What happened to Tim was a disgrace. The site is significantly poorer for his absence.
Rubbish, its much better now that Mr snide comment is no longer here.
Tim can be snide but he can also be witty and provocative. He is well informed and good at puncturing fanciful balloons with awkward facts. Frequently he was the grit in the oyster stimulating interesting discussions.
So the site has exchanged the witty and informed tim for the tedious and self righteous duo of Tindall and Socrates. The moderator reponsible for allowing SeanT to publish Tim's name address and wife's job should himself be banned for life.
I missed the Tim affair, clearly it seems an argument got a bit too personal, but I would say that while some posters found him difficult, and he could be at times, on the whole he was well informed and brought a great deal to the site even if you disagreed with him as I did at times
My American cousin defends the ostensibly unwieldy Fahrenheit system on the basis that if the temperature is less than zero or more than 100 you know not to venture outdoors.
I have many times played golf in more than 100 degrees - never at zero or below however.
I still have a parka from Canada which is so well insulated that even at negative fahrenheit temperatures I would get hot if I wore it over anything more than shirt sleeves. It has a snorkel hood, down filled with a down filled cummerbund and wolf fur trim. It served me well this morning.
Why is fahrenheit 'ostensibly unwieldy'? It's just not decimal.
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Enoch Powell predicted Nick Robinson would begin using pies to illustrate immigration?
In any case, Nick Robinson isn't talking about what Enoch Powell thought, but what people now think. And people now significantly over-estimate the proportion of the country who are immigrants.
Haha he wasn't that good!
Yes I know that people over estimate the current number, but just thought I would point out that Powell did predict 12.5%... At the time people accused him of exaggerating, now that it has happened people say "it's only 12.5%"
So the site has exchanged the witty and informed tim for the tedious and self righteous duo of Tindall and Socrates. The moderator reponsible for allowing SeanT to publish Tim's name address and wife's job should himself be banned for life.
Did he really publish his name and address and wife's job?
My American cousin defends the ostensibly unwieldy Fahrenheit system on the basis that if the temperature is less than zero or more than 100 you know not to venture outdoors.
I have many times played golf in more than 100 degrees - never at zero or below however.
I still have a parka from Canada which is so well insulated that even at negative fahrenheit temperatures I would get hot if I wore it over anything more than shirt sleeves. It has a snorkel hood, down filled with a down filled cummerbund and wolf fur trim. It served me well this morning.
Why is fahrenheit 'ostensibly unwieldy'? It's just not decimal.
So the site has exchanged the witty and informed tim for the tedious and self righteous duo of Tindall and Socrates. The moderator reponsible for allowing SeanT to publish Tim's name address and wife's job should himself be banned for life.
Did he really publish his name and address and wife's job?
Tim can be snide but he can also be witty and provocative. He is well informed and good at puncturing fanciful balloons with awkward facts. Frequently he was the grit in the oyster stimulating interesting discussions.
I very much hope he returns to active posting.
The problem was his snideyness.
Which turns lurkers and new posters off.
Which means this site dies.
And all because Mr snide comments wasn't able to communicate with any sort of proper moral conduct.
As an aside, some of his posts might have been worth reading. But guess what, most people would have learned to ignore anything he wrote simply because most of his output was merely snide comments.
Tim can be snide but he can also be witty and provocative. He is well informed and good at puncturing fanciful balloons with awkward facts. Frequently he was the grit in the oyster stimulating interesting discussions.
I very much hope he returns to active posting.
The problem was his snideyness.
Which turns lurkers and new posters off.
Unlike the big majority of PB tories on this site who never post snidey comments that would put off lurkers and new posters?
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
Labour will be kicking themselves if the Tories steal a march on them with the minimum wage. Labour's pathetically timid policy on the living wage last year being OPTIONAL sums up all the party's problems imo: they're so petrified of offending anyone (in this case, they were scared "business leaders" would get upset if they said a living wage would be compulsory) that they water down their policies so much that they become so bland that noone pays any attention to them. Labour's "policy" effectively amounted to them saying "well, some of you MIGHT get a decent wage, IF your bosses are nice enough...but we won't be able to do anything to make sure it happens".
