of the state. By those measures all recent governments have been pretty left wing sadly.
Gordon Brown encapsulated it in a nutshell in the TV debates at the last election when he criticised Cameron for his planned non-implementation of some tax rise (I forget the details) as "taking money out of the economy". 180 degrees, 100% wrong. That's your lefty for you.
Clearly, the Corporation tax cut has not led to businesses of any size improving their productivity rates. But we do know that pay for senior executives is rocketing. That has to be paid for and if it isn't happening through productivity gains, what is funding it?
There's a ridiculous news story about a falconry centre in Puxton where single men without children are banned, because they might be a paedophile.
Fundamentally it will come down to legal exposure.
If the park didn't have that policy and, God forbid, an attack took place on their premises, I'd expect they would be sued to high heaven. It's in their interests to minimise that risk.
How would you propose to address that problem?
So presumably no single male should be employed in any capacity working with children because they might be paedophiles? What about single women without children? Can they not be a danger? Any policy which attributes potential guilt on this basis must surely derogate from fundamental human rights.
Just to assure people that it doesn’t always apply, I have a (presently unmarried) grandson who is training to be a primary school teacher. His mentor is another male primary school teacher.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Ha ha it's pretty fundamental this. The left just don;t understand it at all. Ben thinks the tax cut is just money straight into "fat cats" pockets which they immediately blow on ferraris and champagne which never sees the light of day in the economy again, instead of in reality reinvesting it in the economy by hiring more people, expanding, investing. The left would rather all money was controlled by the government, the right wants the government to take a minimum amount to provide the essential services of the state. By those measures all recent governments have been pretty left wing sadly.
That was the case when the means of production was owned locally, which is not the case now.
Piffle.
There are still plenty of private and publicly owned businesses in operation, that aren't merely local units of vast tax avoiding corporations. I'm sure someone here will have some numbers in yellow boxes.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Ha ha it's pretty fundamental this. The left just don;t understand it at all. Ben thinks the tax cut is just money straight into "fat cats" pockets which they immediately blow on ferraris and champagne which never sees the light of day in the economy again, instead of in reality reinvesting it in the economy by hiring more people, expanding, investing. The left would rather all money was controlled by the government, the right wants the government to take a minimum amount to provide the essential services of the state. By those measures all recent governments have been pretty left wing sadly.
That was the case when the means of production was owned locally, which is not the case now.
Piffle.
There are still plenty of private and publicly owned businesses in operation, that aren't merely local units of vast tax avoiding corporations. I'm sure someone here will have some numbers in yellow boxes.
'No cover-up found' in abuse review Breaking news No evidence UK Home Office deliberately destroyed files to cover up organised child abuse, Wanless Review finds. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30002908
Clearly, the Corporation tax cut has not led to businesses of any size improving their productivity rates. But we do know that pay for senior executives is rocketing. That has to be paid for and if it isn't happening through productivity gains, what is funding it?
Really? Well my company has ( I own it) and I always try to utilise local labour from IT to everything else. Not always possible but still. Mind you I have had to put the Lamborghini on hold for now to do so and to increase staff morale I have public beatings only once a day now instead of twice daily.
If I recollect correctly you also own or part own a company. I am surprised that you have not seen a similar benefit in one way or another?
Excitable prediction of the day. If there is even a scintilla of truth in it, UKIP are an obvious buy on the spread markets.
Paul Waugh retweeted
BBC Radio Kent @BBCRADIOKENT · 10 hrs10 hours ago Matthew Goodwin says if UKIP win there is a risk the floodgates will open - could be more than 40 defections. #RSVOTE
Correction from Mr Goodwin:
"I did not actually say this. I said if Ukip win R&S more defections likely. Cd pick defectors from around 40 disgruntled MPs!"
twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/532117987869093888
Well that does sound more likely!
Surely it will depend on the scale of the win - a relatively narrow Ukip victory could be followed by defeat in the GE next May. The one valid point the Tory candidate made in an inarticulate performance in the debate overall was to point to the six figure cost of the by-election to the taxpayer. A raft of by-elections in late winter could be seen as self-indulgent and may be counter-productive.
Whenever I go abroad especially to work I commonly have to demonstrate in advance I will go home afterwards( return ticket) I have the mean to support myself ( or my company does) etc etc only then can I get the entry visa.
Really? I agree you can't blag your way in without a visa to countries that require it, but I've been to over 20 countries in the last few years, and have never been asked by anyone to prove I can support myself. Perhaps you're applying for some sort of longer-stay work permit? My trips are usually for two days or so, but once in it'd be easy to slip into the underground economy, I imagine.
'No cover-up found' in abuse review Breaking news No evidence UK Home Office deliberately destroyed files to cover up organised child abuse, Wanless Review finds. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30002908
Watch out for rattled cages.
How much evidence does a competent cover-up of evidence usually leave?
Whenever I go abroad especially to work I commonly have to demonstrate in advance I will go home afterwards( return ticket) I have the mean to support myself ( or my company does) etc etc only then can I get the entry visa.
Really? I agree you can't blag your way in without a visa to countries that require it, but I've been to over 20 countries in the last few years, and have never been asked by anyone to prove I can support myself. Perhaps you're applying for some sort of longer-stay work permit? My trips are usually for two days or so, but once in it'd be easy to slip into the underground economy, I imagine.
