coolagorna No, If the Tories plus LDs are on 45% they can still form a coalition (even plus the DUP) if UKIP are also on 10% as that makes 55%, Milband plus the Greens and SNP and Plaid and Respect would likely be on 44% at best
First of all UKIP and the Libs have both stated they wont work with each other so dont add them together
Secondly the DUP have voted with Labour on most issues this parliament
Thirdly then you are left with Cam on 35% down 2 Libs on about 9 % down 13...with Alexander, Swinson and probably Clegg gone and you are going to sell that to the country as having been given another mandate to govern?
Good luck with that!!
Percentages of the vote don’t equate to Parliamentary seats.
If they did, the likeliest outcome would be UKIP offering supply and confidence to a minority Conservative government,
Mr. F, fiddling with the electoral system with no referendum in return merely a referendum on the EU is crackers. Especially so after the Lib Dem deceit this Parliament, whereby they got their referendum then immediately reneged upon boundary reforms.
replaced by a coalition of peoples votes who at least broadly agree on a left of centre approach to things
You are having a giraffe. They completely disagree on the economy, the critical issue of the moment. What is the LAB policy on austerity ? How does that compare to the SNP and Green policy ? Never mind defense policy!
I said "the votes"..Labour voters overwhelmongly believe austerity has failed and most oppose pointless Trident spending too..Ed believes this he is far more radical than the rest of the Shadow Cabinet but is hampered by trying to appease the Labour right
Nicola, Leanne and Caroline will force Ed to listen to his voters and give him the backbone to stand up to the failed Blairites in the party still hankering after a return to New Labourers
Mr. F, fiddling with the electoral system with no referendum in return merely a referendum on the EU is crackers. Especially so after the Lib Dem deceit this Parliament, whereby they got their referendum then immediately reneged upon boundary reforms.
Then, I doubt if we'll get the EU referendum in the next Parliament.
"I also wonder to what extent polls are tweaked to provide an answer nearer that it perceives its client wants to get. So for example, do they worry a leftish paper might not continue employing a firm that comes up with polling good for Conservatives/UKIP? You would hope note, but it is a doubt that never quite goes away."
As has been said on here many times that just doesn't happen. Too many people would have to be involved in the fraud apart from anything else. What they do however is ask additional questions which I understand are at the discretion of the publication.
For example YouGov who were polling for the Mail once asked "Is Cherie Blair more likely to put you off voting Labour or Sandra Howard more likely to put you off voting Conservative?"
I emailed YouGov (who were relatively new at the time) to ask them why they asked such an unpleasant question and got a very nice reply from Stephen Shakespere saying that the question was requested by the newspaper and though they weren't happy about it it was up to the publication. He added that as the answer came back 90% 'made no difference' it showed the public were more thoughtful than the publication (or words to that effect)
"Could the UKIP caravan hurt the Tories? The current favourite to succeed Roger Knapman in the UKIP leadership elecrtion which closes on September 7 is MEP Nigel Farage, who stood for the party in the Bromley by-election.
The key point that Farage has grasped is that UKIP can no longer rely upon being a single-issue party if it wishes to grow. In his Manifesto, he sets out his view of the Party’s philosophy:
We are a unique brand. Nationalist with a small ‘n’, libertarian, and in favour of small government and Parliamentary sovereignty. We are opposed to unlimited immigration, high taxes and bureaucracy. He believes that this philosophy, with an obvious appeal to the strongly right-of-centre, will enable the party to build beyond its current small base
It has been no means clear that the current, single-issue UKIP takes the majority of its support from the Conservatives. The party has hurt the Tories in past elections, but probably not as much as it might have. But if UKIP adopted a broader, “Old Tory” policy platform, would it have a more direct appeal to the traditionalist Conservative voter that Cameron needs to remain on board?"
If the taxpayer via HMG is offering loans and guarantees ( currently we're on the hook for £1trn ) and is in effect their bank, then like any bank HMG can call in loans to protect its interest and force a restructuring. The shareholders just have to stand back and suck it up or come up with more money of their own.
The issue was simply a macro one. At a time when the banking sector was at risk of seizing up and the core national priority was to try and get credit flowing again, the last thing that everyone needed was complex restructuring.
There is a clear objective in place to separate risk-led banking from the utility banking and I think that is absolutely the right model to follow. There's also a case for some regional banks (although I'd rather than national banks with a hub in one or two regions - otherwise everyone is going to be chasing into London rather than focusing on their core). But these things take time.
The banking crisis hit in 2008.
The restructuring of banking hasn't taken place in 7 years. No other industry would get away with that timescale largely because the banks would force a restructuring,
Simply put it means bankers won't take their own medicine.
The line is that the very high winds screwed the aerodynamics, he hit the wall and got concussion.
I do not believe McLaren would lie about this (reputational damage would be significant) but there might be aspects that have not yet been made public. I'm not sure about an electric shock being involved. They've used KERS and ERS for a few years now and I've never heard of such an incident (inside the cockpit).
However, it does seem rather peculiar.
Richard Burns was a great rally driver - he was on the way to his second world rally driver's championship ten or so years ago, when he collapsed whilst driving to the start of the final race in Wales. He was only saved because there happened to be another rally driver in the passenger seat, who got the car under control and got it over to the hard shoulder. It turned our Burns had a brain tumour (I think), which meant he missed the rally and lost the championship. He died a couple of years later.
Again, I stress that I really hope that this is not the case, but I'm wondering if, during the tests following the crash, they found something about Alonso's health they don't like.
"Could the UKIP caravan hurt the Tories? The current favourite to succeed Roger Knapman in the UKIP leadership elecrtion which closes on September 7 is MEP Nigel Farage, who stood for the party in the Bromley by-election.
The key point that Farage has grasped is that UKIP can no longer rely upon being a single-issue party if it wishes to grow. In his Manifesto, he sets out his view of the Party’s philosophy:
We are a unique brand. Nationalist with a small ‘n’, libertarian, and in favour of small government and Parliamentary sovereignty. We are opposed to unlimited immigration, high taxes and bureaucracy. He believes that this philosophy, with an obvious appeal to the strongly right-of-centre, will enable the party to build beyond its current small base
It has been no means clear that the current, single-issue UKIP takes the majority of its support from the Conservatives. The party has hurt the Tories in past elections, but probably not as much as it might have. But if UKIP adopted a broader, “Old Tory” policy platform, would it have a more direct appeal to the traditionalist Conservative voter that Cameron needs to remain on board?"
Which wise PB sage has said: "No long-term future for BBC licence fee," many times in the past, I wonder? Who defended the claim from a load of mindless sqwarking BBC fans who could not see past the ends of their noses?