If they'd said a living wage would be compulsory for EVERYONE under a Labour government, they could be harrassing the government now, like they did with the energy price freeze constantly demanding they introduce one and catch up to their agenda. But because Labour themselves aren't committed to guaranteeing a living wage, they're in no position to do that. The energy prize freeze showed people only respond to Labour when they make a pledge that's clear and unequivocal, not this New Labour cautious triangulating crap.
The crazy thing about this Nick Robinson BBC prog is that it's trying to make out that immigration controls will stop the brightest computer programmers etc from comin to the uk... How far can you miss the point???!
Talented people would be welcome and given visas, ukip just don't want mass uncontrolled immigration of unskilled labour!
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
Um, only if "immigrant" is code for "non-white". If someone is born in Britain (and even had their parents born in Britain) they are not immigrants by any reasonable definition. I had a London-born friend who used to get catcalls of "why don't you go home?" He was a hard-to-ruffle chap and would cheerily call back "It's OK, I'm on my way to Putney now" and enjoy their bemused looks.
My mum was born in Russia (left when she was 5 months old). You feel I'm an immigrant? OK with me, but seems odd.
Is anyone else a little cynical about this whole Osborne/Clegg thing? Does Osborne really intend to implement those kinds of welfare cuts or is he just giving Clegg a bit of space to differentiate himself from the Tories? I wonder whether this was all carefully agreed beforehand. Cameron and Osborne may well have played Clegg very nicely and there's some smart politics in there.
Make a populist statment about how you want to clamp down on welfare. However you know that if such policies were implemented there would be a backlash from the public once they saw what it really meant. But since you have no chance of winning a majority it doesn't matter. It just becomes a bargaining chip for the coalition negotiations that inevitably happen afterwards. Clegg can then say he moderated the Tories away from their Thatcherite extremes whilst Cameron and Osborne pretty much get the Tory government they've always wanted.
Let's just think about Clegg. I suspect Cameron and Osborne may have sussed out his character. Being crude, let's reduce politics to a simple number scale. Now let's say the Tories under Cameron were at +50 on this left right scale and (merely for the sake of argument) that Ed Miliband is at -30 during the 2015 election campaign. Clegg claims he is right on the centre ground so he scores a 0. You would therefore assume that Clegg would rather work with Labour. However a post election scenario would involve negotiations between the parties. Suppose the Tories were to agree to a deal whereby their +50 rating on the scale moved to a +25 in a Tory/LD deal. Labour are prepared for their -30 to become -20. So since Clegg is 'right on the centre ground' surely he'd would be more comfortable with Labour's -20 than the Tory +25 deal? However the thing about the Tory deal is that it appears that Nick Clegg has moved the Tories further away from their position than he has Labour. Would he rather be part of a government that was overall closer to what he believed in or one further away but who's agenda had been shaped to greater extent by Clegg's influence? I think he would prefer the latter. I don't believe his main concern is the overall agenda a coalition adopts, but merely how influential HE appears to be within it.
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
If you're born in this country you're not an immigrant.
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
I think the more remarkable thing is that the public believe 25% of the population is Muslim. That would be over 15m muslims in the UK. I mean honestly.
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
Um, only if "immigrant" is code for "non-white". If someone is born in Britain (and even had their parents born in Britain) they are not immigrants by any reasonable definition. I had a London-born friend who used to get catcalls of "why don't you go home?" He was a hard-to-ruffle chap and would cheerily call back "It's OK, I'm on my way to Putney now" and enjoy their bemused looks.
My mum was born in Russia (left when she was 5 months old). You feel I'm an immigrant? OK with me, but seems odd.
Reminds me of an incident my father spoke about.
He was doing some A&E work many years ago somewhere Down South, my Father went to the cubicle with the patient, and the patient said "I don't want no Paki C*nt treating me, I want someone who can speak English"
My father replied, in his Yorkshire accent "I dunno, does speaking with a T'Yorkshire accent count as speaking English?"
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
I think the more remarkable thing is that the public believe 25% of the population is Muslim. That would be over 15m muslims in the UK. I mean honestly.
Yes but as those who bang on about Muslims endlessly might tell you, "what about the secret Muslims?" You know, like Barack Obama self-evidently isn't.