Yes true mainly longer than a couple of days but even so.
One of the most stringent was the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They wanted to be certain I went home. :-)
Where I part company with the Osbornians is in two aspects of the recovery - first, the jobs created seem to be overwhelmingly low-paid so are not helping the overall public finance problem. Indeed, some of those now in work can still claim benefits and aren't paying much if anything in tax. The second aspect is that while labour is so cheap and plentiful to hire, there's little incentive for companies to make the serious capital investment in technology that would move them forward.
This rather undermines the notion of one third of jobs being carried out by robots in the next 20 years - is that just one third of all writers or one third of all jobs done by people called Robert ?
As for the polls, huge divergence again yesterday - Ashcroft had the duopoly at 59%, ICM at 63 and Populus at 70. Statistically, that's absurd - I assume some of the gap could be down to weightings and other methodology but it still seems vast.
Productivity is key and a major worry, symptomatic of our policies of deskilling our workforce due to low IQ immigration and expanding the labour pool de-incentivising capital investment.
I thought the figures showed immigrants were more likely to have a degree that Brits. Not altogether surprising of course, given that immigrants are younger, but IIRC it still apllies if you compare immigrants with their British age group.
I seem to dimly recall, from my time in SE Lancs in the 60’s, that immigrants were employed to keep night-shifts going.
Those mills oop north would have been better off in investing in automating as much of their production process as possible, immigration proved to be a very short term fix with disastrous long term consequences for society as a whole. Reminds me of those farmers who complain about not being able to employ slave, sorry I mean low wage workers, brought in. We have the technology and machines to automate the picking process, just with our lax immigration laws the farmers have no incentive to mechanise and thus boost productivity.
From my own experience if you ask a guy with an IQ of 80, assuming they can do the job, the work will be done slower and to a lower standard than someone of IQ 100. Quality of workforce matters a great deal.
From Mike Smithson: "The opportunity is surely there for UKIP or the Greens but neither have leaders capable of resonating amongst voters groups outside their own bases."
We all know OGH's bias against UKIP but to suggest that the only leader with charisma is not capable of resonating with the public, is to put it plainly, bollocks.
Farage presented on even terms with the failing three, would make mincemeat of them, and they know it. Lab/Lib/Con are going down the tubes.
There is a new and vibrant atmosphere to todays politics similar to when I was very young in 1948. I was on a march and demo supporting the transfer of the Daily Worker to a new building Farringdon road. On that demo one could literally smell the excitement and the passion.
Well different times, different politics but the smell - if not so acute - of change, is the same.
Whenever I go abroad especially to work I commonly have to demonstrate in advance I will go home afterwards( return ticket) I have the mean to support myself ( or my company does) etc etc only then can I get the entry visa.
Really? I agree you can't blag your way in without a visa to countries that require it, but I've been to over 20 countries in the last few years, and have never been asked by anyone to prove I can support myself. Perhaps you're applying for some sort of longer-stay work permit? My trips are usually for two days or so, but once in it'd be easy to slip into the underground economy, I imagine.
Yes true mainly longer than a couple of days but even so.
One of the most stringent was the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They wanted to be certain I went home.
Clearly, the Corporation tax cut has not led to businesses of any size improving their productivity rates. But we do know that pay for senior executives is rocketing. That has to be paid for and if it isn't happening through productivity gains, what is funding it?
Really? Well my company has ( I own it) and I always try to utilise local labour from IT to everything else. Not always possible but still. Mind you I have had to put the Lamborghini on hold for now to do so and to increase staff morale I have public beatings only once a day now instead of twice daily.
If I recollect correctly you also own or part own a company. I am surprised that you have not seen a similar benefit in one way or another?
The CT rate cut has made no difference to our investment or recruitment. We do what we need to do when we need to do it.
From Mike Smithson: "The opportunity is surely there for UKIP or the Greens but neither have leaders capable of resonating amongst voters groups outside their own bases."
We all know OGH's bias against UKIP but to suggest that the only leader with charisma is not capable of resonating with the public, is to put it plainly, bollocks.
Farage presented on even terms with the failing three, would make mincemeat of them, and they know it. Lab/Lib/Con are going down the tubes.
There is a new and vibrant atmosphere to todays politics similar to when I was very young in 1948. I was on a march and demo supporting the transfer of the Daily Worker to a new building Farringdon road. On that demo one could literally smell the excitement and the passion.
Well different times different politics but the smell - if not so acute - of change, is the same.
Q.3 You may have seen or heard that some opinion polls (like this one) have recently shown that the established parties at Westminster are struggling to retain their historic level of support, while parties that previously belonged on the fringe have been growing in strength. Which one of the follow statements do you most agree with?
There is so little to choose between the old parties that new parties are needed to offer any real hope of change. 38%
New parties won't make much difference because they will still face all the old problems. 56%
Whenever I go abroad especially to work I commonly have to demonstrate in advance I will go home afterwards( return ticket) I have the mean to support myself ( or my company does) etc etc only then can I get the entry visa.