I doubt the compulsory levy idea will be very popular amongst the public. Neither will moving to a subscriptions service with the need for everyone to get new set top boxes - only a few years after we all went digital. Besides, removing free-to-air would make the BBC like all the other competing services and drive an HGV-sized hole through their finances.
So we're faced with either a massively unpopular compulsory levy or something that will cost the public a fortune and will remove the BBC's USP.
The BBC as we know it is dying. It will live on in some reduced form, but the Auntie we knew and loved is in its dotage.
Which is sad, as I like the BBC and don't mind paying the licence fee.
£5/month levy, plus a few adverts? I think they'd get an 80% take up rate.
I think they want a compulsory levy - one might almost call it a BBC Tax. I really do not think the BBC get it. The internet is killing it off in its current form - and good riddance too.
Wish there was a Like button.
Some years ago I read - can't recall the source - that the BBC's overall market share of UK TV viewers is only about 25% to 30%. If that is so, then in effect, the license fee would presumably have to be about 4x higher than it is, if it were to be collected only from those people who actually use the BBC.
There must then be some risk of a spiral of decline. A BBC whose full costs were charged only to actual viewers would be so much more expensive than it is now that its 25% market share would decline still further, meaning those costs would have to be recovered from a smaller base still.
I guess in the end you might end up with a smaller BBC with a household subscription costing around £2,000 a year and a market share of 5%.
What I find odd about these sorts of discussion is that there always seems to be a baked-in assumption that there must be one levy and it must go to the BBC. Why couldn't there be one levy, but those upon whom it is made opt into whichever TV provider they choose? - so the TV licence fee could persist, but you could choose to route yours towards Sky rather than the BBC.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
If the taxpayer via HMG is offering loans and guarantees ( currently we're on the hook for £1trn ) and is in effect their bank, then like any bank HMG can call in loans to protect its interest and force a restructuring. The shareholders just have to stand back and suck it up or come up with more money of their own.
The issue was simply a macro one. At a time when the banking sector was at risk of seizing up and the core national priority was to try and get credit flowing again, the last thing that everyone needed was complex restructuring.
There is a clear objective in place to separate risk-led banking from the utility banking and I think that is absolutely the right model to follow. There's also a case for some regional banks (although I'd rather than national banks with a hub in one or two regions - otherwise everyone is going to be chasing into London rather than focusing on their core). But these things take time.
The banking crisis hit in 2008.
The restructuring of banking hasn't taken place in 7 years. No other industry would get away with that timescale largely because the banks would force a restructuring,
Simply put it means bankers won't take their own medicine.
I agree with Alan! RBS are notorious for breaking up businesses with their own restructuring teams.
That particular bank should have been smashed into smaller pieces years ago. No one else would have been allowed to get away with those losses.
The long suffering Taxpayer has hosed £billions that could, and should have been spent on anything from Maritime Patrol Aircraft and Frigates, to Schools and Transport Infrastructure.
F-ing hell!!! Nearly a third of a million in one year!
There's no way this country can cope with the scale of that.
That's not going to help the Tories election chances. Getting it down to < 100,000 with the Lib Dem in coalition was always going to make Cameron's target nearly impossible, but going to other way, well he looks really stupid / failure on this issue now.
Be interesting to see if this big jump is due to Eastern Europeans or non-EU i.e if it is a due to something that Cameron couldn't really control in government or a failure on something he does have direct influence over.
"I also wonder to what extent polls are tweaked to provide an answer nearer that it perceives its client wants to get. So for example, do they worry a leftish paper might not continue employing a firm that comes up with polling good for Conservatives/UKIP? You would hope note, but it is a doubt that never quite goes away."
As has been said on here many times that just doesn't happen. Too many people would have to be involved in the fraud apart from anything else. What they do however is ask additional questions which I understand are at the discretion of the publication.
For example YouGov who were polling for the Mail once asked "Is Cherie Blair more likely to put you off voting Labour or Sandra Howard more likely to put you off voting Conservative?"
I emailed YouGov (who were relatively new at the time) to ask them why they asked such an unpleasant question and got a very nice reply from Stephen Shakespere saying that the question was requested by the newspaper and though they weren't happy about it it was up to the publication. He added that as the answer came back 90% 'made no difference' it showed the public were more thoughtful than the publication (or words to that effect)
I'm not suggesting anything as fancy as a fraud, Roger. Just tweaking. If you are a pollster, you can probably discern that polling in the morning results in a slight favouring of party A, whereas evening polling favours party B. There would be regional variations too. So I am suggesting that it is possible, on the basis of knowing how polling works, to gently tweak outcomes.
That said, it would be easier to tweak phone polling than a panel.
@dsmitheconomics: Employees' compensation, mainly wages & salaries but also pension contributions, up 4.3% on year ago in Q4, says ONS: http://t.co/djE5NfoKUJ
I'm not sure where the truth lies from the various polls either. Possibly a tiny CON lead, possibly a small LAB lead - in the scheme of things it doesn't matter very much but I suppose it's a bit of a virility test for the partisans.
As I've often said, ICM does throw out occasional outlier numbers so we'll see if it's CON +4 lead is maintained next month.
All the seat permutation theories make huge assumptions as to what parties will do as distinct from what they say now. I can't speak for the SNP or DUP let alone UKIP but from an LD perspective I don't believe the Party will want to enter into any kind of formal Coalition or even S&C with either a minority LAB or CON Government. That doesn't mean they would actively vote to bring them down on a Confidence issue - the party would abstain and let others find the numbers.
As for negotiation, I'd simply tell the Conservatives - "if you want your Euro Refrendum, you can have it but you have to introduce STV for all elections without a Referendum".
I'd tell Labour "if you want your Mansion Tax, you can have it but you have to introduce STV for all elections without a Referendum."
That would at least have the advantage of keeping the negotiations short and not keeping Nicola Sturgeon waiting.
That's the key to the Euro referendum. Can the Conservatives bring themselves to offer PR in return?
PR may well become an important issue after the election and I expect that Conservatives will begin to take it seriously for the first time. However, I don't expect that a minority Conservative government would fail to carry the EU referendum as there would be a significant block of Labour rebels who would support them on that.
Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) 26/02/2015 09:31 Here’s the ONS release, just out, showing how far out from his ‘tens of thousands’ pledge Cameron is specc.ie/1anLwU1
@dsmitheconomics: Employees' compensation, mainly wages & salaries but also pension contributions, up 4.3% on year ago in Q4, says ONS: http://t.co/djE5NfoKUJ
No wonder people are flocking to the UK.
