During the evacuation of children in the war, the billeting office had the power to compulsorily force people with large or many houses in the country to accept evacuees.
A reasonable solution (which would easily enable us to accept 10,000 migrants a month, as antifrank wants) is compulsory billeting.
They are compulsorily billeted on people with ample space to spare (which will coincidentally include the multi-property owning antifrank and tyson).
The evacuees stayed for 2 or 3 years until London and Liverpool were safe.
So, the migrants stay with their rich and affluent hosts for 2 or 3 years until Syria has returned to some semblance of normality.
Antifrank is right, It is no real problem. Many people do have plenty of houses and plenty of space, and they are the ones would should take on the temporary burden.
You need to learn to read. I mentioned 10,000 in a month, not 10,000 a month.
Though we could manage 10,000 a month too if we had to. Germany is expecting to take 800,000 this year.
Seriously, where will they live in the UK?
Every year half a million or more immigrants arrive and a couple of hundred thousand people leave Britain. In the context of those numbers, 120,000 a year really isn't very much at all.
In case you hadn't noticed, Britain's population is expected to grow quite rapidly in coming decades.
That's complete nonsense
Currently net migration stands at a record 360k I believe... Most people think that is way too high, and you are suggesting 33% extra isn't very much at all
It's not. Britain has a population of 64 million or so. The additional burden we're talking about is 1/500th of Britain's population in the context of a population experienced with dealing with migration. It's very bearable.
We can stipulate who we take and where we put them. Not only is it the right thing to do, it could also help to kick-start a number of communities and local economies. From what I can see a lot of the refugees are families. I doubt they are escaping a bloodbath just so they can start another one. They just want to get on with their lives without fear. And like all immigrants they will work hard and expect little.
I think your point would be valid if your last statement was more than just an expression of your wishful thinking and if we hadn't already seen very large numbers of immigrants during the Blair/Brown years. Public opinion simply is not with you on this one.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
We can stipulate who we take and where we put them. Not only is it the right thing to do, it could also help to kick-start a number of communities and local economies. From what I can see a lot of the refugees are families. I doubt they are escaping a bloodbath just so they can start another one. They just want to get on with their lives without fear. And like all immigrants they will work hard and expect little.
How many are just escaping a bloodbath? Can you guarantee that they will leave their religious biases and hatreds behind them? Many of our home-grown terrorists and descendants of immigrants of many years ago.
Do you really want to impose more foreign cultures on our communities without their consent? Where will they be housed and what jobs would they do? Many of our schools and health services would not have the required capacity. How many would then want to import their families and greater families?
That's the spirit. I thought you were an entrepreneur capable of seeing opportunity and possibility.
I am, but like most entrepreneurs, I get the facts right first and evaluate the risk of failure and the risk of ruining what is there already.
How many of these people are professional families - please can you quantify them and then we can continue this debate.
Overall, I'd say there were hundreds of thousands of middle class, secular families among the millions of refugees. The anecdotal evidence seems to support that - these are people that have the money not just to cross a border into Turkey or Jordan or the Lebanon but to pay to get themselves and their immediate dependents into the EU.
In my experience, entrepreneurs see an opportunity and go for it. They do not spend much time evaluating the risk of failure. They invest in their idea. As a country we can decide who we let in and where we put them.
"As a country we can decide who we let in and where we put them." Isn't much of that part of the problem that Mrs May has? Also we need to freedom to get rid of them, if our choice has been shown to be wrong. Also I presume that you are talking about only people from Syria?
Mr. Observer, that line, also adopted by Cooper, assumes that people who've travelled thousands of miles will be unable/unwilling to move around the UK.
They have travelled with their families. They want to live in peace. Anywhere is better than where they are now. With imagination this is an opportunity for us. The chance to embed relatively well-educated, professional families into depressed communities that will never get that kick-start from internal immigration. They are not a swarm or an invasion, they are desperate people who will be hugely grateful to whatever country helps them and will strive to do their very best for it - as it will mean doing best for themselves too.
You are making an awful lot of assumptions about these people. How do you know any of this? For all you know they could be people who have been torturers for the Assad regime who want to escape before justice catches up with them.
Deal with them as individuals. Determine whether they are genuine asylum seekers and, if so, let's help. But if they're migrants wanting a better life, then they can get in the queue like everyone else. And we determine whom we want not make the urgency of their demands the sole criteria for deciding entry let alone confuse them with those who are genuinely facing real persecution.
During the evacuation of children in the war, the billeting office had the power to compulsorily force people with large or many houses in the country to accept evacuees.
A reasonable solution (which would easily enable us to accept 10,000 migrants a month, as antifrank wants) is compulsory billeting.
They are compulsorily billeted on people with ample space to spare (which will coincidentally include the multi-property owning antifrank and tyson).
The evacuees stayed for 2 or 3 years until London and Liverpool were safe.
So, the migrants stay with their rich and affluent hosts for 2 or 3 years until Syria has returned to some semblance of normality.
Antifrank is right, It is no real problem. Many people do have plenty of houses and plenty of space, and they are the ones would should take on the temporary burden.
You need to learn to read. I mentioned 10,000 in a month, not 10,000 a month.
Though we could manage 10,000 a month too if we had to. Germany is expecting to take 800,000 this year.
Seriously, where will they live in the UK?
Every year half a million or more immigrants arrive and a couple of hundred thousand people leave Britain. In the context of those numbers, 120,000 a year really isn't very much at all.
In case you hadn't noticed, Britain's population is expected to grow quite rapidly in coming decades.
You do acknowledge though that many of them are living in extremely squalid conditions, often with many sharing a single room? This is nothing for this country to be proud of, and you might argue that it is a function of the housing stock not keeping up with the demand. But why should it have to? Why should hundreds of thousands of people barging into the UK mean we have to build to cater for them?
Fair enough - I see where you are coming form and my language was loose. The evidence suggests that most immigrants come here to work and that this is especially the case when we are talking about refugees fleeing war zones in which they previously enjoyed a decent standard of living. All the anecdotal evidence indicates that there has been a massive displacement of secular, middle class Syrians over the course of the last two or three years. Offering them refuge is not only the right thing to do, it could also be hugely advantageous to us. These are the kinds of people that start businesses and revive flagging local economies. We should use them to do just that.
Syrians previous standard of living was a GDP per capita of just over $2,000 a year. Maybe this is 'decent' but it is certainly a long way from European standards of living. If we want people who are business creators and hard workers, then we should have an immigration system that targets that. Certainly the record of other asylum seekers from the broader Middle East region has not justified your claims. For ethnic Somalis in the UK, 73% are on benefits, 50% are in council housing, and only about 30% are employed. This does not look like improving for the second generation either: only 33% of Somalis get five GCSE passes, less than half the rate of other groups. Mo Farah aside, Somali immigration to the UK has been an overwhelming net drain - and much of it came secondhand from the EU.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Net immigration is already running at levels that the public are very unhappy at. Pushing that up to 450,000 a year will strain public patience even further.
We can stipulate who we take and where we put them. Not only is it the right thing to do, it could also help to kick-start a number of communities and local economies. From what I can see a lot of the refugees are families. I doubt they are escaping a bloodbath just so they can start another one. They just want to get on with their lives without fear. And like all immigrants they will work hard and expect little.
I think your point would be valid if your last statement was more than just an expression of your wishful thinking and if we hadn't already seen very large numbers of immigrants during the Blair/Brown years. Public opinion simply is not with you on this one.
I know. Immigration has continued apace since labour left power - it was at record levels last year, I believe. But we have an opportunity here, if we play it right.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
It would be bearable if our housing, education and health services had spare capacity - but they do not and in fact are under-capacity. Also the current immigrants and emigrants are not composed of the same cultural mix and that has to be taken into account.
Fair enough - I see where you are coming form and my language was loose. The evidence suggests that most immigrants come here to work and that this is especially the case when we are talking about refugees fleeing war zones in which they previously enjoyed a decent standard of living. All the anecdotal evidence indicates that there has been a massive displacement of secular, middle class Syrians over the course of the last two or three years. Offering them refuge is not only the right thing to do, it could also be hugely advantageous to us. These are the kinds of people that start businesses and revive flagging local economies. We should use them to do just that.
Syrians previous standard of living was a GDP per capita of just over $2,000 a year. Maybe this is 'decent' but it is certainly a long way from European standards of living. If we want people who are business creators and hard workers, then we should have an immigration system that targets that. Certainly the record of other asylum seekers from the broader Middle East region has not justified your claims. For ethnic Somalis in the UK, 73% are on benefits, 50% are in council housing, and only about 30% are employed. This does not look like improving for the second generation either: only 33% of Somalis get five GCSE passes, less than half the rate of other groups. Mo Farah aside, Somali immigration to the UK has been an overwhelming net drain - and much of it came secondhand from the EU.
Yes, there were and are many millions of desperately poor people in Syria - something that certainly pushes down the per capita GDP considerably. I am not talking about them, though. I am advocating a pragmatic approach that would bring benefits to us. I don't know what the GDP of Uganda was when that country's population of southern Asians was expelled, but we certainly benefited from their arrival.
GE 2015 saw politicians keenly aware of housing problems in this country desperately trying to out do each other with regard to the number of homes that could be built. And in recent months these threads have been awash with discussions about building on brownfield sites and the Green Belt to alleviate shortages of residential property.
Anyone tell me where Cooper's 10,000 a month are going to live please?
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Net immigration is already running at levels that the public are very unhappy at. Pushing that up to 450,000 a year will strain public patience even further.
antifrank,
You are pushing for a policy that will severely impact poorer communities in this country. You argue that, as a rich person, you already do your bit through taxation, but the current level of taxation you pay already. Would you be comfortable of having a windfall tax of an extra 10% of your income to pay for new housing for these people to be built in wealthy areas? And then for a surchage to be maintained until ethnic Syrians in the UK reach employment and earnings levels of the national average?
Fair enough - I see where you are coming form and my language was loose. The evidence suggests that most immigrants come here to work and that this is especially the case when we are talking about refugees fleeing war zones in which they previously enjoyed a decent standard of living. All the anecdotal evidence indicates that there has been a massive displacement of secular, middle class Syrians over the course of the last two or three years. Offering them refuge is not only the right thing to do, it could also be hugely advantageous to us. These are the kinds of people that start businesses and revive flagging local economies. We should use them to do just that.
Syrians previous standard of living was a GDP per capita of just over $2,000 a year. Maybe this is 'decent' but it is certainly a long way from European standards of living. If we want people who are business creators and hard workers, then we should have an immigration system that targets that. Certainly the record of other asylum seekers from the broader Middle East region has not justified your claims. For ethnic Somalis in the UK, 73% are on benefits, 50% are in council housing, and only about 30% are employed. This does not look like improving for the second generation either: only 33% of Somalis get five GCSE passes, less than half the rate of other groups. Mo Farah aside, Somali immigration to the UK has been an overwhelming net drain - and much of it came secondhand from the EU.
Yes, there were and are many millions of desperately poor people in Syria - something that certainly pushes down the per capita GDP considerably. I am not talking about them, though. I am advocating a pragmatic approach that would bring benefits to us. I don't know what the GDP of Uganda was when that country's population of southern Asians was expelled, but we certainly benefited from their arrival.
So you are advocating only taking the middle class, higher earning Syrian refugees?
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Net immigration is already running at levels that the public are very unhappy at. Pushing that up to 450,000 a year will strain public patience even further.
antifrank,
You are pushing for a policy that will severely impact poorer communities in this country. You argue that, as a rich person, you already do your bit through taxation, but the current level of taxation you pay already. Would you be comfortable of having a windfall tax of an extra 10% of your income to pay for new housing for these people to be built in wealthy areas? And then for a surchage to be maintained until ethnic Syrians in the UK reach employment and earnings levels of the national average?