Really? I agree you can't blag your way in without a visa to countries that require it, but I've been to over 20 countries in the last few years, and have never been asked by anyone to prove I can support myself. Perhaps you're applying for some sort of longer-stay work permit? My trips are usually for two days or so, but once in it'd be easy to slip into the underground economy, I imagine.
Ditto - as far as I can tell most visas are a way for countries to get their hands on more foreign currency. That said, UK citizens are unlikely to need visas to visit any high immigration countries, apart from the US.
'No cover-up found' in abuse review Breaking news No evidence UK Home Office deliberately destroyed files to cover up organised child abuse, Wanless Review finds. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30002908
Watch out for rattled cages.
How much evidence does a competent cover-up of evidence usually leave?
Irreparable damage caused by spillage of coffee over laptop, which was inadvertently placed too close to a magnetic field by a sixth former on work experience. Subsequent investigation revealed that files weren't backed up due to budgetary constraints.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Ha ha it's pretty fundamental this. The left just don;t understand it at all. Ben thinks the tax cut is just money straight into "fat cats" pockets which they immediately blow on ferraris and champagne which never sees the light of day in the economy again, instead of in reality reinvesting it in the economy by hiring more people, expanding, investing. The left would rather all money was controlled by the government, the right wants the government to take a minimum amount to provide the essential services of the state. By those measures all recent governments have been pretty left wing sadly.
That was the case when the means of production was owned locally, which is not the case now.
Piffle.
There are still plenty of private and publicly owned businesses in operation, that aren't merely local units of vast tax avoiding corporations. I'm sure someone here will have some numbers in yellow boxes.
Plenty? In terms of size of enterprise?
In the UK more people are employed by SMEs than by multi-nationals. It maybe therefore that running business policies that encourage small and medium companies to thrive and expand will produce better results for the Nation as a whole.
On an associated note if HMG really wanted to help SMEs one of the most urgent things they could do is to force the big companies to pay their bills on time. A few weeks ago the Labour party put forward some proposals on this that certainly had some merit and would be worth developing. Few seemed to take any notice though.
Labour has alienated its WWC and WMC support at the behest of its ethnic minority and guardianista supporters.
Cameroons have managed to alienate the social conservatives and the patriotic vote, out of a misguided political strategy, that along with free market supporters were the three pillars of the conservative coalition.
His report said it was "not possible" to say whether files were removed to "cover up" organised abuse - but it found "nothing to support" such a concern.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Ha ha it's pretty fundamental this. The left just don;t understand it at all. Ben thinks the tax cut is just money straight into "fat cats" pockets which they immediately blow on ferraris and champagne which never sees the light of day in the economy again, instead of in reality reinvesting it in the economy by hiring more people, expanding, investing. The left would rather all money was controlled by the government, the right wants the government to take a minimum amount to provide the essential services of the state. By those measures all recent governments have been pretty left wing sadly.
Gordon Brown encapsulated it in a nutshell in the TV debates at the last election when he criticised Cameron for his planned non-implementation of some tax rise (I forget the details) as "taking money out of the economy". 180 degrees, 100% wrong. That's your lefty for you.
Clearly, the Corporation tax cut has not led to businesses of any size improving their productivity rates. But we do know that pay for senior executives is rocketing. That has to be paid for and if it isn't happening through productivity gains, what is funding it?
If you are taking large corporation though, executive remuneration is nothing more than a fraction of a rounding error, take a company like BP, total remuneration up from 69m to 82m, some of which was from adding new management, but even so thats a 13m additional expenditure on a company that turns over 400bn or so.
"England’s councils have built up extra reserves of £2.3bn in the past financial year despite the coalition’s austerity programme that has seen cuts bite hard into services such as libraries, parks and planning offices."
" “The Treasury is amazed by councils’ abilities to implement the cuts, I’m amazed as well,” said Tony Travers, professor of government at the London School of Economics."
Whenever I go abroad especially to work I commonly have to demonstrate in advance I will go home afterwards( return ticket) I have the mean to support myself ( or my company does) etc etc only then can I get the entry visa.
Really? I agree you can't blag your way in without a visa to countries that require it, but I've been to over 20 countries in the last few years, and have never been asked by anyone to prove I can support myself. Perhaps you're applying for some sort of longer-stay work permit? My trips are usually for two days or so, but once in it'd be easy to slip into the underground economy, I imagine.
Yes true mainly longer than a couple of days but even so.
One of the most stringent was the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They wanted to be certain I went home.
They started a civil war the day after I arrived.
That's one hell of a welcome party.
Quite. Despite the welcome I kept out of it in a small coastal village called "Banana."
The department's record-keeping methods are described as "an imperfectly operated paper records system" which placed "significant limitations" on Mr Wanless' ability to reach definitive conclusions about what happened.
From Mike Smithson: "The opportunity is surely there for UKIP or the Greens but neither have leaders capable of resonating amongst voters groups outside their own bases."
We all know OGH's bias against UKIP but to suggest that the only leader with charisma is not capable of resonating with the public, is to put it plainly, bollocks.
Farage presented on even terms with the failing three, would make mincemeat of them, and they know it. Lab/Lib/Con are going down the tubes.