Wonder how much due to the roll out of auto enrollment pensions.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
Political betting guru tweeting ukip should be 50/1 in South Thanet #credibilty Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) 26/02/2015 09:29 %age probability of UKIP victory in target seats from @Election4castUK S Thanet 2% chance pic.twitter.com/jfsBLKJilp
Two weeks ago I took part in a debate on free speech, hosted by the Islamic Education and Research Academy. It was a good discussion, well attended, with an almost exclusively Muslim audience. Near the end, one audience member began to defend the killing of apostates. I challenged him, as did the other non-Muslim panelists. None of the Muslim panelists challenged him. No members of the audience challenged him. Instead, when he’d finished defending the murder of apostates, a significant section of the audience applauded him.
Stodgy wants the Cons to bring in Something which was rejected in a referendum in order to gain support for a different referendum ?
No thanks. It's simple - vote Con for a referendum, vote for someone else for PM Miliband.
Typical inaccurate ranting from old Flashy. AV, which has never been LD policy, was rightly rejected in the referendum. Nick Clegg got that wrong - I've said that on here before and I'll say it again. He should never have gone down the AV route - he probably thought he had to take something back to the Party to help sell the Coalition deal but it was the wrong something and the referendum defeat combined with the tuition fees debacle shattered his credibility.
As for the precious Tory Euro-nonsense, the country can't afford two years of Conservative blethering and introspection on this issue - there are far more important issues to be dealt with though the thought of the Tories ripping themselves apart isn't without some appeal.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
Norman Smith spinning like mad for the Tories suggesting the Immigration figures show the "booming economy" is attracting all the rest of Europes jobless
LOL..Yep those £2-80 an hour "Apprenticeships", Zero hours, Workfare etc "jobs" will have had the Greeks, Spanish and Italians all flocking here..Great analysis Norm
Forget about privatising Auntie..the first task of Eds new Govt must be to order the Beebs political broadcasting unit to be independently investigated..its currently a hotbed of Blues from Robinson, Gibb, Neil currently to Paxman in the recent past..no chance of "speaking truth to nation" unless a more balanced politics output is presented
Scrap The Daily Politics and Sunday Politics and bring back On the Record with Jon Sopel to replace the latter for a start
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
Monstrously deluded.
If there's one thing puts voters off it's an inability to face up to failure.
Andrew Neil (@afneil) 26/02/2015 09:50 Just checking figures for this morning's Daily Politics but looks like net immigration now higher than when Coalition came to power.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
Monstrously deluded.
If there's one thing puts voters off it's an inability to face up to failure.
Political facts of life. Explain to me how Cameron gets round a LibDem partner who prevents any measures to restrict immigration from the EU?
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
Political betting guru tweeting ukip should be 50/1 in South Thanet #credibilty Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) 26/02/2015 09:29 %age probability of UKIP victory in target seats from @Election4castUK S Thanet 2% chance pic.twitter.com/jfsBLKJilp
Norman Smith spinning like mad for the Tories suggesting the Immigration figures show the "booming economy" is attracting all the rest of Europes jobless
LOL..Yep those £2-80 an hour "Apprenticeships", Zero hours, Workfare etc "jobs" will have had the Greeks, Spanish and Italians all flocking here..Great analysis Norm
Forget about privatising Auntie..the first task of Eds new Govt must be to order the Beebs political broadcasting unit to be independently investigated..its currently a hotbed of Blues from Robinson, Gibb, Neil currently to Paxman in the recent past..no chance of "speaking truth to nation" unless a more balanced politics output is presented
Scrap The Daily Politics and Sunday Politics and bring back On the Record with Jon Sopel to replace the latter for a start
I see you are having a hard time facing up to economic success.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
Stodgy wants the Cons to bring in Something which was rejected in a referendum in order to gain support for a different referendum ?
No thanks. It's simple - vote Con for a referendum, vote for someone else for PM Miliband.
Typical inaccurate ranting from old Flashy. AV, which has never been LD policy, was rightly rejected in the referendum. Nick Clegg got that wrong - I've said that on here before and I'll say it again. He should never have gone down the AV route - he probably thought he had to take something back to the Party to help sell the Coalition deal but it was the wrong something and the referendum defeat combined with the tuition fees debacle shattered his credibility.
As for the precious Tory Euro-nonsense, the country can't afford two years of Conservative blethering and introspection on this issue - there are far more important issues to be dealt with though the thought of the Tories ripping themselves apart isn't without some appeal.
People don't want a binary choice, anymore. One third of the population say "no thanks" to both Cameron and Milliband.
Two weeks ago I took part in a debate on free speech, hosted by the Islamic Education and Research Academy. It was a good discussion, well attended, with an almost exclusively Muslim audience. Near the end, one audience member began to defend the killing of apostates. I challenged him, as did the other non-Muslim panelists. None of the Muslim panelists challenged him. No members of the audience challenged him. Instead, when he’d finished defending the murder of apostates, a significant section of the audience applauded him.
"Houston, we have a problem"
Yesterday saw PBTories waking up to the fact that we have a problem with terrorism, with Rotherham and with "clan elders" dictating the Labour candidate in Bradford West. I think Ukip's clothes are being stolen.
Political betting guru tweeting ukip should be 50/1 in South Thanet #credibilty Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) 26/02/2015 09:29 %age probability of UKIP victory in target seats from @Election4castUK S Thanet 2% chance pic.twitter.com/jfsBLKJilp
50/1 makes no sense.
That Mike is giving 'research' like this airtime is sad... Fair enough to be anti ukip, but to treat people that say ukip have a 2% chance in a seat they are 4/7 to win, and a 1% chance in castle point where they are even money is just ludicrous
Mind you, a bloke in the pub reckons lib Dems should be 66/1 in Sheffield hallam...
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
Monstrously deluded.
If there's one thing puts voters off it's an inability to face up to failure.
Political facts of life. Explain to me how Cameron gets round a LibDem partner who prevents any measures to restrict immigration from the EU?
LOL you're telling me the Tories are incapbale of negoitating with their partners ? That the LibDems are so inflexible they can never cut a deal ?
Maybe HoL reform, uni fees, bank and tax reforms might be a good place to start. You're simply amplifying Cameron being crap at politcs. If you're in a coalition like any marriage there has to be some give and take. You need to set your goals and do a trade. I'm pretty sure the LDs going in to an election would like to have a few totemic scalps to give their supporters as much as the Tories.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
It looks to me like roughly 50% of net migration is from the EU.
Andrew Neil (@afneil) 26/02/2015 09:40 Cameron promised immigration in 10s of thousands by election. "No ifs or buts". Latest figures put it on 300,000.
Stodgy wants the Cons to bring in Something which was rejected in a referendum in order to gain support for a different referendum ?
No thanks. It's simple - vote Con for a referendum, vote for someone else for PM Miliband.