Back from the cinema just saw 12 Years A Slave, blimey, that was a harsh, graphic, heartbreaking film, with no hope or redemption, in the way that say The Help or To Kill a Mockingbird gave.
I will be surprised if doesn't pick up quite a few awards.
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
I think the more remarkable thing is that the public believe 25% of the population is Muslim. That would be over 15m muslims in the UK. I mean honestly.
Yes but as those who bang on about Muslims endlessly might tell you, "what about the secret Muslims?" You know, like Barack Obama self-evidently isn't.
*chortle*
To be honest, I don't think there are many of those in Britain. It's just inexplicable.
'The crazy thing about this Nick Robinson BBC prog'
The John Denham points about cuts in construction workers wages & the overrun A&E depts made to & ignored by Brown in 2006 were interesting. Straw,hands up we screwed up was very refreshing,Blunkett was his usual ridiculous self & the senior civil servant just waffled.
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
I think the more remarkable thing is that the public believe 25% of the population is Muslim. That would be over 15m muslims in the UK. I mean honestly.
Far too much of is made of this argument. Most of the public aren't statisticians. When asked for a percentage, most people will pluck a figure out of the air. What they mean is "a lot".
I can guarantee that no one who is concerned about immigration will have their minds changed by the revelation that " only" 12.5% of the population are immigrants. After all, that's 7.7m people.
Labour will be kicking themselves if the Tories steal a march on them with the minimum wage. Labour's pathetically timid policy on the living wage last year being OPTIONAL sums up all the party's problems imo: they're so petrified of offending anyone (in this case, they were scared "business leaders" would get upset if they said a living wage would be compulsory) that they water down their policies so much that they become so bland that noone pays any attention to them. Labour's "policy" effectively amounted to them saying "well, some of you MIGHT get a decent wage, IF your bosses are nice enough...but we won't be able to do anything to make sure it happens".
If they'd said a living wage would be compulsory for EVERYONE under a Labour government, they could be harrassing the government now, like they did with the energy price freeze constantly demanding they introduce one and catch up to their agenda. But because Labour themselves aren't committed to guaranteeing a living wage, they're in no position to do that. The energy prize freeze showed people only respond to Labour when they make a pledge that's clear and unequivocal, not this New Labour cautious triangulating crap.
Legislating for an across-the-board wage increase of that magnitude would cause job-losses, make some businesses unviable, and provide a huge incentive to employ illegal immigrants.
Sean_F - They may not be statisticians but why do people believe one in four of the UK population is Muslim? The real figure is more like one in twenty. And whilst it may be unrealistic to expect the public to all be great with figures, how come so few of them are wrong on the low side as opposed tot he high side.
As someone who lives in a city with a roughly 'average' Muslim population, I just can't see why people are so wrong.
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
I think the more remarkable thing is that the public believe 25% of the population is Muslim. That would be over 15m muslims in the UK. I mean honestly.
Yes but as those who bang on about Muslims endlessly might tell you, "what about the secret Muslims?" You know, like Barack Obama self-evidently isn't.
*chortle*
To be honest, I don't think there are many of those in Britain. It's just inexplicable.
Nah, you add the drip, drip, drip of a predominantly rightwing press who just love stories about Muslims, to the fact of Afghanistan, the Iraq Invasion and numerous terror attacks and scares over the years that make a huge impact on the TV News and press, then it's not really that much of a surprise some people think Muslims are more predominant than they actually are. Not that I can remember labour or the tories doing much to contradict that erronous view it has to be said and UKIP are hardly very likely to do so.
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
Um, only if "immigrant" is code for "non-white". If someone is born in Britain (and even had their parents born in Britain) they are not immigrants by any reasonable definition. I had a London-born friend who used to get catcalls of "why don't you go home?" He was a hard-to-ruffle chap and would cheerily call back "It's OK, I'm on my way to Putney now" and enjoy their bemused looks.
My mum was born in Russia (left when she was 5 months old). You feel I'm an immigrant? OK with me, but seems odd.
Well, if "immigrant" is code for "non-white", then so is "Commonwealth"!