There is a new and vibrant atmosphere to todays politics similar to when I was very young in 1948. I was on a march and demo supporting the transfer of the Daily Worker to a new building Farringdon road. On that demo one could literally smell the excitement and the passion.
Well different times different politics but the smell - if not so acute - of change, is the same.
Q.3 You may have seen or heard that some opinion polls (like this one) have recently shown that the established parties at Westminster are struggling to retain their historic level of support, while parties that previously belonged on the fringe have been growing in strength. Which one of the follow statements do you most agree with?
There is so little to choose between the old parties that new parties are needed to offer any real hope of change. 38%
New parties won't make much difference because they will still face all the old problems. 56%
In quoting those figures you back mikes point
I take it the combined Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem VI score in the poll you quote was over 56%?
Clearly, the Corporation tax cut has not led to businesses of any size improving their productivity rates. But we do know that pay for senior executives is rocketing. That has to be paid for and if it isn't happening through productivity gains, what is funding it?
Really? Well my company has ( I own it) and I always try to utilise local labour from IT to everything else. Not always possible but still. Mind you I have had to put the Lamborghini on hold for now to do so and to increase staff morale I have public beatings only once a day now instead of twice daily.
If I recollect correctly you also own or part own a company. I am surprised that you have not seen a similar benefit in one way or another?
The CT rate cut has made no difference to our investment or recruitment. We do what we need to do when we need to do it.
So what have you done with the extra dosh? If you are paying less tax but not investing that money in the business what are you doing with it?
Whenever I go abroad especially to work I commonly have to demonstrate in advance I will go home afterwards( return ticket) I have the mean to support myself ( or my company does) etc etc only then can I get the entry visa.
Really? I agree you can't blag your way in without a visa to countries that require it, but I've been to over 20 countries in the last few years, and have never been asked by anyone to prove I can support myself. Perhaps you're applying for some sort of longer-stay work permit? My trips are usually for two days or so, but once in it'd be easy to slip into the underground economy, I imagine.
Ditto - as far as I can tell most visas are a way for countries to get their hands on more foreign currency. That said, UK citizens are unlikely to need visas to visit any high immigration countries, apart from the US.
Got clobbered by the US visa waiver thing a couple of weeks back. They have this god-awful online form that kept crashing and took about half an hour to do on mobile, all so they can collect $19 or something. FFS just make an airport tax...
In many ways I concur. I'm not sure that technology is always the answer though; I believe, although I'm willing to be proved wrong, that there are some crops which need hand-picking. I don't think, though, that at the time I was in Lancashire, the tax system was not supportive of major investment in machinery. Again, I may be wrong, but of course it should have been.
I don't know what's happened to the all the seasonal jobs I did as a student. Working in a photo lab has gone, of course, but is funfair ride minding being done nowadays by non-Brits?
From Mike Smithson: "The opportunity is surely there for UKIP or the Greens but neither have leaders capable of resonating amongst voters groups outside their own bases."
We all know OGH's bias against UKIP but to suggest that the only leader with charisma is not capable of resonating with the public, is to put it plainly, bollocks.
Farage presented on even terms with the failing three, would make mincemeat of them, and they know it. Lab/Lib/Con are going down the tubes.
There is a new and vibrant atmosphere to todays politics similar to when I was very young in 1948. I was on a march and demo supporting the transfer of the Daily Worker to a new building Farringdon road. On that demo one could literally smell the excitement and the passion.
Well different times different politics but the smell - if not so acute - of change, is the same.
Q.3 You may have seen or heard that some opinion polls (like this one) have recently shown that the established parties at Westminster are struggling to retain their historic level of support, while parties that previously belonged on the fringe have been growing in strength. Which one of the follow statements do you most agree with?
There is so little to choose between the old parties that new parties are needed to offer any real hope of change. 38%
New parties won't make much difference because they will still face all the old problems. 56%
In quoting those figures you back mikes point
I take it the combined Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem VI score in the poll you quote was over 56%?
I wasn't really making a point either way, merely adding some polling data.
"England’s councils have built up extra reserves of £2.3bn in the past financial year despite the coalition’s austerity programme that has seen cuts bite hard into services such as libraries, parks and planning offices."
" “The Treasury is amazed by councils’ abilities to implement the cuts, I’m amazed as well,” said Tony Travers, professor of government at the London School of Economics."
If I lived in an area that had seen cuts in Library services and parks, whilst the council built up reserves, I'd be organising a pretty vociferous protest outside their offices. A few thousand angry locals and threat of bricks through the windows would refocus minds pretty smartish.
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Ha ha it's pretty fundamental this. The left just don;t understand it at all. Ben thinks the tax cut is just money straight into "fat cats" pockets which they immediately blow on ferraris and champagne which never sees the light of day in the economy again, instead of in reality reinvesting it in the economy by hiring more people, expanding, investing. The left would rather all money was controlled by the government, the right wants the government to take a minimum amount to provide the essential services of the state. By those measures all recent governments have been pretty left wing sadly.
Gordon Brown encapsulated it in a nutshell in the TV debates at the last election when he criticised Cameron for his planned non-implementation of some tax rise (I forget the details) as "taking money out of the economy". 180 degrees, 100% wrong. That's your lefty for you.