Typical inaccurate ranting from old Flashy. AV, which has never been LD policy, was rightly rejected in the referendum. Nick Clegg got that wrong - I've said that on here before and I'll say it again. He should never have gone down the AV route - he probably thought he had to take something back to the Party to help sell the Coalition deal but it was the wrong something and the referendum defeat combined with the tuition fees debacle shattered his credibility.
As for the precious Tory Euro-nonsense, the country can't afford two years of Conservative blethering and introspection on this issue - there are far more important issues to be dealt with though the thought of the Tories ripping themselves apart isn't without some appeal.
The very existence of the Euro and the issues that it will bring, such as tax and political union, are what demand a renegotiation and a referendum. Its something we can afford - because such moves would have political implications for the UK.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
Good news: immigration is up. Grown by 100k to 298,000.
An indicator of a recovering economy.
More an indicator of mass unemployment in much of the EU.
Quite, talking to a Spanish architect last night he said half the architects in London now are from Spain. They can be exploited and be paid very low wages due to the situation at home. Of course we can't do much about EU immigration but more can and should be done about non EU immigration. A country's most important resource is its people and the steady decline in quality of human capital bodes very badly for the future.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
I don't think that immigration controls between the UK and the rest of the EU are one of the things that David Cameron plans to negotiate for.
The Conservatives have previously blamed a rise in migration from within the EU for missing their target.
But experts at Oxford University's Migration Observatory said net migration from outside the EU has never been less than 100,000 at any time over the course of this parliament, meaning the target would have been missed with or without any rise in EU migration.
'I think they want a compulsory levy - one might almost call it a BBC Tax. I really do not think the BBC get it. The internet is killing it off in its current form - and good riddance too.'
What is so special about the BBC that it doesn't have to compete & has to be funded by a tax?
Nothing.
To the best of my recollection I have watched any television at all only three times in the last 17 years. I watched 10 minutes of the closing ceremony of the Olympics, I watched Top Gear in India and I watched an episode of Judge Rinder that my mother forced me to watch. In all three cases I go bored very very quickly. Probably I also looked at TV screens in the office on 9/11.
Other than that, I get everything I need off the web, or DVDs, either for nothing or for very little money (eg all of Dad's Army for £10 some years ago).
I simply find it boring and passive, like having to listen to radio rather my own choice of CD.
"It is ridiculous that people who do not want to receive the BBC's services are made to pay for them anyway."
Is it? We pay for art galleries that we don't visit. We pay for roads we don't drive down. We subsidize theatres that we never go near....the BBC is much more accessable and worthwhile than many things we pay for but don't use. If the BBC's output isn't to everyone's taste then do something about it (though the overwhelming evidence is that it is).
The difference is that if you want to go to a different National Gallery, or drive to Birmingham on a non-state motorway, you can't because there is no private alternative. If there were a choice then there'd be more resistance to a state levy to pay for the council version of something you can buy elsewhere.
The other point about things like free museums is that they are quite a large part of the country's draw to tourists, so I rather suspect that net-net they contribute rather than cost through indirect things like greater tourist spend. It's unclear that this is so of the BBC.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
I don't think that immigration controls between the UK and the rest of the EU are one of the things that David Cameron plans to negotiate for.
BBC think..I had a producer who had a go at me because I turned up on location in a four wheel drive. vehicle...Why didn't I use public transport as she did..which just happened to be a tax payer paid London cab... which she genuinely thought was public transport
Wait... You mean that the little black bus isn't *actually* a bus? Wow! Who knew?
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
Failing where he had control
"271,000 people immigrated for work in the year ending September 2014, a statistically significant increase of 54,000 compared with a year earlier. This continues the rise since the year ending June 2012. The increase over the past year applied to both non-EU and EU (non-British) citizens, as well as British citizens. However, only the increase for non-EU citizens was statistically significant."
@dsmitheconomics: Employees' compensation, mainly wages & salaries but also pension contributions, up 4.3% on year ago in Q4, says ONS: http://t.co/djE5NfoKUJ
No wonder people are flocking to the UK.
The point being made I suspect is one about new compulsory pension contributions which, in the same way that if the NHS were funded by employers 'payroll' insurance contributions, has had the side effect of depressing take home pay. Not sure how that encourages immigrants.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
I don't think that immigration controls between the UK and the rest of the EU are one of the things that David Cameron plans to negotiate for.
It will be. I'd guess mentioning it now would raise an issue which only seems to bolster UKIP's share. Given these figures, Cameron may have to choose the least worst option and bring it up now.
The Conservatives have previously blamed a rise in migration from within the EU for missing their target.
But experts at Oxford University's Migration Observatory said net migration from outside the EU has never been less than 100,000 at any time over the course of this parliament, meaning the target would have been missed with or without any rise in EU migration.
And guess where most of it comes from? : Commonwealth countries... India and Pakistan..
And the Pakistani one tend to go into localised ghettos and don't integrate.
The chances of any political party solving that issue within 20 years are nil...
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
Quite so.
Really?
271,000 people immigrated for work in the year ending September 2014, a statistically significant increase of 54,000 compared with a year earlier. This continues the rise since the year ending June 2012. The increase over the past year applied to both non-EU and EU (non-British) citizens, as well as British citizens. However, only the increase for non-EU citizens was statistically significant.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
I don't think that immigration controls between the UK and the rest of the EU are one of the things that David Cameron plans to negotiate for.
Thank god for that. Freedom for people to work for who they want, where they want should be the most fundamental of human freedoms.
"Could the UKIP caravan hurt the Tories? The current favourite to succeed Roger Knapman in the UKIP leadership elecrtion which closes on September 7 is MEP Nigel Farage, who stood for the party in the Bromley by-election.
The key point that Farage has grasped is that UKIP can no longer rely upon being a single-issue party if it wishes to grow. In his Manifesto, he sets out his view of the Party’s philosophy:
@Stodge I think a period of quiet reflection for the Lib Dems may well be best... I can well see them abstaining too.
If the Lib Dems take 30 seats and take the view of abstaining on confidence votes it would reduce the bar for a Tory majority to 308, or 300 + DUP.
Assuming some gains from the Lib Dems it would mean restricting losses to Labour to the region of 15 seats. This then means that seats like Bedford have to be held.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
I don't think that immigration controls between the UK and the rest of the EU are one of the things that David Cameron plans to negotiate for.
Despite looking the camera straight on the eye and pledging to 'get what Britain needs'. Precisely the reason i finally abandoned hope in the Tories.
Cameron has addressed non EU migration, Syria and Libya has certainly had a very negative effect. Of course such immigration I guess is neither identified or if it is it comes under EU as often they gain citizenship in say Sweden and then move here.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
I don't think that immigration controls between the UK and the rest of the EU are one of the things that David Cameron plans to negotiate for.