As Isam has already proposed, immigrants and asylum seekers should be settled in amongst the wealthy who are proposing that they be allowed to come here.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
In what circumstances would you ever accept refugees?
Fair enough - I see where you are coming form and my language was loose. The evidence suggests that most immigrants come here to work and that this is especially the case when we are talking about refugees fleeing war zones in which they previously enjoyed a decent standard of living. All the anecdotal evidence indicates that there has been a massive displacement of secular, middle class Syrians over the course of the last two or three years. Offering them refuge is not only the right thing to do, it could also be hugely advantageous to us. These are the kinds of people that start businesses and revive flagging local economies. We should use them to do just that.
Syrians previous standard of living was a GDP per capita of just over $2,000 a year. Maybe this is 'decent' but it is certainly a long way from European standards of living. If we want people who are business creators and hard workers, then we should have an immigration system that targets that. Certainly the record of other asylum seekers from the broader Middle East region has not justified your claims. For ethnic Somalis in the UK, 73% are on benefits, 50% are in council housing, and only about 30% are employed. This does not look like improving for the second generation either: only 33% of Somalis get five GCSE passes, less than half the rate of other groups. Mo Farah aside, Somali immigration to the UK has been an overwhelming net drain - and much of it came secondhand from the EU.
Yes, there were and are many millions of desperately poor people in Syria - something that certainly pushes down the per capita GDP considerably. I am not talking about them, though. I am advocating a pragmatic approach that would bring benefits to us. I don't know what the GDP of Uganda was when that country's population of southern Asians was expelled, but we certainly benefited from their arrival.
I think you are right about this -- but the problem is that it is the people-equivalent of asset stripping.
Once all the educated & entrepeneurial have been stripped out of a country, then it can never, ever recover. Once we take the doctors and the nurses, then the healthcare system collapses. Once we take the engineers, then the infrastructure can’t be rebuilt.
If we are acting from humanitarian motives, these in fact are the very people we should not take -- rather we should take the old and the infirm and the injured.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
In what circumstances would you ever accept refugees?
When we can control our own borders without interference from the EU (by giving out passports) and the ECHR.
I see the Labour Party still isn't done with its services to the Conservative Party. With Cooper's latest pronouncements, which Corbyn would no doubt support, it should be clear to any floating voter that for all Cameron's failings on immigration, Labour have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing: it would be *even higher* - and by design - under a Labour government.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
In what circumstances would you ever accept refugees?
Nice dodge
I'd accept them in the way we always have and to allow this compassion I'd have severely limited the amount of economic migrants we have let in over the last decade.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
In what circumstances would you ever accept refugees?
When we can control our own borders without interference from the EU (by giving out passports) and the ECHR.
As I said, hell will freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I agree with Mike: I don't expect an early challenge to Corbyn. For him to be replaced, he needs to fail on his ability as a leader not as a candidate, when it's his qualities as a candidate that have proven attractive to the Labour electorate.
The problem with coming over all loyal now is that many senior Labour figures have been saying how unelectable Corbyn is all Summer. It'll take some fancy footwork to row back from that post-election - though fancy verbal footwork is a key skill of the political climber. Even so, it's something of a catch-22: the longer that senior figures remain loyal, the harder it becomes to distance themselves from his leadership afterwards - but if they're not loyal, they risk any failure being attributed to their lack of support not Corbyn's lack of ability.
Morning all,
There is wild talk of a challenge (see Winterton a few days ago), but seems to me this is highly unlikely. Apart from anything else, who in Labour could face another leadership election this year (and the cost)? If there's a meltdown in next year's locals and Scots then the muttering will seriously begin.
An alternative is the Cameron/Osborne come up with a HoC vote that so splits the party that Corbyn resigns (in utter relief no doubt) on a point of principle. Trident? Syria?
In the meantime, those who are virulently anti-Corbyn would be best to keep their heads down for 12 months and develop some alternative ideas. It seems to be a fairly universal view that non of the three other candidates have remotely given the impression of a well worked out policy platform for 2020s Britain.
Isn't the best thing to be commissioned to be a loyal backbencher, say that you want to take the time to think hard about welfare support for newt-fanciers or whatever and sti out the shadow cabinet?
TBH, I don't want any more unskilled migrants of any description for a very long while. I couldn't emigrate to Australia or Canada if I wanted to.
The Arab world need to handle this - I'm happy for our DfiD budget to be spent keeping refugees from Syria fed and clothed near to their country. Importing their population and those of similar cultures here is a recipe for disaster.
GE 2015 saw politicians keenly aware of housing problems in this country desperately trying to out do each other with regard to the number of homes that could be built. And in recent months these threads have been awash with discussions about building on brownfield sites and the Green Belt to alleviate shortages of residential property.
Anyone tell me where Cooper's 10,000 a month are going to live please?
And that story highlights another issue: once you have some family members in one country you will get more through the family reunion and right to family life routes and before long we will have large communities of people from an extremist ridden violent part of the world in our midst. What are the chances of successfully integrating them?
The focus has to be on (1) getting the Arab world to take responsibility for its problems; (2) dissuading the migrants from coming to Europe; and (3) doing more to create places of safety within the Middle East. Then - and only with the consent of our populations - set out strict criteria and limits for those we are prepared to invite in and enforce those properly.
The analogy to dumping millions of post-WW2 refugees on the shores of North Africa and telling them to "get on with it" is very good. The refusal of the Gulf States to accept Syrian refugees is very telling.
As for the woman in the BBC article I am personally very sympathetic to her. She is a genuine refugee who has overcome real hardship, including the killing of her father. She is ambitious, multilingual and works hard. Like the huddled masses reaching NYC in the 1800s, she deserves our respect if not our praise.
Was she right to head to Sweden? Family reunion and a better quality of life is an understandable desire. Leaving her mother behind is rather sad, but reiterates that it's the most vulnerable people who can't flee to Europe. If there were a policy of assisted family reunion, no doubt her mother would have come too. Was she a bad woman for breaking (bad) laws? I don't think so, laws aren't the same as ethics, though I note her actions fed thousands of dollars to some very wicked people smugglers (again, only some can come: had she been poor, she could never have set off). More morally reprehensible, in my opinion, was how she took risks with her own life in the sea crossing that meant her already widowed mother could have been left mourning a daughter too.
Is it bad public policy that she could head to Sweden? Yes, it's bloody terrible public policy. A border system that doesn't work. Expensive help for "refugees" that assists precisely the people who need it least. People smugglers pocketing thousands while taking really quite evil liberties with thousands of people's lives - the story of the boat she was really quite horrifying, and she was one of the lucky ones.
Europe represents democracies which are fundamentally interested in helping people. So migrants are not likely to go to Russia, or China and the USA is too far away. Sadly, Labour showed weakness when it came to the option of helping Syrian rebels and some tory backbenchers like David Davis (both of them!) showed stupidity. So much for it being the left of the tory party that is not willing to act!
This background makes it almost impossible to strike at places where the problem is fermented. It set up the problem of ISIS in Syria and now we have the daft situation where even when RAF pilots are on secondment to the USAF the opposition and media complain about them bombing Syrian targets. So really - a national government? The UN should be the place where these issues are resolved but it too is spineless.
So we should have done as Cameron wanted and bombed the forces inside Syria that were actually fighting IS. Oh I am sure that would have done wonders for the region. In case you missed it we had lots of jolly japes bombing Government forces in Libya and as a result the country is a basket case.
Pillock.
There's no need to be rude to people. We can strongly disagree with each other without being disagreeable.
He and any other Friend of Farage can call me 'pillock' all he wants but that does not stop the fact that Assad was a crony to ISIS when it suited him and not attacking Assad and supporting the 'genuine' rebels allowed ISIS to gain traction and was a betrayal of the rebels. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/08/barack-obama-betrayed-syrian-people-150822084544918.html The above writer blames Obama of course and the vote in parliament gave Obama all the cover he needed. Cameron wanted to bomb Assad and Miliband and Davis between them stopped it. Syrian refugees are the result. But as someone else said - because we did not bomb Syria when we had the chance we will never know what might have happened. But what the vote did was make any other attempt at intervention difficult to say the least. (We saw the complaints about RAF pilots flying with the USAF). So as long as misery is fermented in the world and we stand back and do nothing then the world will be full of migrants.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
It's statistically invalid because you're looking at this on an entirely bogus test. The country's population is 64 million not 360,000. The increase in population is less than 1/500th not 33%.
He and any other Friend of Farage can call me 'pillock' all he wants but that does not stop the fact that Assad was a crony to ISIS when it suited him and not attacking Assad and supporting the 'genuine' rebels allowed ISIS to gain traction and was a betrayal of the rebels. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/08/barack-obama-betrayed-syrian-people-150822084544918.html The above writer blames Obama of course and the vote in parliament gave Obama all the cover he needed. Cameron wanted to bomb Assad and Miliband and Davis between them stopped it. Syrian refugees are the result. But as someone else said - because we did not bomb Syria when we had the chance we will never know what might have happened. But what the vote did was make any other attempt at intervention difficult to say the least. (We saw the complaints about RAF pilots flying with the USAF). So as long as misery is fermented in the world and we stand back and do nothing then the world will be full of migrants.
Yet more outright lies starting with your very first sentence Flightpath. Anyone who considers me a friend of Farage after all the time I have posted on here attacking him is clearly somewhat mentally deficient. But then we already knew that about you from all your previous flatulent drivelling on here.
Your grasp of Middle Eastern politics and history is apparently as far removed from reality as your grasp of European politics or history. You are an intellectual void.
and limits for those we are prepared to invite in and enforce those properly.
The analogy to dumping millions of post-WW2 refugees on the shores of North Africa and telling them to "get on with it" is very good. The refusal of the Gulf States to accept Syrian refugees is very telling.
As for the woman in the BBC article I am personally very sympathetic to her. She is a genuine refugee who has overcome real hardship, including the killing of her father. She is ambitious, multilingual and works hard. Like the huddled masses reaching NYC in the 1800s, she deserves our respect if not our praise.
Was she right to head to Sweden? Family reunion and a better quality of life is an understandable desire. Leaving her mother behind is rather sad, but reiterates that it's the most vulnerable people who can't flee to Europe. If there were a policy of assisted family reunion, no doubt her mother would have come too. Was she a bad woman for breaking (bad) laws? I don't think so, laws aren't the same as ethics, though I note her actions fed thousands of dollars to some very wicked people smugglers (again, only some can come: had she been poor, she could never have set off). More morally reprehensible, in my opinion, was how she took risks with her own life in the sea crossing that meant her already widowed mother could have been left mourning a daughter too.
Is it bad public policy that she could head to Sweden? Yes, it's bloody terrible public policy. A border system that doesn't work. Expensive help for "refugees" that assists precisely the people who need it least. People smugglers pocketing thousands while taking really quite evil liberties with thousands of people's lives - the story of the boat she was really quite horrifying, and she was one of the lucky ones.
She was a refugee from Syria to Turkey. She certainly wasn't a refugee from Turkey to Sweden. If she wants to work in Sweden, then she should apply by lawful means.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
It's statistically invalid because you're looking at this on an entirely bogus test. The country's population is 64 million not 360,000. The increase in population is less than 1/500th not 33%.
Isam has made a perfectly reasonable calculation.
It is no more or no less "statistically invalid” than your calculation (which just happens to be a different measure).
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
It's statistically invalid because you're looking at this on an entirely bogus test. The country's population is 64 million not 360,000. The increase in population is less than 1/500th not 33%.
Can you be this stupid and think you your being clever?