Clearly, the Corporation tax cut has not led to businesses of any size improving their productivity rates. But we do know that pay for senior executives is rocketing. That has to be paid for and if it isn't happening through productivity gains, what is funding it?
On an associated note if HMG really wanted to help SMEs one of the most urgent things they could do is to force the big companies to pay their bills on time. A few weeks ago the Labour party put forward some proposals on this that certainly had some merit and would be worth developing. Few seemed to take any notice though.
There have been lots of attempts to do something about slow payment by big companies over the years, but no-one has really found a way which actually works.
Having said that, in my experience UK and other European companies are nothing like as bad as the big US corporations. We had a case recently where one mega US corporation accepted a proposal of ours, in which I'd quoted a price and payment terms of 45 days. Then they said actually they'd pay in 120 days from the end of the month they'd receive the invoice, and that their standard terms awarded themselves a discount if they paid faster than that!
As you might imagine, I told them where they could stuff their discount, and we 'compromised' on a super-fast 90 days.
Next time I'll just add a slow payment surcharge to the price I quote them. Since the next invoice will be about 30 times higher (in the transaction I've described they were buying an evaluation licence for some software), they won't have done themselves any good.
Clearly, the Corporation tax cut has not led to businesses of any size improving their productivity rates. But we do know that pay for senior executives is rocketing. That has to be paid for and if it isn't happening through productivity gains, what is funding it?
Really? Well my company has ( I own it) and I always try to utilise local labour from IT to everything else. Not always possible but still. Mind you I have had to put the Lamborghini on hold for now to do so and to increase staff morale I have public beatings only once a day now instead of twice daily.
If I recollect correctly you also own or part own a company. I am surprised that you have not seen a similar benefit in one way or another?
The CT rate cut has made no difference to our investment or recruitment. We do what we need to do when we need to do it.
So what have you done with the extra dosh? If you are paying less tax but not investing that money in the business what are you doing with it?
Like many other businesses, maybe just sitting on it.
When the private sector sits on its cash, the government runs a deficit. And vice versa.
Clearly, the Corporation tax cut has not led to businesses of any size improving their productivity rates. But we do know that pay for senior executives is rocketing. That has to be paid for and if it isn't happening through productivity gains, what is funding it?
Really? Well my company has ( I own it) and I always try to utilise local labour from IT to everything else. Not always possible but still. Mind you I have had to put the Lamborghini on hold for now to do so and to increase staff morale I have public beatings only once a day now instead of twice daily.
If I recollect correctly you also own or part own a company. I am surprised that you have not seen a similar benefit in one way or another?
The CT rate cut has made no difference to our investment or recruitment. We do what we need to do when we need to do it.
So what have you done with the extra dosh? If you are paying less tax but not investing that money in the business what are you doing with it?
We have not done anything with it specifically - I guess it has gone on salaries and bonuses. The tax cuts have not made any difference to our decision making.
From Mike Smithson: "The opportunity is surely there for UKIP or the Greens but neither have leaders capable of resonating amongst voters groups outside their own bases."
We all know OGH's bias against UKIP but to suggest that the only leader with charisma is not capable of resonating with the public, is to put it plainly, bollocks.
Farage presented on even terms with the failing three, would make mincemeat of them, and they know it. Lab/Lib/Con are going down the tubes.
There is a new and vibrant atmosphere to todays politics similar to when I was very young in 1948. I was on a march and demo supporting the transfer of the Daily Worker to a new building Farringdon road. On that demo one could literally smell the excitement and the passion.
Well different times different politics but the smell - if not so acute - of change, is the same.
Q.3 You may have seen or heard that some opinion polls (like this one) have recently shown that the established parties at Westminster are struggling to retain their historic level of support, while parties that previously belonged on the fringe have been growing in strength. Which one of the follow statements do you most agree with?
There is so little to choose between the old parties that new parties are needed to offer any real hope of change. 38%
New parties won't make much difference because they will still face all the old problems. 56%
In quoting those figures you back mikes point
I take it the combined Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem VI score in the poll you quote was over 56%?
I wasn't really making a point either way, merely adding some polling data.
Yes I didn't say you were making a point. Just that the figures you quoted backed mikes point that people are growing tired of the old three parties
Imagine how much lower the deficit would be if Osborne hadn't foolishly cut corporation tax.
He'd have lots of bumper tax revenues coming in with zero pain.
Sorry you are wrong Ben. The cut has enabled my company to retain profit and invest and expand. As a results we are building and as such producing more revenues and jobs. Never understood how the left don't get this simple straightforward premise.
Ha ha it's pretty fundamental this. The left just don;t understand it at all. Ben thinks the tax cut is just money straight into "fat cats" pockets which they immediately blow on ferraris and champagne which never sees the light of day in the economy again, instead of in reality reinvesting it in the economy by hiring more people, expanding, investing. The left would rather all money was controlled by the government, the right wants the government to take a minimum amount to provide the essential services of the state. By those measures all recent governments have been pretty left wing sadly.
That was the case when the means of production was owned locally, which is not the case now.
Piffle.
There are still plenty of private and publicly owned businesses in operation, that aren't merely local units of vast tax avoiding corporations. I'm sure someone here will have some numbers in yellow boxes.
Plenty? In terms of size of enterprise?