Thank god for that. Freedom for people to work for who they want, where they want should be the most fundamental of human freedoms.
Trip trap trip trap over the London bridge he went.
The Conservatives have previously blamed a rise in migration from within the EU for missing their target.
But experts at Oxford University's Migration Observatory said net migration from outside the EU has never been less than 100,000 at any time over the course of this parliament, meaning the target would have been missed with or without any rise in EU migration.
And guess where most of it comes from? : Commonwealth countries... India and Pakistan..
And the Pakistani one tend to go into localised ghettos and don't integrate.
The chances of any political party solving that issue within 20 years are nil...
It's difficult enough to get supporters of establishment parties to admit it
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
I don't think that immigration controls between the UK and the rest of the EU are one of the things that David Cameron plans to negotiate for.
Thank god for that. Freedom for people to work for who they want, where they want should be the most fundamental of human freedoms.
Excellent sentiment. How does it apply to the quite startling rise in Romanian beggars I now see in London?
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
I don't think that immigration controls between the UK and the rest of the EU are one of the things that David Cameron plans to negotiate for.
Thank god for that. Freedom for people to work for who they want, where they want should be the most fundamental of human freedoms.
It's not a right I'd claim for myself, so it's not a right I'd grant to other people.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
I don't think that immigration controls between the UK and the rest of the EU are one of the things that David Cameron plans to negotiate for.
Thank god for that. Freedom for people to work for who they want, where they want should be the most fundamental of human freedoms.
Excellent sentiment. How does it apply to the quite startling rise in Romanian beggars I now see in London?
What romanians?? We were told there weren't any! Keith Vaz went to the airport etc etc
"37,000 Romanian and Bulgarian (EU2) citizens immigrated to the UK in the year ending September 2014, a statistically significant increase from 24,000 in the previous 12 months. Of these, 27,000 were coming for work, a rise of 10,000 on year ending September 2013, but this increase itself was not statistically significant."
The Conservatives have previously blamed a rise in migration from within the EU for missing their target.
But experts at Oxford University's Migration Observatory said net migration from outside the EU has never been less than 100,000 at any time over the course of this parliament, meaning the target would have been missed with or without any rise in EU migration.
And guess where most of it comes from? : Commonwealth countries... India and Pakistan..
And the Pakistani one tend to go into localised ghettos and don't integrate.
The chances of any political party solving that issue within 20 years are nil...
Immigration from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh has dropped sharply over the past 5 years.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
Quite so.
Really?
271,000 people immigrated for work in the year ending September 2014, a statistically significant increase of 54,000 compared with a year earlier. This continues the rise since the year ending June 2012. The increase over the past year applied to both non-EU and EU (non-British) citizens, as well as British citizens. However, only the increase for non-EU citizens was statistically significant.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
Blame everyone other than the Conservatives, you mean?
Cameron didn't win in 2010GE because his message about 'change' was all over the place, and people didn't recognise the change within the Tory party, or trust their real motives. But they were desperate to get rid of Gordon Brown.
Modernisers thought that was about gender and racial balance, and the progressive obsessions of the metropolitan classes on equality, lifestyle choices and environmentalism.
It was actually about being in touch with the fears, hopes, interests and concerns of ordinary working people. That means actually doing something about them rather than pretending to (e.g immmigration) and getting results.
Incidentally, both Sean Fear (IIRC) and myself did vote Tory in GE2010. I dismissed any reservations I had at the time, but they've been vindicated.
The Conservatives have previously blamed a rise in migration from within the EU for missing their target.
But experts at Oxford University's Migration Observatory said net migration from outside the EU has never been less than 100,000 at any time over the course of this parliament, meaning the target would have been missed with or without any rise in EU migration.
And guess where most of it comes from? : Commonwealth countries... India and Pakistan..
And the Pakistani one tend to go into localised ghettos and don't integrate.
The chances of any political party solving that issue within 20 years are nil...
Immigration from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh has dropped sharply over the past 5 years.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
Blame everyone other than the Conservatives, you mean?
Cameron didn't win in 2010GE because his message about 'change' was all over the place, and people didn't recognise the change within the Tory party, or trust their real motives. But they were desperate to get rid of Gordon Brown.
Modernisers thought that was about gender and racial balance, and the progressive obsessions of the metropolitan classes on equality, lifestyle choices and environmentalism.
It was actually about being in touch with the fears, hopes, interests and concerns of ordinary working people. That means actually doing something about them rather than pretending to (e.g immmigration) and getting results.
Incidentally, both Sean Fear (IIRC) and myself did vote Tory in GE2010. I dismissed any reservations I had at the time, but they've been vindicated.
Also - Gordon Brown also encouraged a tremendous amount of lefties to vote Liberal Democrat.
That said, it would be easier to tweak phone polling than a panel.
Massively easier to tweak an online panel, as the polling company knows lots about the people they invite to participate in each poll, whereas with a phone poll they only have whatever they can work out from the geographical location of where they are placing the phone call.
What this means is that any rogue programmer at an online firm with access to the code that determines who on the panel is invited to participate could tweak the invites to select a sample more friendly to one side or the other if they wished to do so.
Not that I think this has been done, but the opportunities are certainly much greater.
The Conservatives have previously blamed a rise in migration from within the EU for missing their target.
But experts at Oxford University's Migration Observatory said net migration from outside the EU has never been less than 100,000 at any time over the course of this parliament, meaning the target would have been missed with or without any rise in EU migration.
And guess where most of it comes from? : Commonwealth countries... India and Pakistan..
And the Pakistani one tend to go into localised ghettos and don't integrate.
The chances of any political party solving that issue within 20 years are nil...
Immigration from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh has dropped sharply over the past 5 years.
That said, it would be easier to tweak phone polling than a panel.
Massively easier to tweak an online panel, as the polling company knows lots about the people they invite to participate in each poll, whereas with a phone poll they only have whatever they can work out from the geographical location of where they are placing the phone call.
What this means is that any rogue programmer at an online firm with access to the code that determines who on the panel is invited to participate could tweak the invites to select a sample more friendly to one side or the other if they wished to do so.
Not that I think this has been done, but the opportunities are certainly much greater.
I wonder if mobile samples are balanced between PAYG and contract - I can imagine contract slightly oversampling Conservatives for instance. Whereas PAYG may pick up more DKs/NVs and be tougher to geographically assign.
People don't want a binary choice, anymore. One third of the population say "no thanks" to both Cameron and Milliband.
Agreed but I'm not the one offering the binary choice on the EU Referendum and making it almost the only policy the Party has.
Essentially the Tories hope they can grab the votes of both those people who are genuinely concerned about the EU and those who are concerned about immigration by tying the two things together. "Control of our borders" translates to many as "leaving the EU".