I didn't say it was an increase in population. It is an increase in net migration. Migration stats deal in increases or decreases in net migration not proportion of the population
Oh you must feel like everyone is walking the opposite way to you from the station. Set up a special needs group at work? The unaffected rich empathy for refugees book club?
Fair enough - I see where you are coming form and my language was loose. The evidence suggests that most immigrants come here to work and that this is especially the case when we are talking about refugees fleeing war zones in which they previously enjoyed a decent standard of living. All the anecdotal evidence indicates that there has been a massive displacement of secular, middle class Syrians over the course of the last two or three years. Offering them refuge is not only the right thing to do, it could also be hugely advantageous to us. These are the kinds of people that start businesses and revive flagging local economies. We should use them to do just that.
Syrians previous standard of living was a GDP per capita of just over $2,000 a year. Maybe this is 'decent' but it is certainly a long way from European standards of living. If we want people who are business creators and hard workers, then we should have an immigration system that targets that. Certainly the record of other asylum seekers from the broader Middle East region has not justified your claims. For ethnic Somalis in the UK, 73% are on benefits, 50% are in council housing, and only about 30% are employed. This does not look like improving for the second generation either: only 33% of Somalis get five GCSE passes, less than half the rate of other groups. Mo Farah aside, Somali immigration to the UK has been an overwhelming net drain - and much of it came secondhand from the EU.
Yes, there were and are many millions of desperately poor people in Syria - something that certainly pushes down the per capita GDP considerably. I am not talking about them, though. I am advocating a pragmatic approach that would bring benefits to us. I don't know what the GDP of Uganda was when that country's population of southern Asians was expelled, but we certainly benefited from their arrival.
So you are advocating only taking the middle class, higher earning Syrian refugees?
Pretty much. I am advocating offering places to people who have the potential and incentive to give something significant back. Aid is the best way to target those who can't contribute in that way. It's harsh, but it's pragmatic and is within our power. That may be asset stripping, but the assets have already stripped themselves.
A rather hard-hearted but level-headed (and admittedly flawed) way to calculate the number of migrants we can take:
1) Decide on how much we want to spend. A guide might be the 0.7% GDP on foreign aid - say £11 billion.
2) Look at a randomised sample of migrants who have come in over the last five years - both families and individuals. Calculate how much they cost in terms of services (NHS, schools etc, housing), and benefits. I have no idea what this figure would be.
3) Divide the former by the latter, to get a rough figure for the number we will accept. This will occur one year only - it would be a cost to the country of 0.7% GDP every other year, if things remain the same.
4) For following years, spend the entire foreign aid budget on migrants in the camps or neighbouring countries.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
In what circumstances would you ever accept refugees?
When we can control our own borders without interference from the EU (by giving out passports) and the ECHR.
As I said, hell will freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
Actually Antifrank Financier's point is exactly right. There would be far more acceptance of genuine refugees from places like Syria or Eritrea if we didn't already have the huge amounts of economic migration occurring over which we have no control at all. I can see that since you apparently equate leaving the EU with 'hell freezing over' you might have difficulty with that idea but we have got ourselves in a right mess when we are forced to accept unskilled economic migrants who have no fear for their lives in large numbers because they happen to be 'European' but as a consequence have a lot of trouble accepting genuine refugees in need.
It is just another example of how EU membership has warped our priorities and our own national interests.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
It's statistically invalid because you're looking at this on an entirely bogus test. The country's population is 64 million not 360,000. The increase in population is less than 1/500th not 33%.
Can you be this stupid and think you your being clever?
I didn't say it was an increase in population. It is an increase in net migration. Migration stats deal in increases or decreases in net migration not proportion of the population
Oh you must feel like everyone is walking the opposite way to you from the station. Set up a special needs group at work? The unaffected rich empathy for refugees book club?
You asked me whether I thought 120,000 a year is "not very much at all". I think that an increase in Britain's population of less than 1/500th in the context of a long history of migration is not very much at all.
You came up with an entirely bogus alternative measure and then tried to badger me into adopting it. I'm not playing that game.
I do note that in the course of this thread I've had my views deliberately misrepresented by one poster and been gratuitously insulted by numerous posters, with attacks based on affluence, property ownership and employment. None of these seem particularly relevant to the point at hand. But I suppose when your arguments are so thin, you have to make do with what you have.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
It's statistically invalid because you're looking at this on an entirely bogus test. The country's population is 64 million not 360,000. The increase in population is less than 1/500th not 33%.
If we are talking about migration then we are talking about the delta. It's not statistically invalid to talk about the percentage change in the delta. Mind you, it's not invalid to look at migration in terms of change in base population either - they're just two different perspectives. If we look at it from the latter viewpoint, though, we need to change our expectations about what counts as a big number. A 33% increase in what is historically a big delta is clearly pretty big. A 33% increase in base population, though, would be unthinkably, unpredecentedly massive. Even a 5% increase in base population would be unthinkably massive. In fact, even 1% would be huge even if humanly comprehensible. The percentage figure for change on base population might look low ("1/500th" is a satisfyingly small 0.2%) but that doesn't mean its effects would be small.
That was my reaction too. I thought it was a fuss about not very much - and then I was WTF when I saw the full story. It's beyond me how he's not in outer darkness for such stupidity.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
It's statistically invalid because you're looking at this on an entirely bogus test. The country's population is 64 million not 360,000. The increase in population is less than 1/500th not 33%.
Can you be this stupid and think you your being clever?
I didn't say it was an increase in population. It is an increase in net migration. Migration stats deal in increases or decreases in net migration not proportion of the population
Oh you must feel like everyone is walking the opposite way to you from the station. Set up a special needs group at work? The unaffected rich empathy for refugees book club?
You'd think after all the rubbish spouted yesterday antifrank might have spared us more detritus today.
GE 2015 saw politicians keenly aware of housing problems in this country desperately trying to out do each other with regard to the number of homes that could be built. And in recent months these threads have been awash with discussions about building on brownfield sites and the Green Belt to alleviate shortages of residential property.
Anyone tell me where Cooper's 10,000 a month are going to live please?
The reality is that if immigration keeps outstripping housing supply, we will:
a) see more people living in slum conditions - 10 people in a terraced house or people sleeping in garden sheds b) see an increase in homelessness and camps of rough sleepers
The other assumption is that because we have a growing economy there is an unlimited supply of jobs for people to take. Surely at some point we will end up with oversupply and if the economy stalls then I would expect unemployment to move up sharply.
Fair enough - I see where you are coming form and my language was loose. The evidence suggests that most immigrants come here to work and that this is especially the case when we are talking about refugees fleeing war zones in which they previously enjoyed a decent standard of living. All the anecdotal evidence indicates that there has been a massive displacement of secular, middle class Syrians over the course of the last two or three years. Offering them refuge is not only the right thing to do, it could also be hugely advantageous to us. These are the kinds of people that start businesses and revive flagging local economies. We should use them to do just that.
Syrians previous standard of living was a GDP per capita of just over $2,000 a year. Maybe this is 'decent' but it is certainly a long way from European standards of living. If we want people who are business creators and hard workers, then we should have an immigration system that targets that. Certainly the record of other asylum seekers from the broader Middle East region has not justified your claims. For ethnic Somalis in the UK, 73% are on benefits, 50% are in council housing, and only about 30% are employed. This does not look like improving for the second generation either: only 33% of Somalis get five GCSE passes, less than half the rate of other groups. Mo Farah aside, Somali immigration to the UK has been an overwhelming net drain - and much of it came secondhand from the EU.
Yes, there were and are many millions of desperately poor people in Syria - something that certainly pushes down the per capita GDP considerably. I am not talking about them, though. I am advocating a pragmatic approach that would bring benefits to us. I don't know what the GDP of Uganda was when that country's population of southern Asians was expelled, but we certainly benefited from their arrival.
I think you are right about this -- but the problem is that it is the people-equivalent of asset stripping.
Once all the educated & entrepeneurial have been stripped out of a country, then it can never, ever recover. Once we take the doctors and the nurses, then the healthcare system collapses. Once we take the engineers, then the infrastructure can’t be rebuilt.
If we are acting from humanitarian motives, these in fact are the very people we should not take -- rather we should take the old and the infirm and the injured.
Though if we don't take them, under the current circumstances someone else will.
Fair enough - I see where you are coming form and my language was loose. The evidence suggests that most immigrants come here to work and that this is especially the case when we are talking about refugees fleeing war zones in which they previously enjoyed a decent standard of living. All the anecdotal evidence indicates that there has been a massive displacement of secular, middle class Syrians over the course of the last two or three years. Offering them refuge is not only the right thing to do, it could also be hugely advantageous to us. These are the kinds of people that start businesses and revive flagging local economies. We should use them to do just that.
Syrians previous standard of living was a GDP per capita of just over $2,000 a year. Maybe this is 'decent' but it is certainly a long way from European standards of living. If we want people who are business creators and hard workers, then we should have an immigration system that targets that. Certainly the record of other asylum seekers from the broader Middle East region has not justified your claims. For ethnic Somalis in the UK, 73% are on benefits, 50% are in council housing, and only about 30% are employed. This does not look like improving for the second generation either: only 33% of Somalis get five GCSE passes, less than half the rate of other groups. Mo Farah aside, Somali immigration to the UK has been an overwhelming net drain - and much of it came secondhand from the EU.
Yes, there were and are many millions of desperately poor people in Syria - something that certainly pushes down the per capita GDP considerably. I am not talking about them, though. I am advocating a pragmatic approach that would bring benefits to us. I don't know what the GDP of Uganda was when that country's population of southern Asians was expelled, but we certainly benefited from their arrival.
So you are advocating only taking the middle class, higher earning Syrian refugees?
Pretty much. I am advocating offering places to people who have the potential and incentive to give something significant back. Aid is the best way to target those who can't contribute in that way. It's harsh, but it's pragmatic and is within our power. That may be asset stripping, but the assets have already stripped themselves.
I think you are in danger of becoming a Tory. Thank Corbyn?
I agree with Mike: I don't expect an early challenge to Corbyn. For him to be replaced, he needs to fail on his ability as a leader not as a candidate, when it's his qualities as a candidate that have proven attractive to the Labour electorate.
The problem with coming over all loyal now is that many senior Labour figures have been saying how unelectable Corbyn is all Summer. It'll take some fancy footwork to row back from that post-election - though fancy verbal footwork is a key skill of the political climber. Even so, it's something of a catch-22: the longer that senior figures remain loyal, the harder it becomes to distance themselves from his leadership afterwards - but if they're not loyal, they risk any failure being attributed to their lack of support not Corbyn's lack of ability.
Morning all,
There is wild talk of a challenge (see Winterton a few days ago), but seems to me this is highly unlikely. Apart from anything else, who in Labour could face another leadership election this year (and the cost)? If there's a meltdown in next year's locals and Scots then the muttering will seriously begin.
An alternative is the Cameron/Osborne come up with a HoC vote that so splits the party that Corbyn resigns (in utter relief no doubt) on a point of principle. Trident? Syria?
In the meantime, those who are virulently anti-Corbyn would be best to keep their heads down for 12 months and develop some alternative ideas. It seems to be a fairly universal view that non of the three other candidates have remotely given the impression of a well worked out policy platform for 2020s Britain.
Isn't the best thing to be commissioned to be a loyal backbencher, say that you want to take the time to think hard about welfare support for newt-fanciers or whatever and sti out the shadow cabinet?
In which case Labour is taken over by the 'Stop the War' lefty coalition backed up by UNITE. This really de facto destroys and wipes out present Labour Party and turns it into something else. Most current MPs will not be Corbynite lefties but that will not count in 5 years time - the new party machine will be in control. Anyone but Corbyn may well be useless and unbelievable as a PM, but if labour MPs want to save 'Labour' then all they have to do is agree among themselves for 1 candidate to stand to replace Corbyn (ironically like Brown did) and they will be saved an election.