In the UK more people are employed by SMEs than by multi-nationals. It maybe therefore that running business policies that encourage small and medium companies to thrive and expand will produce better results for the Nation as a whole.
On an associated note if HMG really wanted to help SMEs one of the most urgent things they could do is to force the big companies to pay their bills on time. A few weeks ago the Labour party put forward some proposals on this that certainly had some merit and would be worth developing. Few seemed to take any notice though.
The big supermarkets, as we have recently seen, have a system whereby a supplier pays for a premium shelf site. That all appear to do this does give the impression of a cartel, but often they seem to be the darlings of the OFT.
"England’s councils have built up extra reserves of £2.3bn in the past financial year despite the coalition’s austerity programme that has seen cuts bite hard into services such as libraries, parks and planning offices."
" “The Treasury is amazed by councils’ abilities to implement the cuts, I’m amazed as well,” said Tony Travers, professor of government at the London School of Economics."
If I lived in an area that had seen cuts in Library services and parks, whilst the council built up reserves, I'd be organising a pretty vociferous protest outside their offices. A few thousand angry locals and threat of bricks through the windows would refocus minds pretty smartish.
Thurrock and Havering councils think the best way of saving money is to merge with parts of inner london like newham and hackney... I wonder why havering and Thurrock seem to be big Ukip areas all of a sudden??
Comments
The latter is a key part of movement of the workforce: Job-hunting in a foreign country without being there is way harder than just going there and doing it, even with the internet.
It is a disgrace that we have so many people apparently unable to perform valuable work, but we must deal with the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be. Wishing them to be capable of performing valuable work will not make them capable of performing valuable work. They are going to need longer term help to get back into the workplace (help that will in some cases be supplied by immigrants, incidentally).
While these numbers are falling, it cannot sensibly be said that immigration is harming these people's work chances.
I only really look at ukip friendly seats as I have been researching them in particular, so yes most bets are 'back ukip' or 'don't bet'
But I have to say the strategy has worked very well so far. I don't bet with any tinted glasses, just my own milk bottles! I don't bet with my heart except in small stakes for bravado on occasions here
I suspect that's increasingly true of other migrants. The younger ones come over and find work and then bring over their parents and the old men finish up drinking on the street corner or outside the bookies. As for the non-EU migrants, it's back then to Fortress Europe with a huge NATO naval presence in the Med to stop boats coming from North Africa or do we try something else ?
Can he improve on his 14% MoE ?
Lord AshcroftVerified account @LordAshcroft
The Ashcroft poll of Rochester & Strood will be released at 4pm today. Reminder it's a snapshot not a prediction!!
1) you assume that all of those jobs could have been filled by British people
2) you assume that none of those jobs were themselves created by immigrants (directly or indirectly)
Both assumptions are almost certainly wrong.
Con Maj 72%
Hung Parliament 22%
On the current situation, I agree with Nick P that the implied probability for Hung Parliament is too high. That means one or both of Con Maj/Lab Maj are more likely than the markets are currently showing, and the one which looks more wrong is Con Maj.
It does, as you say, raise some questions about capital investment, training and r&d across the whole economy. I'll be honest - although in some respects, the technology I work with is light years ahead of where it was, in many respects it hasn't. Take out the keyboard and replace with a typewriter and it's the same in many businesses.
There's a lot of really good stuff out there but people seem locked into some archaic workplace cultures.
I do appreciate the solutions are not as simple and agree your various points. There are easy ways to differentiate though and I doubt Mrs Stodge entered clinging to the back of an P&O container box.
On the other hand the challenge of finding work is indeed increased if you are not there in the country concerned. Other countries manage this process quite well such as the USA and even AUstralia. It just seems we are a soft touch for anyone that comes our way and at the end of the day all of us are paying for that. Once they are on our soil they become our problem.
We are now being blamed for the build up in France despite the fact is no our borders they all crossed before they arrive at the Calais Hilton.
*little Englander mode off*
Hardens my view that we need to turf most MP's out. Or lock them up in the HoC and throw away the key.
I include Forage and Co in that list of undesirables - they're part of the problem however much he likes to play the Anti-Establsihment figure. Dulwich, The City, Freemasonry and lunches in Whites and Brooks with his puppet masters are very much the opposite of what he claims to be.
If the park didn't have that policy and, God forbid, an attack took place on their premises, I'd expect they would be sued to high heaven. It's in their interests to minimise that risk.
How would you propose to address that problem?
Low IQ immigration was a political decision taken by the Labour party to shore up their vote.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/minutes/Documents/mpc/pdf/2014/mpc1407.pdf
"Employment had continued to increase robustly, both in numbers employed and hours worked, and by more than the Committee had expected at the time of the May Report. In the three months to April, the number of people in employment had risen by almost 350,000, the strongest increase on record and one largely accounted for by a pickup in full-time employees. Average hours worked had also risen further."