The fact that voting for the Conservatives on those issues ties you to the rest of the Tory baggage on the economy, NHS etc doesn't matter.
There are plenty of us deeply sceptical about what (if anything) Cameron can achieve from his "renegotiation" but it isn't even about that anymore - it's simply about keeping the Conservatives in power. Nothing and no one else matters and nothing will be left to chance that money can't influence to achieve that end.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
Quite so.
Really?
271,000 people immigrated for work in the year ending September 2014, a statistically significant increase of 54,000 compared with a year earlier. This continues the rise since the year ending June 2012. The increase over the past year applied to both non-EU and EU (non-British) citizens, as well as British citizens. However, only the increase for non-EU citizens was statistically significant.
And ?
You said 'quite so' to a post suggesting Camerons defence should be to say he could do nothing about EU immigration
@Stodge I think a period of quiet reflection for the Lib Dems may well be best... I can well see them abstaining too.
If the Lib Dems take 30 seats and take the view of abstaining on confidence votes it would reduce the bar for a Tory majority to 308, or 300 + DUP.
Assuming some gains from the Lib Dems it would mean restricting losses to Labour to the region of 15 seats. This then means that seats like Bedford have to be held.
But SNP gains from Labour also need to factored in whereas there is only one Conservative seat in Scotland and there is potential for a few gains from the Scottish LibDems.
On balance will Labour have overall net losses on the night ?!?
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
What Conservative immigration proposals have the yellow peril blocked and what proportion of the 298,000 are from the EU ?
That's going to be the defense, I reckon. "We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament". It has the benefit of being true, but...
Quite so.
Really?
271,000 people immigrated for work in the year ending September 2014, a statistically significant increase of 54,000 compared with a year earlier. This continues the rise since the year ending June 2012. The increase over the past year applied to both non-EU and EU (non-British) citizens, as well as British citizens. However, only the increase for non-EU citizens was statistically significant.
And ?
You said 'quite so' to a post suggesting Camerons defence should be to say he could do nothing about EU immigration
Apart from transitional arrangements Cameron has no power to restrict EU immigration which is a perfectly viable defence whilst the UK is a member of the EU.
One in ten of Britain’s best workers have been lured from the UK in a brain drain and been replaced by low skilled migrants, research has found.
The country’s most highly skilled workers are emigrating because they can earn more money and enjoy better standards of living overseas, according to University College London.
Dr John Jerrim, of the UCL Institute of Education, said: “Immigrants account for one in four of the 9.6 million working age adults living in the United Kingdom with low level numeracy skills."
We create a culture where everyone is for sale to the highest bidder which is apparently why we pay crap bankers a fortune and then we blame the country for not making them even more comfortable so they do us the honour of not emigrating. Wouldn't it be better to change the greedy Thatcherite culture? Go visit Cuba and see a country where surgeons are paid the same as road sweepers but stay because they like the country and like helping people.
How many Cubans are allowed or can even afford to travel out to their country?
Just an aside: people blithely assuming one side would win an EU referendum might recall Yes outperforming expectations and the defeat of the first effort at Lisbon in Ireland [which, alas, obediently rolled over the second time].
I would expect In to win, but Out would not be a dead duck of a campaign.
The fear I would have is that an In would be used as an excuse by EU-phile leftists to say that the British have given a green light to yet more surrendering of sovereignty.
Cameron has addressed non EU migration, Syria and Libya has certainly had a very negative effect. Of course such immigration I guess is neither identified or if it is it comes under EU as often they gain citizenship in say Sweden and then move here.
Has he?
Last time I checked, non-EU immigration (which he is in control of) was well over a net 100,000 a year, therefore breaching his target in and of itself.
It's hard to conclude anything other than he could take further measures, but has chosen not to.
The strategy is working: they are gradually closing down or selling off the extraneous businesses to focus on the core mission of UK retail and corporate banking. If you look at the underlying profitability - excluding the sins of the past - it is performing ok. Not great, but ok, which given the turmoil it's been in is not a bad outcome.
Still much still to do to clear up the mess left by the last management team.
Let me put this in context for you. Red Robbo BL in 1974/5 made a loss of £123m roughly £1.25bn at today's prices.
Since 2008 we are now on management team 2, 3, 4 ? so which ones are the current bunch cleaning up after ?
And more to the point are you forecasting a profit next year ?
For 5 years you and I have been banging on about RBS with you telling me I don't understand banking and it will be all right this time next year. Well yet anotrher year has gone by and your record needle is still stuck.
Break it up and move on, the taxpayer has been fleeced and will never get his money back.
Why haven't any of the big banks been broken up yet?
Osborne
TSB Williams & Glyn
Plus Shawbrook, Aldermore, Metro
LOL
we;ve thrown two deck chairs off the Titanic and expect it to refloat.
LOL and ha ha ha... RBS shares rose in early trading.
Last November the Competition and Markets Authority embarked on an investigation to the banks and I venture to suggest that after that we will see more break ups.
RBS it seems made a loss of £3.5bn thanks thanks largely to one-off items including a '£4bn fair-value adjustment'. I am sure somebody will tell me if that (and its other provisions future claims) involves real losses and real money or not. Its operating profit was £3.5bn. If you look at its size now compared with its size before the Brown Crash it has already broken itself up. But it still faces litigation costs for the activities carried out under the Brown Failed Regulation years
No doubt with the dark humour one finds everywhere in the banking sector (sarcasm alert) its plan to get out of its corporate mess is dubbed internally ''Project Brown''.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) 26/02/2015 09:34 Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
Cameron didn't have the votes.
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
Blame everyone other than the Conservatives, you mean?
Cameron didn't win in 2010GE because his message about 'change' was all over the place, and people didn't recognise the change within the Tory party, or trust their real motives. But they were desperate to get rid of Gordon Brown.
Modernisers thought that was about gender and racial balance, and the progressive obsessions of the metropolitan classes on equality, lifestyle choices and environmentalism.
It was actually about being in touch with the fears, hopes, interests and concerns of ordinary working people. That means actually doing something about them rather than pretending to (e.g immmigration) and getting results.
Incidentally, both Sean Fear (IIRC) and myself did vote Tory in GE2010. I dismissed any reservations I had at the time, but they've been vindicated.
Cameron didn't win in 2010 because whereas 35% saw Labour cruise to a comfortable majority in 2005 the same 35% figure five years later restricted the Conservatives to a minority. Such are the vagaries of FPTP.
Just an aside: people blithely assuming one side would win an EU referendum might recall Yes outperforming expectations and the defeat of the first effort at Lisbon in Ireland [which, alas, obediently rolled over the second time].
I would expect In to win, but Out would not be a dead duck of a campaign.