When people say we need an effective opposition I suggest 'no'. What we need is any sort of opposition that will not betray our country if it becomes the govt. We need an opposition that can be trusted.
You asked me whether I thought 120,000 a year is "not very much at all". I think that an increase in Britain's population of less than 1/500th in the context of a long history of migration is not very much at all.
You came up with an entirely bogus alternative measure and then tried to badger me into adopting it. I'm not playing that game.
I do note that in the course of this thread I've had my views deliberately misrepresented by one poster and been gratuitously insulted by numerous posters, with attacks based on affluence, property ownership and employment. None of these seem particularly relevant to the point at hand. But I suppose when your arguments are so thin, you have to make do with what you have.
Sorry -- who called who an “arsehole” ?
And you complain about “gratuitous insults” ! I have never insulted you.
All I have said is that your proposed solution is not of the right order of magnitude compared to the challenge.
GE 2015 saw politicians keenly aware of housing problems in this country desperately trying to out do each other with regard to the number of homes that could be built. And in recent months these threads have been awash with discussions about building on brownfield sites and the Green Belt to alleviate shortages of residential property.
Anyone tell me where Cooper's 10,000 a month are going to live please?
The reality is that if immigration keeps outstripping housing supply, we will:
a) see more people living in slum conditions - 10 people in a terraced house or people sleeping in garden sheds b) see an increase in homelessness and camps of rough sleepers
The other assumption is that because we have a growing economy there is an unlimited supply of jobs for people to take. Surely at some point we will end up with oversupply and if the economy stalls then I would expect unemployment to move up sharply.
Jobs are never a finite resource. More people cause more demand causes more jobs. Fewer people means fewer demand means fewer jobs. It balances.
Indeed one way to solve your first problem is though the second. Offer plenty of construction jobs to build new homes.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
It's statistically invalid because you're looking at this on an entirely bogus test. The country's population is 64 million not 360,000. The increase in population is less than 1/500th not 33%.
Can you be this stupid and think you your being clever?
I didn't say it was an increase in population. It is an increase in net migration. Migration stats deal in increases or decreases in net migration not proportion of the population
Oh you must feel like everyone is walking the opposite way to you from the station. Set up a special needs group at work? The unaffected rich empathy for refugees book club?
Its isn't maths in any case, its politics, the numbers are immaterial, what matters is what the population will accept, and it appears on most measures that the level of tolerance towards immigrants, and especially criminal immigrants is wearing very thin and possibly approaching breaking point.
Moderate thinkers should be very grateful that Farage is so Marmite, a more strategic thinker, and more eloquent speaker could capture and channel the growing outrage very easily.
Do I detect the first whiff of fear from europhiles that this migrant crisis might result in things getting away from them.
You asked me whether I thought 120,000 a year is "not very much at all". I think that an increase in Britain's population of less than 1/500th in the context of a long history of migration is not very much at all.
You came up with an entirely bogus alternative measure and then tried to badger me into adopting it. I'm not playing that game.
I do note that in the course of this thread I've had my views deliberately misrepresented by one poster and been gratuitously insulted by numerous posters, with attacks based on affluence, property ownership and employment. None of these seem particularly relevant to the point at hand. But I suppose when your arguments are so thin, you have to make do with what you have.
Sorry -- who called who an “arsehole” ?
And you complain about “gratuitous Insults” ! I have never insulted you.
All I have said is that your proposed solution is not of the right order of magnitude compared to the challenge.
I called you an arsehole because you behaved like an arsehole, deliberately misrepresenting my view and attacking me as a person rather than the argument. If you disliked that, don't behave like an arsehole.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
In what circumstances would you ever accept refugees?
When we can control our own borders without interference from the EU (by giving out passports) and the ECHR.
As I said, hell will freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
Actually Antifrank Financier's point is exactly right. There would be far more acceptance of genuine refugees from places like Syria or Eritrea if we didn't already have the huge amounts of economic migration occurring over which we have no control at all. I can see that since you apparently equate leaving the EU with 'hell freezing over' you might have difficulty with that idea but we have got ourselves in a right mess when we are forced to accept unskilled economic migrants who have no fear for their lives in large numbers because they happen to be 'European' but as a consequence have a lot of trouble accepting genuine refugees in need.
It is just another example of how EU membership has warped our priorities and our own national interests.
Taken in isolation, 120,000 is not a large number. Added to 330,000 for net migration, or 600,000 for overall migration, it most certainly is.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
ugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
It's statistically invalid because you're looking at this on an entirely bogus test. The country's population is 64 million not 360,000. The increase in population is less than 1/500th not 33%.
Can you be this stupid and think you your being clever?
Oh you must feel like everyone is walking the opposite way to you from the station. Set up a special needs group at work? The unaffected rich empathy for refugees book club?
You asked me whether I thought 120,000 a year is "not very much at all". I think that an increase in Britain's population of less than 1/500th in the context of a long history of migration is not very much at all.
You came up with an entirely bogus alternative measure and then tried to badger me into adopting it. I'm not playing that game.
I do note that in the course of this thread I've had my views deliberately misrepresented by one poster and been gratuitously insulted by numerous posters, with attacks based on affluence, property ownership and employment. None of these seem particularly relevant to the point at hand. But I suppose when your arguments are so thin, you have to make do with what you have.
Migration is measured by the yearly rate. It is at record levels, as is public concern about those levels and you are saying increasing that by 33% is 'not much at all'
I realise you probably wish you hadn't said it, and so are floundering, but you said it and are being roundly laughed at for it.
As for insults you are inferring that I'm so heartless as to never accept refugees while grizzling over a light hearted jibe over your special needs groups. Stop being so pretentious, narcissistic and precious
The situation with regard to the migrants/refugees is already bad enough while we are in the EU, and are being castigated by fellow EU nations for not doing enough. Now imagine we have left the EU. Castigation will be the least of it. It won't be the Mediterranean but the Channel that will be full of small boats laden with refugees/migrants, with no incentive whatsoever for any state between us and North Africa/Middle East to prevent them crossing to the UK.
And whether we call them refugees or migrants, can we please try to remember they are still human beings, the vast majority only doing what we would be trying to do if we were in their situation. Let's just be grateful we aren't. And show some f***ing compassion.
Jobs are never a finite resource. More people cause more demand causes more jobs. Fewer people means fewer demand means fewer jobs. It balances.
Does it hell. It relies on the "more people" having enough money to pay for the goods or services that create the "more jobs". Otherwise I must have missed that 25% unemployment rate in Greece despite all the immigrants they have recently received. If more people just spreads out the amount of money available by lowering wages, there are no new jobs.
If we are talking about migration then we are talking about the delta. It's not statistically invalid to talk about the percentage change in the delta. Mind you, it's not invalid to look at migration in terms of change in base population either - they're just two different perspectives. If we look at it from the latter viewpoint, though, we need to change our expectations about what counts as a big number. A 33% increase in what is historically a big delta is clearly pretty big. A 33% increase in base population, though, would be unthinkably, unpredecentedly massive. Even a 5% increase in base population would be unthinkably massive. In fact, even 1% would be huge even if humanly comprehensible. The percentage figure for change on base population might look low ("1/500th" is a satisfyingly small 0.2%) but that doesn't mean its effects would be small.
I ought to make it clear that my comment about "effects being small" was intended in thse sense that "effects would be large if they are compounded": it's hard to believe Syria is a one-off - or even that a particular intake of Syrian refugees will be a one-off. There will be refugee crises, from time to time if not continuously, for the foreseeable future and the world is an increasingly mobile one so troublespots that would once not have affected us are increasingly within the ambit of our migration policy. (I think it's unlikely we'll ever take serious numbers of refugees from narco-violence or civil war in Latin America, but we are well within the reach of those leaving sub-Saharan Africa and Central and South Asia as well as the ever-turbulent Middle East. If the 1948 war had taken place under modern migration conditions, Europe would have picked up a very large chunk of the Palestinian population. Now rinse and repeat for a variety of other conflicts and we would be talking very large numbers very quickly.)
Since economies are cyclical no matter what Gordon claimed, your final point is the one that bothers me the most.
The long term prospects for a bust are very likely - if we're full to the gills with newly arrived unemployed, the established population will be put under great strain.
I really do not agree with the bleeding-hearts. They react to almost every short term issue with knee-jerk answers, which in the medium/long term prove very ill-judged/leave consequences that can't be unpicked.
GE 2015 saw politicians keenly aware of housing problems in this country desperately trying to out do each other with regard to the number of homes that could be built. And in recent months these threads have been awash with discussions about building on brownfield sites and the Green Belt to alleviate shortages of residential property.
Anyone tell me where Cooper's 10,000 a month are going to live please?
The reality is that if immigration keeps outstripping housing supply, we will:
a) see more people living in slum conditions - 10 people in a terraced house or people sleeping in garden sheds b) see an increase in homelessness and camps of rough sleepers
The other assumption is that because we have a growing economy there is an unlimited supply of jobs for people to take. Surely at some point we will end up with oversupply and if the economy stalls then I would expect unemployment to move up sharply.
GE 2015 saw politicians keenly aware of housing problems in this country desperately trying to out do each other with regard to the number of homes that could be built. And in recent months these threads have been awash with discussions about building on brownfield sites and the Green Belt to alleviate shortages of residential property.
Anyone tell me where Cooper's 10,000 a month are going to live please?
The reality is that if immigration keeps outstripping housing supply, we will:
a) see more people living in slum conditions - 10 people in a terraced house or people sleeping in garden sheds b) see an increase in homelessness and camps of rough sleepers
The other assumption is that because we have a growing economy there is an unlimited supply of jobs for people to take. Surely at some point we will end up with oversupply and if the economy stalls then I would expect unemployment to move up sharply.
To those who still think an extra 120,00 immigrants a year is "not very much at all".
'Just 125,110 homes were built in England in the year to March, according to government figures. That is about half as many needed to keep up with demand, and the problem is compounded every year.'
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
It's statistically invalid because you're looking at this on an entirely bogus test. The country's population is 64 million not 360,000. The increase in population is less than 1/500th not 33%.
But that population has crept up from 58 million in the late 90s. Most of that has been driven by immigration. That's a 10% increase in little over 15 years, most of which have been concentrated in London, the South-East and a few of the old English industrial cities.
I don't consider that rate of change insignificant in either absolute or relative terms.
You asked me whether I thought 120,000 a year is "not very much at all". I think that an increase in Britain's population of less than 1/500th in the context of a long history of migration is not very much at all.
You came up with an entirely bogus alternative measure and then tried to badger me into adopting it. I'm not playing that game.
I do note that in the course of this thread I've had my views deliberately misrepresented by one poster and been gratuitously insulted by numerous posters, with attacks based on affluence, property ownership and employment. None of these seem particularly relevant to the point at hand. But I suppose when your arguments are so thin, you have to make do with what you have.
Sorry -- who called who an “arsehole” ?
And you complain about “gratuitous Insults” ! I have never insulted you.
All I have said is that your proposed solution is not of the right order of magnitude compared to the challenge.
I called you an arsehole because you behaved like an arsehole, deliberately misrepresenting my view and attacking me as a person rather than the argument. If you disliked that, don't behave like an arsehole.
If you want to call people aresholes, that is up to you.
I personally think it demeans you.
But, it is a bit rich to complain about “gratuitous insults”, if you are throwing them around yourself.