I think some of the posters to my comment would better their cause by not insulting people's intelligence (or eyesight, at least). I did a lot better when I stopped insulting people's intelligence by calling myself British (although I am) because although White, my name positively reeks of my (foreign) ancestry.
Of rather more importance is religion. This is a counter-entropic characteristic and I think that is because it determines the way you live, whereas your race (language aside) doesn't really.
Speaking of my own experience, my own ethnic group isn't of sufficient size to be viable in this country (to sustain its own institutions), but my religious group most certainly is (I'm Catholic). I note most objections are to mass immigration, not immigration itself. Smaller immigrations get assimilated without leaving much trace.
I note you say your mother is Russian. Are you Jewish or Russian Orthodox? Those characteristics are persistent and would certainly be regarded, however unfairly, as 'foreign'. A bit like Catholicism, I suppose.
Mick_Pork - I fail to see why the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq should have convinced the British people there are so many Musilms living here. On immigration it's true that the press often talk about numbers, how many are coming over etc. But I don't think the press generally does this with Muslims. I rarely see panic stories about an increasing Muslim population in the UK. I can understand if you read our press why you might think a lot of Muslims are dangerous, nasty, anti-British or merely intolerant of others. But a quarter of the population? That's just daft.
Sean_F - They may not be statisticians but why do people believe one in four of the UK population is Muslim? The real figure is more like one in twenty. And whilst it may be unrealistic to expect the public to all be great with figures, how come so few of them are wrong on the low side as opposed tot he high side.
As someone who lives in a city with a roughly 'average' Muslim population, I just can't see why people are so wrong.
Because there are parts of big cities where Muslims are the majority and human nature seems to overstate the frequency of things based on a small number of extremes
Just watching the immigration programme by Nick Robinson... He shows, using pies(!) that only 12.5 % of people living in Britain are immigrants as if its not as many as you think ... Enoch Powell predicted this in 1968 and was ridiculed for it, and he was only talking about commonwealth immigrants
Hmm. I think this is rather unfair on 'people'.
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
I think the more remarkable thing is that the public believe 25% of the population is Muslim. That would be over 15m muslims in the UK. I mean honestly.
Far too much of is made of this argument. Most of the public aren't statisticians. When asked for a percentage, most people will pluck a figure out of the air. What they mean is "a lot".
I can guarantee that no one who is concerned about immigration will have their minds changed by the revelation that " only" 12.5% of the population are immigrants. After all, that's 7.7m people.
Considering that White British are a minority in London and British media are London-centric, I'm not surprised people think the percentages are much higher than they really are.
I do wonder where exactly out mediarati live in London. It reminds me of the Papal Visit in 2010 when the media was hostile to the Holy Father and was totally shocked by the massive turnout of Catholics in Hyde Park. This showed that not only is the media not representative of the country as a whole, but that they didn't even know their own city!
Sean_F - They may not be statisticians but why do people believe one in four of the UK population is Muslim? The real figure is more like one in twenty. And whilst it may be unrealistic to expect the public to all be great with figures, how come so few of them are wrong on the low side as opposed tot he high side.
As someone who lives in a city with a roughly 'average' Muslim population, I just can't see why people are so wrong.
Possibly because people are reacting to how much coverage certain groups get, particularly in relation to specific news events rather than to anything more rational. It would be interesting to see if, for instance, people over-estimated the number of Irish people at the time of the IRA's campaign in the 1970s.
And it is also possible that people are over-estimating the number because they are more concerned about this group than others and, therefore, assume that the number is larger than it is. Plus if you live in an area where there is a significant Muslim population you may well assume that it is the same everywhere whereas the reality is that in large parts of the UK there is relatively little or no diversity.
What I find interesting about the immigration debate is that one side tries to use facts and numbers to deal with the concerns expressed and gets (understandably) frustrated when this isn't enough to change views. But it's rather missing the point: a bit like those Tories endlessly quoting good economic statistics at people who simply reply that that's not how it feels to them.
It's as if there's a giant category mistake going on in the conversation. The statisticians simply forget that statistics are a wholly inadequate - indeed, a tone deaf - way of addressing how people feel about their home.