The fear I would have is that an In would be used as an excuse by EU-phile leftists to say that the British have given a green light to yet more surrendering of sovereignty.
I don't think one can make any assumptions about a referendum result, so long in advance. Until it happened, few thought the SNP would come so close to winning.
Just an aside: people blithely assuming one side would win an EU referendum might recall Yes outperforming expectations and the defeat of the first effort at Lisbon in Ireland [which, alas, obediently rolled over the second time].
I would expect In to win, but Out would not be a dead duck of a campaign.
The fear I would have is that an In would be used as an excuse by EU-phile leftists to say that the British have given a green light to yet more surrendering of sovereignty.
You'd probably get a Scottish situation where "in" wins then everyone starts voting for UKIP, LOL!
I think I'd be very inclined to vote OUT if I was given the chance.
Comments
No thanks. It's simple - vote Con for a referendum, vote for someone else for PM Miliband.
But you are right... Biggish names but spouting party lines no doubt... I retract the word 'good'
most oppose pointless Trident spending too..Ed believes this
he is far more radical than the rest of the Shadow Cabinet but is
hampered by trying to appease the Labour right
Nicola, Leanne and Caroline will force Ed to listen to his voters
and give him the backbone to stand up to the failed Blairites
in the party still hankering after a return to New Labourers
"I also wonder to what extent polls are tweaked to provide an answer nearer that it perceives its client wants to get. So for example, do they worry a leftish paper might not continue employing a firm that comes up with polling good for Conservatives/UKIP? You would hope note, but it is a doubt that never quite goes away."
As has been said on here many times that just doesn't happen. Too many people would have to be involved in the fraud apart from anything else. What they do however is ask additional questions which I understand are at the discretion of the publication.
For example YouGov who were polling for the Mail once asked "Is Cherie Blair more likely to put you off voting Labour or Sandra Howard more likely to put you off voting Conservative?"
I emailed YouGov (who were relatively new at the time) to ask them why they asked such an unpleasant question and got a very nice reply from Stephen Shakespere saying that the question was requested by the newspaper and though they weren't happy about it it was up to the publication. He added that as the answer came back 90% 'made no difference' it showed the public were more thoughtful than the publication (or words to that effect)
"Could the UKIP caravan hurt the Tories?
The current favourite to succeed Roger Knapman in the UKIP leadership elecrtion which closes on September 7 is MEP Nigel Farage, who stood for the party in the Bromley by-election.
The key point that Farage has grasped is that UKIP can no longer rely upon being a single-issue party if it wishes to grow. In his Manifesto, he sets out his view of the Party’s philosophy:
We are a unique brand. Nationalist with a small ‘n’, libertarian, and in favour of small government and Parliamentary sovereignty. We are opposed to unlimited immigration, high taxes and bureaucracy. He believes that this philosophy, with an obvious appeal to the strongly right-of-centre, will enable the party to build beyond its current small base
It has been no means clear that the current, single-issue UKIP takes the majority of its support from the Conservatives. The party has hurt the Tories in past elections, but probably not as much as it might have. But if UKIP adopted a broader, “Old Tory” policy platform, would it have a more direct appeal to the traditionalist Conservative voter that Cameron needs to remain on board?"
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2006/07/31/guest-slot-tabman-on-the-ukip-leadership-election/
The restructuring of banking hasn't taken place in 7 years. No other industry would get away with that timescale largely because the banks would force a restructuring,
Simply put it means bankers won't take their own medicine.
Again, I stress that I really hope that this is not the case, but I'm wondering if, during the tests following the crash, they found something about Alonso's health they don't like.
Net migration to the UK was estimated to be 298,000 in the year ending September 2014 #ONS http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/migration1/migration-statistics-quarterly-report/february-2015/index.html …
F-ing hell!!! Nearly a third of a million in one year!
There's no way this country can cope with the scale of that.
Some years ago I read - can't recall the source - that the BBC's overall market share of UK TV viewers is only about 25% to 30%. If that is so, then in effect, the license fee would presumably have to be about 4x higher than it is, if it were to be collected only from those people who actually use the BBC.
There must then be some risk of a spiral of decline. A BBC whose full costs were charged only to actual viewers would be so much more expensive than it is now that its 25% market share would decline still further, meaning those costs would have to be recovered from a smaller base still.
I guess in the end you might end up with a smaller BBC with a household subscription costing around £2,000 a year and a market share of 5%.
What I find odd about these sorts of discussion is that there always seems to be a baked-in assumption that there must be one levy and it must go to the BBC. Why couldn't there be one levy, but those upon whom it is made opt into whichever TV provider they choose? - so the TV licence fee could persist, but you could choose to route yours towards Sky rather than the BBC.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/features/agony-aunt/ask-holly-should-i-give-mental-mumsnet-ladies-a-taste-of-the-balls-2015022695751
An indicator of a recovering economy.
Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn)
26/02/2015 09:34
Net immigration up to 298,000 a year - close to record high under Blair of 320,000. Disaster for Cameron, last stats before #GE2015
That particular bank should have been smashed into smaller pieces years ago. No one else would have been allowed to get away with those losses.
The long suffering Taxpayer has hosed £billions that could, and should have been spent on anything from Maritime Patrol Aircraft and Frigates, to Schools and Transport Infrastructure.
It's a complete disgrace.
Be interesting to see if this big jump is due to Eastern Europeans or non-EU i.e if it is a due to something that Cameron couldn't really control in government or a failure on something he does have direct influence over.
That said, it would be easier to tweak phone polling than a panel.
No wonder people are flocking to the UK.
26/02/2015 09:31
Here’s the ONS release, just out, showing how far out from his ‘tens of thousands’ pledge Cameron is specc.ie/1anLwU1
Blame the LibDems. Or those 50,000 Kippers who could have given us a Tory majority in 2010. Then you could have railed against Cameron. Coalition Govts. will ensure that this issue can never be addressed to your satisfaction.
Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB)
26/02/2015 09:29
%age probability of UKIP victory in target seats from @Election4castUK
S Thanet 2% chance pic.twitter.com/jfsBLKJilp
As for the precious Tory Euro-nonsense, the country can't afford two years of Conservative blethering and introspection on this issue - there are far more important issues to be dealt with though the thought of the Tories ripping themselves apart isn't without some appeal.
the Immigration figures show the "booming economy" is
attracting all the rest of Europes jobless
LOL..Yep those £2-80 an hour "Apprenticeships", Zero hours,
Workfare etc "jobs" will have had the Greeks, Spanish and Italians
all flocking here..Great analysis Norm
Forget about privatising Auntie..the first task of Eds new Govt
must be to order the Beebs political broadcasting unit to be
independently investigated..its currently a hotbed of Blues from
Robinson, Gibb, Neil currently to Paxman in the recent past..no
chance of "speaking truth to nation" unless a more balanced
politics output is presented
Scrap The Daily Politics and Sunday Politics and bring back On
the Record with Jon Sopel to replace the latter for a start
If there's one thing puts voters off it's an inability to face up to failure.