From April this year:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/minutes/Documents/mpc/pdf/2014/mpc1404.pdf
"A striking feature of the recent labour market data had been the strength in self-employment. Self-employment had risen by over 200,000 in the three months to January at the same time as there had been a fall in the number of employees. And self-employment had accounted for almost half of the rise in employment since 2010. It was possible that some of the increase had come about in reaction to benefit caps, changes in pension entitlements and rules surrounding access to in-work benefits. A key question was whether the amount of slack in the labour market was understated by measured unemployment, as might be the case if many of the self-employed were underemployed and searching for work as employees. There was some evidence against this. First, part of the rise in self-employment appeared to be a continuation of a longer-term secular trend, rather than a cyclical response to a lack of other employment opportunities. Consistent with that, higher self-employment did not appear to have been associated with inflows of people recently made redundant. Second, survey evidence suggested that the self-employed were only slightly more likely to be looking for another job than were employees.For some, self-employment might have been chosen as an alternative to retirement, rather than as an alternative to employment. Nevertheless, it was possible that some of the self-employed were underemployed and would be more productive as employees were more jobs to become available. Members of the Committee held a range of views about the extent to which self-employment represented a form of labour market slack. They noted that this would be tested when more jobs became available."
NOM +188
Con Maj +100
Lab Maj -245 feels OK for the main market at this stage.
If the policy was to allow above-average earners into the country so they'd be a net benefit to the exchequer, you wouldn't need any of that sponsorship bureaucracy. You'd just show up at a foreign embassy with evidence of what you were currently earning and they'd give you a visa.
http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-constituency-markets-today-putting.html
In truth, we could argue the non-EU migrant has "crossed our border" as soon as they've entered the EU because once inside the EU they can go more or less anywhere it seems.
We therefore need to be helping those trying to prevent the migration in Africa rather than worrying about it at Calais - the Government seems not to want to be involved in all that though.
In truth, we could argue the non-EU migrant has "crossed our border" as soon as they've entered the EU because once inside the EU they can go more or less anywhere it seems.
Schengen.....?
Actually Mrs Stodge is from a commonwealth country so doesn't really apply (to a point).
I seem to dimly recall, from my time in SE Lancs in the 60’s, that immigrants were employed to keep night-shifts going.
'This year I visited Wisbech – where a third of the 30,000 population is now estimated to be from overseas – and what was happening there spoke loud truths about why free movement has become so politicised. For all that recently arrived families have started to settle, and their children are acquiring new, hybrid identities, there are still glaring problems. Young men from eastern Europe often live four or five to a room, and work impossibly long hours; with echoes of Europe’s macroeconomic asymmetries, the local labour market is divided between insufficient jobs that be can be done by people with families and mortgages, and a surfeit of opportunities for those who will work whenever they are required for a relative pittance.
This creates endless tension. There have also been inevitable problems surrounding how far schools and doctors’ surgeries have been stretched. Is anyone surprised? Moreover, even if such places represent socioeconomic extremes, similar problems surface whenever large-scale migration fuses with the more precarious parts of the economy. In modern Britain, this obviously happens often, and the under-reported consequences of austerity have hardly helped.
What passes for the modern left tends to be far too blase about all this. Perhaps those who reduce people’s worries and fears to mere bigotry should go back to first principles, and consider whether, in such laissez-faire conditions, free movement has been of most benefit to capital or labour. They might also think about the dread spectacle of people from upscale London postcodes passing judgment on people who experience large-scale migration as something real.'
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/22/wisbech-immigration-politicians-david-cameron-ukip-eu-exit
The pain that comes from lower profits and lower potential profits is a lower share price, less investment and less employment.
In turn lower share price means less capital tains tax; less investment means less tax on profits in future, and less employment means less income tax is paid.
Gordon Brown encapsulated it in a nutshell in the TV debates at the last election when he criticised Cameron for his planned non-implementation of some tax rise (I forget the details) as "taking money out of the economy". 180 degrees, 100% wrong. That's your lefty for you.
"The European Court of Justice has ruled that unemployed EU citizens who go to another member state to claim benefits may be barred from some benefits.
The ruling on so-called "benefit tourism", relating to a case in Germany, could set an important legal precedent for the rest of the EU."
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Whenever I go abroad especially to work I commonly have to demonstrate in advance I will go home afterwards( return ticket) I have the mean to support myself ( or my company does) etc etc only then can I get the entry visa. Without the visa I don't even make it out of arrivals hall and I would be placed back on the same aircraft I arrived on. Its the airlines then that have the responsibility so they are very careful before you board. In some cases I also had to provide from the government of the country concerned an " ok to board" letter .
The same can be done for someone actively seeking work and there are many of those also.
Simple things that make the border officers job that much easier.
Before the spiral of silence adjustment, the Greens trailed the Lib Dems by just 1% with the most Lib Dem friendly pollster
Last month the Lib Dems had a lead of 4%
http://www.icmresearch.com/data/media/pdf/2014_nov_guardian_poll.pdf.
20/1 on the Greens outpolling the Lib Dems, get in.
"I did not actually say this. I said if Ukip win R&S more defections likely. Cd pick defectors from around 40 disgruntled MPs!"
twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/532117987869093888
Its not these that I am really concerned about though the original discussion was about the benefits system and the ECJ decision . That alone would make things more balanced it would deter those not genuinely looking for work and that simply is the bottom line.
The pain certainly has been felt after it was lowered - by lower corporation tax revenues.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1177583.ece
There are still plenty of private and publicly owned businesses in operation, that aren't merely local units of vast tax avoiding corporations. I'm sure someone here will have some numbers in yellow boxes.