Mick_Pork - I fail to see why the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq should have convinced the British people there are so many Musilms living here. On immigration it's true that the press often talk about numbers, how many are coming over etc. But I don't think the press generally does this with Muslims. I rarely see panic stories about an increasing Muslim population in the UK. I can understand if you read our press why you might think a lot of Muslims are dangerous, nasty, anti-British or merely intolerant of others. But a quarter of the population? That's just daft.
Well, speaking as someone who's religious, the media know f*ck all about religion and seem to pretend it doesn't it exist as a human characteristic. The BBC's coverage of athletes' religious observance during events at London 2012 was positively hilarious.
As for panic stories about the Muslim population, I suggest you look for stories about wearing the veil in schools, Muslim schools e.g. in Derby, sex segregation in universities and the refusal to serve alcohol in Marks and Spencers. Liberals only take against immigration when it affects their interests, as I discovered to my cost in 2006.
Sean_F - They may not be statisticians but why do people believe one in four of the UK population is Muslim? The real figure is more like one in twenty. And whilst it may be unrealistic to expect the public to all be great with figures, how come so few of them are wrong on the low side as opposed tot he high side.
As someone who lives in a city with a roughly 'average' Muslim population, I just can't see why people are so wrong.
Possibly because people are reacting to how much coverage certain groups get, particularly in relation to specific news events rather than to anything more rational. It would be interesting to see if, for instance, people over-estimated the number of Irish people at the time of the IRA's campaign in the 1970s.
And it is also possible that people are over-estimating the number because they are more concerned about this group than others and, therefore, assume that the number is larger than it is. Plus if you live in an area where there is a significant Muslim population you may well assume that it is the same everywhere whereas the reality is that in large parts of the UK there is relatively little or no diversity.
What I find interesting about the immigration debate is that one side tries to use facts and numbers to deal with the concerns expressed and gets (understandably) frustrated when this isn't enough to change views. But it's rather missing the point: a bit like those Tories endlessly quoting good economic statistics at people who simply reply that that's not how it feels to them.
It's as if there's a giant category mistake going on in the conversation. The statisticians simply forget that statistics are a wholly inadequate - indeed, a tone deaf - way of addressing how people feel about their home.
Another point is just how bad people are at mathematics and statistics. Also, it doesn't help when the BBC quotes one figure for immigration and people's eyesight gives an ostensibly different impression. It would be better if the BBC stopped trying to deceive people.
Sean_F - They may not be statisticians but why do people believe one in four of the UK population is Muslim? The real figure is more like one in twenty. And whilst it may be unrealistic to expect the public to all be great with figures, how come so few of them are wrong on the low side as opposed tot he high side.
As someone who lives in a city with a roughly 'average' Muslim population, I just can't see why people are so wrong.
Possibly because people are reacting to how much coverage certain groups get, particularly in relation to specific news events rather than to anything more rational. It would be interesting to see if, for instance, people over-estimated the number of Irish people at the time of the IRA's campaign in the 1970s.
And it is also possible that people are over-estimating the number because they are more concerned about this group than others and, therefore, assume that the number is larger than it is. Plus if you live in an area where there is a significant Muslim population you may well assume that it is the same everywhere whereas the reality is that in large parts of the UK there is relatively little or no diversity.
What I find interesting about the immigration debate is that one side tries to use facts and numbers to deal with the concerns expressed and gets (understandably) frustrated when this isn't enough to change views. But it's rather missing the point: a bit like those Tories endlessly quoting good economic statistics at people who simply reply that that's not how it feels to them.
It's as if there's a giant category mistake going on in the conversation. The statisticians simply forget that statistics are a wholly inadequate - indeed, a tone deaf - way of addressing how people feel about their home.
Another point is just how bad people are at mathematics and statistics. Also, it doesn't help when the BBC quotes one figure for immigration and people's eyesight gives an ostensibly different impression. It would be better if the BBC stopped trying to deceive people.
Depends where you look, the ethnic population in my village must be ~ 2% ? or so - very low. Central Bradford feels almost 100%.
Mick_Pork - I fail to see why the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq should have convinced the British people there are so many Musilms living here.