The situation with regard to the migrants/refugees is already bad enough while we are in the EU, and are being castigated by fellow EU nations for not doing enough. Now imagine we have left the EU. Castigation will be the least of it. It won't be the Mediterranean but the Channel that will be full of small boats laden with refugees/migrants, with no incentive whatsoever for any state between us and North Africa/Middle East to prevent them crossing to the UK.
And whether we call them refugees or migrants, can we please try to remember they are still human beings, the vast majority only doing what we would be trying to do if we were in their situation. Let's just be grateful we aren't. And show some f***ing compassion.
Migration is measured by the yearly rate. It is at record levels, as is public concern about those levels and you are saying increasing that by 33% is 'not much at all'
I realise you probably wish you hadn't said it, and so are floundering, but you said it and are being roundly laughed at for it.
As for insults you are inferring that I'm so heartless as to never accept refugees while grizzling over a light hearted jibe over your special needs groups. Stop being so pretentious, narcissistic and precious
Put the dictionary down and engage with the point that I made.
Your measure is entirely spurious. Say that we set up your utopian country, Isamland. It has a population of 64 million and has no immigrants or emigrants.
A wave of refugees hits. Three people clamour at the gate to be let in. The rulers of Isamland look at each other and say: "but that would be an INFINITE increase in net migration". The gates stay shut.
In other words, looking at the measure you're looking at is an entirely spurious way of assessing how easily we could accept 120,000 a year.
In which case Labour is taken over by the 'Stop the War' lefty coalition backed up by UNITE. This really de facto destroys and wipes out present Labour Party and turns it into something else. Most current MPs will not be Corbynite lefties but that will not count in 5 years time - the new party machine will be in control. Anyone but Corbyn may well be useless and unbelievable as a PM, but if labour MPs want to save 'Labour' then all they have to do is agree among themselves for 1 candidate to stand to replace Corbyn (ironically like Brown did) and they will be saved an election.
When people say we need an effective opposition I suggest 'no'. What we need is any sort of opposition that will not betray our country if it becomes the govt. We need an opposition that can be trusted.
I may be wrong but I think thatin a leadership election of the kind you describe the existing leader has an unconditional right to stand. So there would be an election: Corbyn vs ABC.
Jobs are never a finite resource. More people cause more demand causes more jobs. Fewer people means fewer demand means fewer jobs. It balances.
Does it hell. It relies on the "more people" having enough money to pay for the goods or services that create the "more jobs". Otherwise I must have missed that 25% unemployment rate in Greece despite all the immigrants they have recently received. If more people just spreads out the amount of money available by lowering wages, there are no new jobs.
The problems in Greece are caused by a completely disfunctional economy caused by gross economic mismanagement. It is not caused by migration and to suggest it is, is laughable.
The world's leading developed economy absorbs millions of migrants per annum but because it is within reason a sensibly ran economy that has not stalled the economy by any means. Money is not a finite resource either.
The situation with regard to the migrants/refugees is already bad enough while we are in the EU, and are being castigated by fellow EU nations for not doing enough. Now imagine we have left the EU. Castigation will be the least of it. It won't be the Mediterranean but the Channel that will be full of small boats laden with refugees/migrants, with no incentive whatsoever for any state between us and North Africa/Middle East to prevent them crossing to the UK.
The only one currently doing anything to stop them is the little being done by France. And the only incentive they have is the same one they would have if we left: the desire to not close the Chunnel.
You asked me whether I thought 120,000 a year is "not very much at all". I think that an increase in Britain's population of less than 1/500th in the context of a long history of migration is not very much at all.
You came up with an entirely bogus alternative measure and then tried to badger me into adopting it. I'm not playing that game.
I do note that in the course of this thread I've had my views deliberately misrepresented by one poster and been gratuitously insulted by numerous posters, with attacks based on affluence, property ownership and employment. None of these seem particularly relevant to the point at hand. But I suppose when your arguments are so thin, you have to make do with what you have.
Sorry -- who called who an “arsehole” ?
And you complain about “gratuitous Insults” ! I have never insulted you.
All I have said is that your proposed solution is not of the right order of magnitude compared to the challenge.
I called you an arsehole because you behaved like an arsehole, deliberately misrepresenting my view and attacking me as a person rather than the argument. If you disliked that, don't behave like an arsehole.
If you want to call people aresholes, that is up to you.
I personally think it demeans you.
But, it is a bit rich to complain about “gratuitous insults”, if you are throwing them around yourself.
As I have shown, the insult was not gratuitous in your case.
You asked me whether I thought 120,000 a year is "not very much at all". I think that an increase in Britain's population of less than 1/500th in the context of a long history of migration is not very much at all.
You came up with an entirely bogus alternative measure and then tried to badger me into adopting it. I'm not playing that game.
I do note that in the course of this thread I've had my views deliberately misrepresented by one poster and been gratuitously insulted by numerous posters, with attacks based on affluence, property ownership and employment. None of these seem particularly relevant to the point at hand. But I suppose when your arguments are so thin, you have to make do with what you have.
Sorry -- who called who an “arsehole” ?
And you complain about “gratuitous Insults” ! I have never insulted you.
All I have said is that your proposed solution is not of the right order of magnitude compared to the challenge.
I called you an arsehole because you behaved like an arsehole, deliberately misrepresenting my view and attacking me as a person rather than the argument. If you disliked that, don't behave like an arsehole.
If you want to call people aresholes, that is up to you.
I personally think it demeans you.
But, it is a bit rich to complain about “gratuitous insults”, if you are throwing them around yourself.
As I have shown, the insult was not gratuitous in your case.
I really do get sick of how rude people are on this board. Rudeness is not justified by people "deserving it". Rudeness is rudeness and decent people on all sides should refrain from doing it. The "well he started it" excuse is a child's one. It's making this whole website toxic.
Migration is measured by the yearly rate. It is at record levels, as is public concern about those levels and you are saying increasing that by 33% is 'not much at all'
I realise you probably wish you hadn't said it, and so are floundering, but you said it and are being roundly laughed at for it.
As for insults you are inferring that I'm so heartless as to never accept refugees while grizzling over a light hearted jibe over your special needs groups. Stop being so pretentious, narcissistic and precious
Put the dictionary down and engage with the point that I made.
Your measure is entirely spurious. Say that we set up your utopian country, Isamland. It has a population of 64 million and has no immigrants or emigrants.
A wave of refugees hits. Three people clamour at the gate to be let in. The rulers of Isamland look at each other and say: "but that would be an INFINITE increase in net migration". The gates stay shut.
In other words, looking at the measure you're looking at is an entirely spurious way of assessing how easily we could accept 120,000 a year.
You can't help yourself can you? Such an awful, preening, supercilious snob!
If I were a nasty chap I could have responded to your 'thin arguments with nothing to work with' jibe with one about hair, but that would be a low blow
Flail as you wish, you're looking and sounding stupid. My original point, with no reference to my own opinion on the matter, was at a time of record net migration, and record levels of concern over it, an increase of 33% to that figure described as 'not very much at all' was a strange thing to say.
To give Cooper some credit, at least she suggested spreading the 10,000 migrants from Syria equally across the UK. 10 families per town is not much different to my suggestion of 16 people per constituency.
Yes, but they would quickly aggregate to fewer places or just add their friends/relatives to where they are. Just how would they be employed?
To give Cooper some credit, at least she suggested spreading the 10,000 migrants from Syria equally across the UK. 10 families per town is not much different to my suggestion of 16 people per constituency.
And in 10 years time when those 10 families in each town, have swelled to a 100 or a thousand? And the various long held animosities and grievances that we're watching unfold across the ME kick off here in earnest...
You sound just like Enoch... In which case of course you are right. But at least Cooper did think of spreading the burden, probably the most thoughtful thing a non UKIP politician other than Enoch has said on immigration since 1968 (not a competitive heat)
I'm curious as to how those spread across the country will be forced to remain where they're settled?
Still, it would be interesting to watch Cooper's plan, the angry young criminal men being rejected for asylum, whilst deserving families are let in. That's the idea isn't it?
And of course Yvette will be explaining personally to those indigenous Brits on the housing lists, why they're sliding down the queue, in favour of the thousands of grateful new voters she's prioritising.
Yvette will also be explaining personally to the pleading face of the person number 10,001 on the list as to why they can't come in.
And the pleading face of the person number 1,000,001 on the list.
Nobody who advocates "some" of these migrants coming here will give you their criteria for the cut-off. Yes, I'm looking at you, Yvette. Until they do, there are only two viable options:
a) take none of them (yet be generous with foreign aid to assist them where they are); or b) take all of them
Correct. The point to all this is that these migrants are not fetching up first at the UK. If they did it would be our problem - and a big one. As it is they are fetching up elsewhere and they immediately have no rights to go elsewhere.
Just for clarification, you are saying 33% extra on top of record levels is
'Not very much at all' ?
Just for clarification, in the context of a country of 64 million with long experience of substantial immigration and emigration, 120,000 a year is not very much at all.
Why give a politicians answer?
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
I'm not giving a politician's answer.
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
I haven't offered an opinion either way on the refugees. It just suits your narrow mind and need to be right to assume it.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
In what circumstances would you ever accept refugees?
When we can control our own borders without interference from the EU (by giving out passports) and the ECHR.
As I said, hell will freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
Actually Antifrank Financier's point is exactly right. There would be far more acceptance of genuine refugees from places like Syria or Eritrea if we didn't already have the huge amounts of economic migration occurring over which we have no control at all. I can see that since you apparently equate leaving the EU with 'hell freezing over' you might have difficulty with that idea but we have got ourselves in a right mess when we are forced to accept unskilled economic migrants who have no fear for their lives in large numbers because they happen to be 'European' but as a consequence have a lot of trouble accepting genuine refugees in need.
It is just another example of how EU membership has warped our priorities and our own national interests.
Taken in isolation, 120,000 is not a large number. Added to 330,000 for net migration, or 600,000 for overall migration, it most certainly is.
I think the Conservative reforms on shutting bogus colleges, increasing settlement payments for spouses and capping non EU work permits have probably shaved 40-50k off where we'd otherwise be with net inmigration. But that's not enough.
You asked me whether I thought 120,000 a year is "not very much at all". I think that an increase in Britain's population of less than 1/500th in the context of a long history of migration is not very much at all.
You came up with an entirely bogus alternative measure and then tried to badger me into adopting it. I'm not playing that game.
I do note that in the course of this thread I've had my views deliberately misrepresented by one poster and been gratuitously insulted by numerous posters, with attacks based on affluence, property ownership and employment. None of these seem particularly relevant to the point at hand. But I suppose when your arguments are so thin, you have to make do with what you have.
Sorry -- who called who an “arsehole” ?
And you complain about “gratuitous Insults” ! I have never insulted you.
All I have said is that your proposed solution is not of the right order of magnitude compared to the challenge.
I called you an arsehole because you behaved like an arsehole, deliberately misrepresenting my view and attacking me as a person rather than the argument. If you disliked that, don't behave like an arsehole.
If you want to call people aresholes, that is up to you.
I personally think it demeans you.
But, it is a bit rich to complain about “gratuitous insults”, if you are throwing them around yourself.
As I have shown, the insult was not gratuitous in your case.
I really do get sick of how rude people are on this board. Rudeness is not justified by people "deserving it". Rudeness is rudeness and decent people on all sides should refrain from doing it. The "well he started it" excuse is a child's one. It's making this whole website toxic.
I think antifrank has let himself down with his posts here this morning.
Even if someone else is rude to you that doesn't mean you should lower yourself to their level.
Migration is measured by the yearly rate. It is at record levels, as is public concern about those levels and you are saying increasing that by 33% is 'not much at all'
I realise you probably wish you hadn't said it, and so are floundering, but you said it and are being roundly laughed at for it.