11 November 2014 Last updated at 11:19
'No cover-up found' in abuse review
Breaking news
No evidence UK Home Office deliberately destroyed files to cover up organised child abuse, Wanless Review finds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30002908
Watch out for rattled cages.
Really? Well my company has ( I own it) and I always try to utilise local labour from IT to everything else. Not always possible but still. Mind you I have had to put the Lamborghini on hold for now to do so and to increase staff morale I have public beatings only once a day now instead of twice daily.
If I recollect correctly you also own or part own a company. I am surprised that you have not seen a similar benefit in one way or another?
"Low IQ immigration was a political decision taken by the Labour party to shore up their vote."
Where is your evidence 1. That this is true
2. That these immigrants would vote Labour
My own view is that anyone who could think that is clearly maciavellian and thus a Thatcherite but I have no evidence for that either
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2829830/Obama-s-gum-chewing-offends-Chinese-social-media-call-rapper-idler.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailus
One of the most stringent was the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They wanted to be certain I went home. :-)
They started a civil war the day after I arrived.
From my own experience if you ask a guy with an IQ of 80, assuming they can do the job, the work will be done slower and to a lower standard than someone of IQ 100. Quality of workforce matters a great deal.
The sad thing is a lot of jobs immigrants do, low skilled and low paid, are perfect temp or seasonal jobs students could do like old Hillary Clinton did with salmon cannery up in Alaska.
http://www.vdare.com/articles/the-salmon-symptom-hillary-and-the-democratic-party-abandon-american-workers
From Mike Smithson:
"The opportunity is surely there for UKIP or the Greens but neither have leaders capable of resonating amongst voters groups outside their own bases."
We all know OGH's bias against UKIP but to suggest that the only leader with charisma is not capable of resonating with the public, is to put it plainly, bollocks.
Farage presented on even terms with the failing three, would make mincemeat of them, and they know it. Lab/Lib/Con are going down the tubes.
There is a new and vibrant atmosphere to todays politics similar to when I was very young in 1948. I was on a march and demo supporting the transfer of the Daily Worker to a new building Farringdon road. On that demo one could literally smell the excitement and the passion.
Well different times, different politics but the smell - if not so acute - of change, is the same.
Q.3 You may have seen or heard that some opinion polls (like this one) have recently shown that the established parties at Westminster are struggling to retain their historic
level of support, while parties that previously belonged on the fringe have been growing in strength. Which one of the follow statements do you most agree with?
There is so little to choose between the old parties that new parties are needed to offer any real hope of change. 38%
New parties won't make much difference because they will still face all the old problems. 56%
Nothing was ever written down in the first place.
On an associated note if HMG really wanted to help SMEs one of the most urgent things they could do is to force the big companies to pay their bills on time. A few weeks ago the Labour party put forward some proposals on this that certainly had some merit and would be worth developing. Few seemed to take any notice though.
Hung parliament with Labour as the largest party.
This is the direction of travel since at least 2011.
I'm talking about Ed, Dave, Nigel, Nick and Nathalie here... in that order.
Cameroons have managed to alienate the social conservatives and the patriotic vote, out of a misguided political strategy, that along with free market supporters were the three pillars of the conservative coalition.
No surprise the big two have shed supporters.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30002908
Must be a remake of Yes Minister.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4f7b0bae-34f7-11e4-ba5d-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3Ifim8nhl
"England’s councils have built up extra reserves of £2.3bn in the past financial year despite the coalition’s austerity programme that has seen cuts bite hard into services such as libraries, parks and planning offices."
" “The Treasury is amazed by councils’ abilities to implement the cuts, I’m amazed as well,” said Tony Travers, professor of government at the London School of Economics."
Quite. Despite the welcome I kept out of it in a small coastal village called "Banana."
I jest thee not.
I take it the combined Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem VI score in the poll you quote was over 56%?
In many ways I concur. I'm not sure that technology is always the answer though; I believe, although I'm willing to be proved wrong, that there are some crops which need hand-picking. I don't think, though, that at the time I was in Lancashire, the tax system was not supportive of major investment in machinery. Again, I may be wrong, but of course it should have been.
I don't know what's happened to the all the seasonal jobs I did as a student. Working in a photo lab has gone, of course, but is funfair ride minding being done nowadays by non-Brits?
Having said that, in my experience UK and other European companies are nothing like as bad as the big US corporations. We had a case recently where one mega US corporation accepted a proposal of ours, in which I'd quoted a price and payment terms of 45 days. Then they said actually they'd pay in 120 days from the end of the month they'd receive the invoice, and that their standard terms awarded themselves a discount if they paid faster than that!
As you might imagine, I told them where they could stuff their discount, and we 'compromised' on a super-fast 90 days.
Next time I'll just add a slow payment surcharge to the price I quote them. Since the next invoice will be about 30 times higher (in the transaction I've described they were buying an evaluation licence for some software), they won't have done themselves any good.
When the private sector sits on its cash, the government runs a deficit. And vice versa.
So, the last Labour government was really recruiting UKIP and BNP voters.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2008/nov/03/greenpolitics-liberaldemocrats