It's just a public visibility thing that bleeds over from the media. If the TV News is filled with images and stories about muslim countries then it's natural for them to feature stronger in the public imagination when other stories about them proliferate such as the endless right-wing immigration stories in the press. I'm certainly not claiming because we went to war in those countries there is or should be a natural assumption that they all came here. (even though there will be some immigration from there) It's more subliminal than that, but when it features on the news constantly for years it will have an effect. Same thing happened when the troubles were in full swing with the IRA etc. as the predominant concerns weren't with Muslims then and they hardly ever featured in the News.
On immigration it's true that the press often talk about numbers, how many are coming over etc. But I don't think the press generally does this with Muslims. I rarely see panic stories about an increasing Muslim population in the UK. I can understand if you read our press why you might think a lot of Muslims are dangerous, nasty, anti-British or merely intolerant of others. But a quarter of the population? That's just daft.
Sure, the numbers are bonkers, but that right-wing demonisation that focuses on the negatives will also make them seem more threatening and of far greater import which feeds into the myth that if it's a massive danger then there just might be massive numbers of Muslims causing it. Even though, as we have established, the numbers are just daft.
FPT. NickPalmer Posts: 1,699 5:33PM "Mostly people with an abnormally high interest in politics but not actually standing, with a smattering of professionals (sometimes including me) and general public.
On Gove, I always liked his Times column and have nothing against him personally. But he does turn up in doorstep conversations, always negatively. The problem is I think (leaving aside the rights and wrongs) that he's seen by teachers as anti-teacher but not really seen by parents as pro-parent, partly perhaps because teachers follow his comments closely while parents are pretty much the general public, who don't in general follow ANYTHING political closely. Indeed I suspect that more than 75% of parents would struggle to name him."
I was catching up with yesterday's threads and I came across this post as I read the thread from the bottom upwards. I did a double take when I read this comment, and then I immediately concluded that it had to have been penned by a Labour politician with no kids spinning like a top. So I immediately thought of Nick Palmer, I scrolled up and was proved correct!!
"New Labour ‘dropped the ball’ by giving the green light to fixed odds betting terminals dubbed the ‘crack cocaine’ of the High Street, a leading Labour MP said last night.
Former Minister Tom Watson said Labour ‘should never have licensed these machines’ as his party prepares today to force a Commons vote on the issue."
Comments
I still have a parka from Canada which is so well insulated that even at negative fahrenheit temperatures I would get hot if I wore it over anything more than shirt sleeves. It has a snorkel hood, down filled with a down filled cummerbund and wolf fur trim. It served me well this morning.
Why is fahrenheit 'ostensibly unwieldy'? It's just not decimal.
http://www.metric-conversions.org/temperature/celsius-to-fahrenheit.htm
Which turns lurkers and new posters off.
Which means this site dies.
And all because Mr snide comments wasn't able to communicate with any sort of proper moral conduct.
As an aside, some of his posts might have been worth reading. But guess what, most people would have learned to ignore anything he wrote simply because most of his output was merely snide comments.
So obvious in retrospect.
LOL
If you are born in this country, you're British. However, just by looking at you, people can't tell that. So, people are using the evidence of their own eyes (not unreasonably).
Frankly, I think it is a little disingenuous to ignore 2nd and 3rd generations.
Yes - 5/6 on over 11.5 seats for Irish Labour is also good value. (Paddy Power has 5/6 on less than 16.5 seats...)
Edit - as, I think, is Paddy's 5/6 on 'yes' <57% in the gay marriage referendum.
If they'd said a living wage would be compulsory for EVERYONE under a Labour government, they could be harrassing the government now, like they did with the energy price freeze constantly demanding they introduce one and catch up to their agenda. But because Labour themselves aren't committed to guaranteeing a living wage, they're in no position to do that. The energy prize freeze showed people only respond to Labour when they make a pledge that's clear and unequivocal, not this New Labour cautious triangulating crap.
Talented people would be welcome and given visas, ukip just don't want mass uncontrolled immigration of unskilled labour!
My mum was born in Russia (left when she was 5 months old). You feel I'm an immigrant? OK with me, but seems odd.
Make a populist statment about how you want to clamp down on welfare. However you know that if such policies were implemented there would be a backlash from the public once they saw what it really meant. But since you have no chance of winning a majority it doesn't matter. It just becomes a bargaining chip for the coalition negotiations that inevitably happen afterwards. Clegg can then say he moderated the Tories away from their Thatcherite extremes whilst Cameron and Osborne pretty much get the Tory government they've always wanted.