As for insults you are inferring that I'm so heartless as to never accept refugees while grizzling over a light hearted jibe over your special needs groups. Stop being so pretentious, narcissistic and precious
Put the dictionary down and engage with the point that I made.
Your measure is entirely spurious. Say that we set up your utopian country, Isamland. It has a population of 64 million and has no immigrants or emigrants.
A wave of refugees hits. Three people clamour at the gate to be let in. The rulers of Isamland look at each other and say: "but that would be an INFINITE increase in net migration". The gates stay shut.
In other words, looking at the measure you're looking at is an entirely spurious way of assessing how easily we could accept 120,000 a year.
You can't help yourself can you? Such an awful preening supercilious snob!
If I were a nasty chap I could have responded to your thin arguments with nothing to work with jibe with one about hair, but that would be a low blow
Flail as you wish, you're looking and sounding stupid. My original point, with no reference to my own opinion on the matter, was at a time of record net migration, and record levels of concern over it, an increase of 33% to that figure described as 'not very much at all' was a strange thing to say.
Put another way, assume that net migration had fallen, as David Cameron promised, to the tens of thousands, say 60,000 a year. Kippers everywhere would have cheered (well, actually they would have grumbled that net migration existed at all, but let's not spoil the counterfactual). On your proposed measure, an annual net migration of 120,000 would represent an increase in the net migration of 200%. Would that be more or less manageable than 120,000 on present actual levels of net migration?
Your original point was based around me saying that 120,000 a year was not very much at all. You chose to use an entirely bogus metric for judging that and now you're having the nerve to say that I'm looking silly for not adopting it?
Migration is measured by the yearly rate. It is at record levels, as is public concern about those levels and you are saying increasing that by 33% is 'not much at all'
I realise you probably wish you hadn't said it, and so are floundering, but you said it and are being roundly laughed at for it.
As for insults you are inferring that I'm so heartless as to never accept refugees while grizzling over a light hearted jibe over your special needs groups. Stop being so pretentious, narcissistic and precious
Put the dictionary down and engage with the point that I made.
Your measure is entirely spurious. Say that we set up your utopian country, Isamland. It has a population of 64 million and has no immigrants or emigrants.
A wave of refugees hits. Three people clamour at the gate to be let in. The rulers of Isamland look at each other and say: "but that would be an INFINITE increase in net migration". The gates stay shut.
In other words, looking at the measure you're looking at is an entirely spurious way of assessing how easily we could accept 120,000 a year.
You can't help yourself can you? Such an awful, preening, supercilious snob!
If I were a nasty chap I could have responded to your 'thin arguments with nothing to work with' jibe with one about hair, but that would be a low blow
Flail as you wish, you're looking and sounding stupid. My original point, with no reference to my own opinion on the matter, was at a time of record net migration, and record levels of concern over it, an increase of 33% to that figure described as 'not very much at all' was a strange thing to say.
It's fair enough to talk about the percentage increase, given that the number already has to be big enough that there is record levels of concern. The scenario with the three migrants leading to an infinite percent increase in migration is a bit silly.
Migration is measured by the yearly rate. It is at record levels, as is public concern about those levels and you are saying increasing that by 33% is 'not much at all'
I realise you probably wish you hadn't said it, and so are floundering, but you said it and are being roundly laughed at for it.
As for insults you are inferring that I'm so heartless as to never accept refugees while grizzling over a light hearted jibe over your special needs groups. Stop being so pretentious, narcissistic and precious
Put the dictionary down and engage with the point that I made.
Your measure is entirely spurious. Say that we set up your utopian country, Isamland. It has a population of 64 million and has no immigrants or emigrants.
A wave of refugees hits. Three people clamour at the gate to be let in. The rulers of Isamland look at each other and say: "but that would be an INFINITE increase in net migration". The gates stay shut.
In other words, looking at the measure you're looking at is an entirely spurious way of assessing how easily we could accept 120,000 a year.
You can't help yourself can you? Such an awful preening supercilious snob!
If I were a nasty chap I could have responded to your thin arguments with nothing to work with jibe with one about hair, but that would be a low blow
Flail as you wish, you're looking and sounding stupid. My original point, with no reference to my own opinion on the matter, was at a time of record net migration, and record levels of concern over it, an increase of 33% to that figure described as 'not very much at all' was a strange thing to say.
Put another way, assume that net migration had fallen, as David Cameron promised, to the tens of thousands, say 60,000 a year. Kippers everywhere would have cheered (well, actually they would have grumbled that net migration existed at all, but let's not spoil the counterfactual). On your proposed measure, an annual net migration of 120,000 would represent an increase in the net migration of 200%. Would that be more or less manageable than 120,000 on present actual levels of net migration?
Your original point was based around me saying that 120,000 a year was not very much at all. You chose to use an entirely bogus metric for judging that and now you're having the nerve to say that I'm looking silly for not adopting it?
Putting my cards on the table: I'd be happy for net immigration to fluctuate in the 50-150k year box - according to economic circumstance - in the long term.
Migration is measured by the yearly rate. It is at record levels, as is public concern about those levels and you are saying increasing that by 33% is 'not much at all'
I realise you probably wish you hadn't said it, and so are floundering, but you said it and are being roundly laughed at for it.
As for insults you are inferring that I'm so heartless as to never accept refugees while grizzling over a light hearted jibe over your special needs groups. Stop being so pretentious, narcissistic and precious
Put the dictionary down and engage with the point that I made.
Your measure is entirely spurious. Say that we set up your utopian country, Isamland. It has a population of 64 million and has no immigrants or emigrants.
A wave of refugees hits. Three people clamour at the gate to be let in. The rulers of Isamland look at each other and say: "but that would be an INFINITE increase in net migration". The gates stay shut.
In other words, looking at the measure you're looking at is an entirely spurious way of assessing how easily we could accept 120,000 a year.
You can't help yourself can you? Such an awful preening supercilious snob!
If I were a nasty chap I could have responded to your thin arguments with nothing to work with jibe with one about hair, but that would be a low blow
Flail as you wish, you're looking and sounding stupid. My original point, with no reference to my own opinion on the matter, was at a time of record net migration, and record levels of concern over it, an increase of 33% to that figure described as 'not very much at all' was a strange thing to say.
Put another way, assume that net migration had fallen, as David Cameron promised, to the tens of thousands, say 60,000 a year. Kippers everywhere would have cheered (well, actually they would have grumbled that net migration existed at all, but let's not spoil the counterfactual). On your proposed measure, an annual net migration of 120,000 would represent an increase in the net migration of 200%. Would that be more or less manageable than 120,000 on present actual levels of net migration?
Your original point was based around me saying that 120,000 a year was not very much at all. You chose to use an entirely bogus metric for judging that and now you're having the nerve to say that I'm looking silly for not adopting it?
Putting my cards on the table: I'd be happy for net immigration to fluctuate in the 50-150k year box - according to economic circumstance - in the long term.
That is a perfectly sensible answer, though I disagree with it.
Migration is measured by the yearly rate. It is at record levels, as is public concern about those levels and you are saying increasing that by 33% is 'not much at all'
I ght hearted jibe over your special needs groups. Stop being so pretentious, narcissistic and precious
Put the dictionary down and engage with the point that I made.
Your measure is entirely spurious. Say that we set up your utopian country, Isamland. It has a population of 64 million and has no immigrants or emigrants.
A wave of refugees hits. Three people clamour at the gate to be let in. The rulers of Isamland look at each other and say: "but that would be an INFINITE increase in net migration". The gates stay shut.
In other words, looking at the measure you're looking at is an entirely spurious way of assessing how easily we could accept 120,000 a year.
You can't help yourself can you? Such an awful preening supercilious snob!
If I were a nasty chap I could have responded to your thin arguments with nothing to work with jibe with one about hair, but that would be a low blow
Flail as you wish, you're looking and sounding stupid. My original point, with no reference to my own opinion on the matter, was at a time of record net migration, and record levels of concern over it, an increase of 33% to that figure described as 'not very much at all' was a strange thing to say.
Put another way, assume that net migration had fallen, as David Cameron promised, to the tens of thousands, say 60,000 a year. Kippers everywhere would have cheered (well, actually they would have grumbled that net migration existed at all, but let's not spoil the counterfactual). On your proposed measure, an annual net migration of 120,000 would represent an increase in the net migration of 200%. Would that be more or less manageable than 120,000 on present actual levels of net migration?
Your original point was based around me saying that 120,000 a year was not very much at all. You chose to use an entirely bogus metric for judging that and now you're having the nerve to say that I'm looking silly for not adopting it?
One of the reasons you are looking silly is that net migration is at a record high, concern over migration is at a record high, and you think adding 33% extra on top is 'not very much at all'
Your example of a 200% increase and your isamland nonsense are irrelevant as the context here is one of a time of record net migration, whereas your examples are using a time of either falling or zero migration.
Stop the generic slurs or I'll start thinking it must be your time of the month
Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the name of anti-Russia NATO aggression Rode the six hundred. #CorbynPoems — Mark Wallace (@wallaceme) September 1, 2015
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One of the reasons you are looking silly is that net migration is at a record high, concern over migration is at a record high, and you think adding 33% extra on top is 'not very much at all'
Your example of a 200% increase and your isamland nonsense are irrelevant as the context here is one of a time of record net migration, whereas your examples are using a time of either falling or zero migration.
Stop the generic slurs or I'll start thinking it must be your time of the month
In other words, "don't answer me with logic". Your metric is bullshit as my two examples show clearly.
@isam glad you are so grown up as to sneer at the idea of showing compassion to people.
What a wonderful society we have created in this country. The majority of posts in this thread show a complete disregard for the plight of other human beings. Very few politicians have said anything about immigration which doesn't pander to the selfishness in the public.
Could there just possibly be a connection between that and the rise of Corbyn, who, for all his faults, at least doesn't come over like a botoxed PR salesman?
One of the reasons you are looking silly is that net migration is at a record high, concern over migration is at a record high, and you think adding 33% extra on top is 'not very much at all'
Your example of a 200% increase and your isamland nonsense are irrelevant as the context here is one of a time of record net migration, whereas your examples are using a time of either falling or zero migration.
Stop the generic slurs or I'll start thinking it must be your time of the month
In other words, "don't answer me with logic". Your metric is bullshit as my two examples show clearly.
If someone wants open borders and to take everyone who wants to come, you might judge them. If they are prepared to open up their own house and pay extra tax, I would give them a lot of respect.
If they just expect others to make the sacrifice, I would still assume it's a legitimate opinion even if I disagreed.
But virtue-signalling seems to be everywhere. The Guardian article about swimming the Mediterranean in solidarity is a hoot and clearly meant for entertainment. Roger's tongue is firmly in his cheek much of the time. Mr Antifrank probably does mean it in the same way that Owen Jones and Charlotte Church do want rich people to pay tax at 70% - because it's the right thing to do.
I wish we were all Saints but ...
Instead I give money to Cafod and other charities that work directly with refugees, and if the Sally Army came round the pubs, like they used to do, I'd be happy to contribute. They put themselves out and earn my real respect.
Let's imagine a train carriage with 50 seats and room for 25 standing
If there were 75 people in the carriage, those people were feeling squashed, and someone suggested adding 25 more, the people in the carriage would think it was crazy
If there were 50 people,all sitting, in the carriage and 3 people got on, there would be no problem
If there were 75 people but 50 alighted and 25 got on there would be no problem either
Antifrank seems to think an increase on top of what people are already uncomfortable with is the same as one on top of what people are ok with
Very few politicians have said anything about immigration which doesn't pander to the selfishness in the public.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of my Russian scientist friends came to the West (where they have all done very well, they have contributed substantially to our economy and become very affluent).