26/02/2015 09:50
Just checking figures for this morning's Daily Politics but looks like net immigration now higher than when Coalition came to power.
Yesterday saw PBTories waking up to the fact that we have a problem with terrorism, with Rotherham and with "clan elders" dictating the Labour candidate in Bradford West. I think Ukip's clothes are being stolen.
Mind you, a bloke in the pub reckons lib Dems should be 66/1 in Sheffield hallam...
"We are a unique brand. Nationalist with a small ‘n’,............"
Nationalist doesn't come with a small 'n'. It leads to facism with a large 'F'
Maybe HoL reform, uni fees, bank and tax reforms might be a good place to start. You're simply amplifying Cameron being crap at politcs. If you're in a coalition like any marriage there has to be some give and take. You need to set your goals and do a trade. I'm pretty sure the LDs going in to an election would like to have a few totemic scalps to give their supporters as much as the Tories.
26/02/2015 09:40
Cameron promised immigration in 10s of thousands by election. "No ifs or buts". Latest figures put it on 300,000.
"We don't have control of our borders as a member of the EU. A vote for the Conservatives is the only way we can address this in the next parliament".
It has the benefit of being true, but...
But experts at Oxford University's Migration Observatory said net migration from outside the EU has never been less than 100,000 at any time over the course of this parliament, meaning the target would have been missed with or without any rise in EU migration.
To the best of my recollection I have watched any television at all only three times in the last 17 years. I watched 10 minutes of the closing ceremony of the Olympics, I watched Top Gear in India and I watched an episode of Judge Rinder that my mother forced me to watch. In all three cases I go bored very very quickly. Probably I also looked at TV screens in the office on 9/11.
Other than that, I get everything I need off the web, or DVDs, either for nothing or for very little money (eg all of Dad's Army for £10 some years ago).
I simply find it boring and passive, like having to listen to radio rather my own choice of CD. The difference is that if you want to go to a different National Gallery, or drive to Birmingham on a non-state motorway, you can't because there is no private alternative. If there were a choice then there'd be more resistance to a state levy to pay for the council version of something you can buy elsewhere.
The other point about things like free museums is that they are quite a large part of the country's draw to tourists, so I rather suspect that net-net they contribute rather than cost through indirect things like greater tourist spend. It's unclear that this is so of the BBC.
"271,000 people immigrated for work in the year ending September 2014, a statistically significant increase of 54,000 compared with a year earlier. This continues the rise since the year ending June 2012. The increase over the past year applied to both non-EU and EU (non-British) citizens, as well as British citizens. However, only the increase for non-EU citizens was statistically significant."
And the Pakistani one tend to go into localised ghettos and don't integrate.
The chances of any political party solving that issue within 20 years are nil...
271,000 people immigrated for work in the year ending September 2014, a statistically significant increase of 54,000 compared with a year earlier. This continues the rise since the year ending June 2012. The increase over the past year applied to both non-EU and EU (non-British) citizens, as well as British citizens. However, only the increase for non-EU citizens was statistically significant.
Assuming some gains from the Lib Dems it would mean restricting losses to Labour to the region of 15 seats. This then means that seats like Bedford have to be held.
Up jumped a big Robert ....
to be continued.
But this whole "No ifs, no buts"..., I'm struggling.
Do HR departments generally know their arse from their elbow ?
"37,000 Romanian and Bulgarian (EU2) citizens immigrated to the UK in the year ending September 2014, a statistically significant increase from 24,000 in the previous 12 months. Of these, 27,000 were coming for work, a rise of 10,000 on year ending September 2013, but this increase itself was not statistically significant."
Cameron didn't win in 2010GE because his message about 'change' was all over the place, and people didn't recognise the change within the Tory party, or trust their real motives. But they were desperate to get rid of Gordon Brown.
Modernisers thought that was about gender and racial balance, and the progressive obsessions of the metropolitan classes on equality, lifestyle choices and environmentalism.
It was actually about being in touch with the fears, hopes, interests and concerns of ordinary working people. That means actually doing something about them rather than pretending to (e.g immmigration) and getting results.
Incidentally, both Sean Fear (IIRC) and myself did vote Tory in GE2010. I dismissed any reservations I had at the time, but they've been vindicated.
What this means is that any rogue programmer at an online firm with access to the code that determines who on the panel is invited to participate could tweak the invites to select a sample more friendly to one side or the other if they wished to do so.
Not that I think this has been done, but the opportunities are certainly much greater.
the size of an HR department is inversely proportional to the amount of value they add to a company.
Landlines surely undersample 18-24s.
Essentially the Tories hope they can grab the votes of both those people who are genuinely concerned about the EU and those who are concerned about immigration by tying the two things together. "Control of our borders" translates to many as "leaving the EU".
The fact that voting for the Conservatives on those issues ties you to the rest of the Tory baggage on the economy, NHS etc doesn't matter.
There are plenty of us deeply sceptical about what (if anything) Cameron can achieve from his "renegotiation" but it isn't even about that anymore - it's simply about keeping the Conservatives in power. Nothing and no one else matters and nothing will be left to chance that money can't influence to achieve that end.
On balance will Labour have overall net losses on the night ?!?
Titter ....
Some do.
I would expect In to win, but Out would not be a dead duck of a campaign.
The fear I would have is that an In would be used as an excuse by EU-phile leftists to say that the British have given a green light to yet more surrendering of sovereignty.
Police have now been called as the Labour battle for Bradford West gets even nastier. Story soon.
Last time I checked, non-EU immigration (which he is in control of) was well over a net 100,000 a year, therefore breaching his target in and of itself.
It's hard to conclude anything other than he could take further measures, but has chosen not to.
RBS shares rose in early trading.
Last November the Competition and Markets Authority embarked on an investigation to the banks and I venture to suggest that after that we will see more break ups.
RBS it seems made a loss of £3.5bn thanks thanks largely to one-off items including a '£4bn fair-value adjustment'. I am sure somebody will tell me if that (and its other provisions future claims) involves real losses and real money or not.
Its operating profit was £3.5bn.
If you look at its size now compared with its size before the Brown Crash it has already broken itself up.
But it still faces litigation costs for the activities carried out under the Brown Failed Regulation years
No doubt with the dark humour one finds everywhere in the banking sector (sarcasm alert) its plan to get out of its corporate mess is dubbed internally ''Project Brown''.
I think I'd be very inclined to vote OUT if I was given the chance.
"Unpleasant foreigners ruin cricket again", Daily Mash