One of my friends did not emigrate from Russia but remained there because he felt that the scientific community in Russia needed distinguished people like him to stay. He remains there today, very poor in comparison with his colleagues who left, and subject to the whims of Russian politics & bureaucracy.
Immigration itself is often selfish (I do not obviously talk about refugees here fleeing war or persecution).
It is often in an individual’s interest to better themselves by moving to the West, but it is often in their country’s interest for them to remain.
I don’t blame my Russian friends who moved -- I’d have probably done so myself -- but I do admire my friend who stayed in Russia to try and maintain Russian science.
GE 2015 saw politicians keenly aware of housing problems in this country desperately trying to out do each other with regard to the number of homes that could be built. And in recent months these threads have been awash with discussions about building on brownfield sites and the Green Belt to alleviate shortages of residential property.
Anyone tell me where Cooper's 10,000 a month are going to live please?
The reality is that if immigration keeps outstripping housing supply, we will:
a) see more people living in slum conditions - 10 people in a terraced house or people sleeping in garden sheds b) see an increase in homelessness and camps of rough sleepers
The other assumption is that because we have a growing economy there is an unlimited supply of jobs for people to take. Surely at some point we will end up with oversupply and if the economy stalls then I would expect unemployment to move up sharply.
Jobs are never a finite resource. More people cause more demand causes more jobs. Fewer people means fewer [less] demand means fewer jobs. It balances.
Indeed one way to solve your first problem is though the second. Offer plenty of construction jobs to build new homes.
In the round and with a largely unregulated and un-unionised economy, that's broadly true (though there are still limits in extreme cases) but it's only true because wages, prices, rents and the like may be driven up or down to rebalance, which may well cause more harm than good.
To give Cooper some credit, at least she suggested spreading the 10,000 migrants from Syria equally across the UK. 10 families per town is not much different to my suggestion of 16 people per constituency.
Yes, but they would quickly aggregate to fewer places or just add their friends/relatives to where they are. Just how would they be employed?
To give Cooper some credit, at least she suggested spreading the 10,000 migrants from Syria equally across the UK. 10 families per town is not much different to my suggestion of 16 people per constituency.
And in 10 years time when those 10 families in each town, have swelled to a 100 or a thousand? And the various long held animosities and grievances that we're watching unfold across the ME kick off here in earnest...
You sound just like Enoch... In which case of course you are right. But at least Cooper did think of spreading the burden, probably the most thoughtful thing a non UKIP politician other than Enoch has said on immigration since 1968 (not a competitive heat)
I'm curious as to how those spread across the country will be forced to remain where they're settled?
Still, it would be interesting to watch Cooper's plan, the angry young criminal men being rejected for asylum, whilst deserving families are let in. That's the idea isn't it?
And of course Yvette will be explaining personally to those indigenous Brits on the housing lists, why they're sliding down the queue, in favour of the thousands of grateful new voters she's prioritising.
Yvette will also be explaining personally to the pleading face of the person number 10,001 on the list as to why they can't come in.
And the pleading face of the person number 1,000,001 on the list.
Nobody who advocates "some" of these migrants coming here will give you their criteria for the cut-off. Yes, I'm looking at you, Yvette. Until they do, there are only two viable options:
a) take none of them (yet be generous with foreign aid to assist them where they are); or b) take all of them
Correct. The point to all this is that these migrants are not fetching up first at the UK. If they did it would be our problem - and a big one. As it is they are fetching up elsewhere and they immediately have no rights to go elsewhere.
except there's option c - take a share after negotiation with other EU countries.
One of the reasons you are looking silly is that net migration is at a record high, concern over migration is at a record high, and you think adding 33% extra on top is 'not very much at all'
Your example of a 200% increase and your isamland nonsense are irrelevant as the context here is one of a time of record net migration, whereas your examples are using a time of either falling or zero migration.
Stop the generic slurs or I'll start thinking it must be your time of the month
In other words, "don't answer me with logic". Your metric is bullshit as my two examples show clearly.
Nono it's more "I am right and you are wrong"
You are dead right @isam. There is now turmoil in the heart of the European enterprise. Clever fuhrer Merkel's dream of leading all of Europe under German hegemony is now being exposed as never before. The more she pushes more migrants into Germany and the rest of Europe, the more the people seethe. An explosion is nigh this autumn.
Let's imagine a train carriage with 50 seats and room for 25 standing
If there were 75 people in the carriage, those people were feeling squashed, and someone suggested adding 25 more, the people in the carriage would think it was crazy
If there were 50 people,all sitting, in the carriage and 3 people got on, there would be no problem
If there were 75 people but 50 alighted and 25 got on there would be no problem either
Antifrank seems to think an increase on top of what people are already uncomfortable with is the same as one on top of what people are ok with
Except the train is not full. Let's say you think we can fit in 100k per year. Over a decade that's a net one million. Even if we add 120k to our record numbers that is net less than half of that.
Mr. K, leaving the umlaut [tricky with a UK keyboard] aside, you mean 'Fuhrerin', I think [a suffix of -in feminises a German noun. I once asked my German teacher if a brother who had a sex change would be a Bruderin, but he was unsure].
It is ironic that WWII guilt is helping drive Germany's stance, at the same time as it tries to dictate policy to the rest of the EU.
Edited extra bit: Mr. Thompson, from the last figure, that would imply annual net migration of 450,000.
GE 2015 saw politicians keenly aware of housing problems in this country desperately trying to out do each other with regard to the number of homes that could be built. And in recent months these threads have been awash with discussions about building on brownfield sites and the Green Belt to alleviate shortages of residential property.
Anyone tell me where Cooper's 10,000 a month are going to live please?
The reality is that if immigration keeps outstripping housing supply, we will:
a) see more people living in slum conditions - 10 people in a terraced house or people sleeping in garden sheds b) see an increase in homelessness and camps of rough sleepers
The other assumption is that because we have a growing economy there is an unlimited supply of jobs for people to take. Surely at some point we will end up with oversupply and if the economy stalls then I would expect unemployment to move up sharply.
Jobs are never a finite resource. More people cause more demand causes more jobs. Fewer people means fewer [less] demand means fewer jobs. It balances.
Indeed one way to solve your first problem is though the second. Offer plenty of construction jobs to build new homes.
In the round and with a largely unregulated and un-unionised economy, that's broadly true (though there are still limits in extreme cases) but it's only true because wages, prices, rents and the like may be driven up or down to rebalance, which may well cause more harm than good.
Given we have a lack of demand in the economy (and in the eurozone as a whole), even with the large increases in population, is that really logical?
The Eurozone is already struggling with job creation for the young people it already has.
Antifrank - I think you're starting point is wrong. In my opinion you should go back to 2001 when the population was 59m. In the following 10 years the population increased by 4m - a rise of 6%. In some contexts 6% might not make much difference, but in this context it's quite a big increase. That the country has coped is not the point. We now have a housing shortage which is most acutely felt in London and the South East. Adding 120k a year to the net immigration of 300k is only going to exacerbate the problem. As Isam has rightly pointed out, the country's sympathy for asylum seekers would be far greater had we had control of economic immigration in the past decade.
SO said this: "Syria possessed a well-established, largely secular middle class. It is now moving westwards en masse. "
Three points: (1) Is this the group that is most at risk of persecution? (2) Are we only going to let in the secular ones? And how to assess that? If not, what is the relevance of saying that? (3) Despite having a well-established largely secular middle class, Syria has descended into chaos.
This should tell us something which is being missed - and what I am writing now I am doing so with trepidation but here goes. (In two parts because of length - sorry.)
Part 1
These people are not fleeing some natural event - a cyclone or something. They are fleeing war, civil war, insurrections etc which have been caused and carried on by the people living in those places, including by the people who are leaving. The people who are fleeing are not without responsibility for the mess they are leaving behind. These wars did not happen purely as a result of external factors completely unrelated to the acts or omissions of the inhabitants of those countries - over years. The failure of places like Syria and Libya and others to build viable tenable societies which do not descend from time to time into murderous carnage is not an Act of God but is a result of the actions and behaviours and cultures and attitudes and opinions of the people who live there and make those societies. (I appreciate that the West has not helped but the primary responsibility for the mess most of the Middle East is and has been in for a long time rests with the peoples of the place.)
So it is delusional to think that importing a very large number of those very same people into Europe en masse is not going to change - and the risk is for the worse - those countries which take them. It is both a question of numbers and also the world view which is also being imported. Unless we take real action to change that world view to something which is compatible with the European world view, it is naive to suppose that we will not also import the problems associated with that Middle Eastern world view. We have not done that - or not enough - with the Muslim communities we have now so there is a legitimate question to be asked about how many more we (by which I mean Europe) can take. I'm not saying that this cannot be done but there has to be a much more determined and effective attempt at real integration. And I would start, frankly, with the communities we have now before making them significantly larger. And even then there are risks.
Comments
'Not very much at all' ?
Deal with them as individuals. Determine whether they are genuine asylum seekers and, if so, let's help. But if they're migrants wanting a better life, then they can get in the queue like everyone else. And we determine whom we want not make the urgency of their demands the sole criteria for deciding entry let alone confuse them with those who are genuinely facing real persecution.
Current net migration is 360k
You are saying a 33% increase on that is
'Not very much at all'
Yes or no?
Anyone tell me where Cooper's 10,000 a month are going to live please?
You are pushing for a policy that will severely impact poorer communities in this country. You argue that, as a rich person, you already do your bit through taxation, but the current level of taxation you pay already. Would you be comfortable of having a windfall tax of an extra 10% of your income to pay for new housing for these people to be built in wealthy areas? And then for a surchage to be maintained until ethnic Syrians in the UK reach employment and earnings levels of the national average?
To give a non-politician's answer, I think you're framing the question in a statistically invalid way, that you are doing so because you approach the problem from a preconceived mindset and that hell would freeze over before you would ever reach the conclusion that Britain should take more refugees.
Don't let the rich pay their way out.
How on earth is it statistically invalid to consider an extra 120k on top of an existing 360k as a 33% increase?
Once all the educated & entrepeneurial have been stripped out of a country, then it can never, ever recover. Once we take the doctors and the nurses, then the healthcare system collapses. Once we take the engineers, then the infrastructure can’t be rebuilt.
If we are acting from humanitarian motives, these in fact are the very people we should not take -- rather we should take the old and the infirm and the injured.
I see the Labour Party still isn't done with its services to the Conservative Party. With Cooper's latest pronouncements, which Corbyn would no doubt support, it should be clear to any floating voter that for all Cameron's failings on immigration, Labour have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing: it would be *even higher* - and by design - under a Labour government.
I think the Government will take that.
I'd accept them in the way we always have and to allow this compassion I'd have severely limited the amount of economic migrants we have let in over the last decade.
TBH, I don't want any more unskilled migrants of any description for a very long while. I couldn't emigrate to Australia or Canada if I wanted to.
The Arab world need to handle this - I'm happy for our DfiD budget to be spent keeping refugees from Syria fed and clothed near to their country. Importing their population and those of similar cultures here is a recipe for disaster.
They have now published the list of the 11 victims of the Shoreham air crash.
All happened to be men.
http://news.sky.com/story/1540971/shoreham-airshow-crash-11th-victim-named
As for the woman in the BBC article I am personally very sympathetic to her. She is a genuine refugee who has overcome real hardship, including the killing of her father. She is ambitious, multilingual and works hard. Like the huddled masses reaching NYC in the 1800s, she deserves our respect if not our praise.
Was she right to head to Sweden? Family reunion and a better quality of life is an understandable desire. Leaving her mother behind is rather sad, but reiterates that it's the most vulnerable people who can't flee to Europe. If there were a policy of assisted family reunion, no doubt her mother would have come too. Was she a bad woman for breaking (bad) laws? I don't think so, laws aren't the same as ethics, though I note her actions fed thousands of dollars to some very wicked people smugglers (again, only some can come: had she been poor, she could never have set off). More morally reprehensible, in my opinion, was how she took risks with her own life in the sea crossing that meant her already widowed mother could have been left mourning a daughter too.
Is it bad public policy that she could head to Sweden? Yes, it's bloody terrible public policy. A border system that doesn't work. Expensive help for "refugees" that assists precisely the people who need it least. People smugglers pocketing thousands while taking really quite evil liberties with thousands of people's lives - the story of the boat she was really quite horrifying, and she was one of the lucky ones.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/08/barack-obama-betrayed-syrian-people-150822084544918.html
The above writer blames Obama of course and the vote in parliament gave Obama all the cover he needed.
Cameron wanted to bomb Assad and Miliband and Davis between them stopped it. Syrian refugees are the result.
But as someone else said - because we did not bomb Syria when we had the chance we will never know what might have happened. But what the vote did was make any other attempt at intervention difficult to say the least. (We saw the complaints about RAF pilots flying with the USAF). So as long as misery is fermented in the world and we stand back and do nothing then the world will be full of migrants.
Your grasp of Middle Eastern politics and history is apparently as far removed from reality as your grasp of European politics or history. You are an intellectual void.
It is no more or no less "statistically invalid” than your calculation (which just happens to be a different measure).
I didn't say it was an increase in population. It is an increase in net migration. Migration stats deal in increases or decreases in net migration not proportion of the population
Oh you must feel like everyone is walking the opposite way to you from the station. Set up a special needs group at work? The unaffected rich empathy for refugees book club?
1) Decide on how much we want to spend. A guide might be the 0.7% GDP on foreign aid - say £11 billion.
2) Look at a randomised sample of migrants who have come in over the last five years - both families and individuals. Calculate how much they cost in terms of services (NHS, schools etc, housing), and benefits. I have no idea what this figure would be.
3) Divide the former by the latter, to get a rough figure for the number we will accept. This will occur one year only - it would be a cost to the country of 0.7% GDP every other year, if things remain the same.
4) For following years, spend the entire foreign aid budget on migrants in the camps or neighbouring countries.
Then I realised it was a big deal.
It is just another example of how EU membership has warped our priorities and our own national interests.
You came up with an entirely bogus alternative measure and then tried to badger me into adopting it. I'm not playing that game.
I do note that in the course of this thread I've had my views deliberately misrepresented by one poster and been gratuitously insulted by numerous posters, with attacks based on affluence, property ownership and employment. None of these seem particularly relevant to the point at hand. But I suppose when your arguments are so thin, you have to make do with what you have.
a) see more people living in slum conditions - 10 people in a terraced house or people sleeping in garden sheds
b) see an increase in homelessness and camps of rough sleepers
The other assumption is that because we have a growing economy there is an unlimited supply of jobs for people to take. Surely at some point we will end up with oversupply and if the economy stalls then I would expect unemployment to move up sharply.
Anyone but Corbyn may well be useless and unbelievable as a PM, but if labour MPs want to save 'Labour' then all they have to do is agree among themselves for 1 candidate to stand to replace Corbyn (ironically like Brown did) and they will be saved an election.
When people say we need an effective opposition I suggest 'no'. What we need is any sort of opposition that will not betray our country if it becomes the govt. We need an opposition that can be trusted.
And you complain about “gratuitous insults” ! I have never insulted you.
All I have said is that your proposed solution is not of the right order of magnitude compared to the challenge.
Indeed one way to solve your first problem is though the second. Offer plenty of construction jobs to build new homes.
Moderate thinkers should be very grateful that Farage is so Marmite, a more strategic thinker, and more eloquent speaker could capture and channel the growing outrage very easily.
Do I detect the first whiff of fear from europhiles that this migrant crisis might result in things getting away from them.
I realise you probably wish you hadn't said it, and so are floundering, but you said it and are being roundly laughed at for it.
As for insults you are inferring that I'm so heartless as to never accept refugees while grizzling over a light hearted jibe over your special needs groups. Stop being so pretentious, narcissistic and precious
Now imagine we have left the EU. Castigation will be the least of it. It won't be the Mediterranean but the Channel that will be full of small boats laden with refugees/migrants, with no incentive whatsoever for any state between us and North Africa/Middle East to prevent them crossing to the UK.
And whether we call them refugees or migrants, can we please try to remember they are still human beings, the vast majority only doing what we would be trying to do if we were in their situation. Let's just be grateful we aren't. And show some f***ing compassion.
I ought to make it clear that my comment about "effects being small" was intended in thse sense that "effects would be large if they are compounded": it's hard to believe Syria is a one-off - or even that a particular intake of Syrian refugees will be a one-off. There will be refugee crises, from time to time if not continuously, for the foreseeable future and the world is an increasingly mobile one so troublespots that would once not have affected us are increasingly within the ambit of our migration policy. (I think it's unlikely we'll ever take serious numbers of refugees from narco-violence or civil war in Latin America, but we are well within the reach of those leaving sub-Saharan Africa and Central and South Asia as well as the ever-turbulent Middle East. If the 1948 war had taken place under modern migration conditions, Europe would have picked up a very large chunk of the Palestinian population. Now rinse and repeat for a variety of other conflicts and we would be talking very large numbers very quickly.)
The long term prospects for a bust are very likely - if we're full to the gills with newly arrived unemployed, the established population will be put under great strain.
I really do not agree with the bleeding-hearts. They react to almost every short term issue with knee-jerk answers, which in the medium/long term prove very ill-judged/leave consequences that can't be unpicked.
'Just 125,110 homes were built in England in the year to March, according to government figures. That is about half as many needed to keep up with demand, and the problem is compounded every year.'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33539816
I don't consider that rate of change insignificant in either absolute or relative terms.
I personally think it demeans you.
But, it is a bit rich to complain about “gratuitous insults”, if you are throwing them around yourself.
Your measure is entirely spurious. Say that we set up your utopian country, Isamland. It has a population of 64 million and has no immigrants or emigrants.
A wave of refugees hits. Three people clamour at the gate to be let in. The rulers of Isamland look at each other and say: "but that would be an INFINITE increase in net migration". The gates stay shut.
In other words, looking at the measure you're looking at is an entirely spurious way of assessing how easily we could accept 120,000 a year.
The world's leading developed economy absorbs millions of migrants per annum but because it is within reason a sensibly ran economy that has not stalled the economy by any means. Money is not a finite resource either.
Lol - the two chaps in the first picture are most likely from Senegal or Ghana, where there is stable government and no war whatsoever :P
If I were a nasty chap I could have responded to your 'thin arguments with nothing to work with' jibe with one about hair, but that would be a low blow
Flail as you wish, you're looking and sounding stupid. My original point, with no reference to my own opinion on the matter, was at a time of record net migration, and record levels of concern over it, an increase of 33% to that figure described as 'not very much at all' was a strange thing to say.
If it would help, I could always bang on about the Monza circuit, or ruminate about Fallout 4.
Even if someone else is rude to you that doesn't mean you should lower yourself to their level.
Your original point was based around me saying that 120,000 a year was not very much at all. You chose to use an entirely bogus metric for judging that and now you're having the nerve to say that I'm looking silly for not adopting it?
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/639030558400618496
But now it appears River Song's coming back.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/entertainment-arts-34057918
Your example of a 200% increase and your isamland nonsense are irrelevant as the context here is one of a time of record net migration, whereas your examples are using a time of either falling or zero migration.
Stop the generic slurs or I'll start thinking it must be your time of the month
What a wonderful society we have created in this country. The majority of posts in this thread show a complete disregard for the plight of other human beings. Very few politicians have said anything about immigration which doesn't pander to the selfishness in the public.
Could there just possibly be a connection between that and the rise of Corbyn, who, for all his faults, at least doesn't come over like a botoxed PR salesman?
If someone wants open borders and to take everyone who wants to come, you might judge them. If they are prepared to open up their own house and pay extra tax, I would give them a lot of respect.
If they just expect others to make the sacrifice, I would still assume it's a legitimate opinion even if I disagreed.
But virtue-signalling seems to be everywhere. The Guardian article about swimming the Mediterranean in solidarity is a hoot and clearly meant for entertainment. Roger's tongue is firmly in his cheek much of the time. Mr Antifrank probably does mean it in the same way that Owen Jones and Charlotte Church do want rich people to pay tax at 70% - because it's the right thing to do.
I wish we were all Saints but ...
Instead I give money to Cafod and other charities that work directly with refugees, and if the Sally Army came round the pubs, like they used to do, I'd be happy to contribute. They put themselves out and earn my real respect.
If there were 75 people in the carriage, those people were feeling squashed, and someone suggested adding 25 more, the people in the carriage would think it was crazy
If there were 50 people,all sitting, in the carriage and 3 people got on, there would be no problem
If there were 75 people but 50 alighted and 25 got on there would be no problem either
Antifrank seems to think an increase on top of what people are already uncomfortable with is the same as one on top of what people are ok with
One of my friends did not emigrate from Russia but remained there because he felt that the scientific community in Russia needed distinguished people like him to stay. He remains there today, very poor in comparison with his colleagues who left, and subject to the whims of Russian politics & bureaucracy.
Immigration itself is often selfish (I do not obviously talk about refugees here fleeing war or persecution).
It is often in an individual’s interest to better themselves by moving to the West, but it is often in their country’s interest for them to remain.
I don’t blame my Russian friends who moved -- I’d have probably done so myself -- but I do admire my friend who stayed in Russia to try and maintain Russian science.
He is, old-fashioned word, a patriot.
The differential is time not space.
It is ironic that WWII guilt is helping drive Germany's stance, at the same time as it tries to dictate policy to the rest of the EU.
Edited extra bit: Mr. Thompson, from the last figure, that would imply annual net migration of 450,000.
The Eurozone is already struggling with job creation for the young people it already has.
Three points: (1) Is this the group that is most at risk of persecution? (2) Are we only going to let in the secular ones? And how to assess that? If not, what is the relevance of saying that? (3) Despite having a well-established largely secular middle class, Syria has descended into chaos.
This should tell us something which is being missed - and what I am writing now I am doing so with trepidation but here goes. (In two parts because of length - sorry.)
Part 1
These people are not fleeing some natural event - a cyclone or something. They are fleeing war, civil war, insurrections etc which have been caused and carried on by the people living in those places, including by the people who are leaving. The people who are fleeing are not without responsibility for the mess they are leaving behind. These wars did not happen purely as a result of external factors completely unrelated to the acts or omissions of the inhabitants of those countries - over years. The failure of places like Syria and Libya and others to build viable tenable societies which do not descend from time to time into murderous carnage is not an Act of God but is a result of the actions and behaviours and cultures and attitudes and opinions of the people who live there and make those societies. (I appreciate that the West has not helped but the primary responsibility for the mess most of the Middle East is and has been in for a long time rests with the peoples of the place.)
So it is delusional to think that importing a very large number of those very same people into Europe en masse is not going to change - and the risk is for the worse - those countries which take them. It is both a question of numbers and also the world view which is also being imported. Unless we take real action to change that world view to something which is compatible with the European world view, it is naive to suppose that we will not also import the problems associated with that Middle Eastern world view. We have not done that - or not enough - with the Muslim communities we have now so there is a legitimate question to be asked about how many more we (by which I mean Europe) can take. I'm not saying that this cannot be done but there has to be a much more determined and effective attempt at real integration. And I would start, frankly, with the communities we have now before making them significantly larger. And even then there are risks.