Let's just think about Clegg. I suspect Cameron and Osborne may have sussed out his character. Being crude, let's reduce politics to a simple number scale. Now let's say the Tories under Cameron were at +50 on this left right scale and (merely for the sake of argument) that Ed Miliband is at -30 during the 2015 election campaign. Clegg claims he is right on the centre ground so he scores a 0. You would therefore assume that Clegg would rather work with Labour. However a post election scenario would involve negotiations between the parties. Suppose the Tories were to agree to a deal whereby their +50 rating on the scale moved to a +25 in a Tory/LD deal. Labour are prepared for their -30 to become -20. So since Clegg is 'right on the centre ground' surely he'd would be more comfortable with Labour's -20 than the Tory +25 deal? However the thing about the Tory deal is that it appears that Nick Clegg has moved the Tories further away from their position than he has Labour. Would he rather be part of a government that was overall closer to what he believed in or one further away but who's agenda had been shaped to greater extent by Clegg's influence? I think he would prefer the latter. I don't believe his main concern is the overall agenda a coalition adopts, but merely how influential HE appears to be within it.
He was doing some A&E work many years ago somewhere Down South, my Father went to the cubicle with the patient, and the patient said "I don't want no Paki C*nt treating me, I want someone who can speak English"
My father replied, in his Yorkshire accent "I dunno, does speaking with a T'Yorkshire accent count as speaking English?"
The poor patient didn't know what to say or do.
*chortle*
I will be surprised if doesn't pick up quite a few awards.
'The crazy thing about this Nick Robinson BBC prog'
The John Denham points about cuts in construction workers wages & the overrun A&E depts made to & ignored by Brown in 2006 were interesting.
Straw,hands up we screwed up was very refreshing,Blunkett was his usual ridiculous self & the senior civil servant just waffled.
I can guarantee that no one who is concerned about immigration will have their minds changed by the revelation that " only" 12.5% of the population are immigrants. After all, that's 7.7m people.
As someone who lives in a city with a roughly 'average' Muslim population, I just can't see why people are so wrong.
I think some of the posters to my comment would better their cause by not insulting people's intelligence (or eyesight, at least). I did a lot better when I stopped insulting people's intelligence by calling myself British (although I am) because although White, my name positively reeks of my (foreign) ancestry.
Of rather more importance is religion. This is a counter-entropic characteristic and I think that is because it determines the way you live, whereas your race (language aside) doesn't really.
Speaking of my own experience, my own ethnic group isn't of sufficient size to be viable in this country (to sustain its own institutions), but my religious group most certainly is (I'm Catholic). I note most objections are to mass immigration, not immigration itself. Smaller immigrations get assimilated without leaving much trace.
I note you say your mother is Russian. Are you Jewish or Russian Orthodox? Those characteristics are persistent and would certainly be regarded, however unfairly, as 'foreign'. A bit like Catholicism, I suppose.
I do wonder where exactly out mediarati live in London. It reminds me of the Papal Visit in 2010 when the media was hostile to the Holy Father and was totally shocked by the massive turnout of Catholics in Hyde Park. This showed that not only is the media not representative of the country as a whole, but that they didn't even know their own city!
IRA's campaign in the 1970s.
And it is also possible that people are over-estimating the number because they are more concerned about this group than others and, therefore, assume that the number is larger than it is. Plus if you live in an area where there is a significant Muslim population you may well assume that it is the same everywhere whereas the reality is that in large parts of the UK there is relatively little or no diversity.
What I find interesting about the immigration debate is that one side tries to use facts and numbers to deal with the concerns expressed and gets (understandably) frustrated when this isn't enough to change views. But it's rather missing the point: a bit like those Tories endlessly quoting good economic statistics at people who simply reply that that's not how it feels to them.
It's as if there's a giant category mistake going on in the conversation. The statisticians simply forget that statistics are a wholly inadequate - indeed, a tone deaf - way of addressing how people feel about their home.
As for panic stories about the Muslim population, I suggest you look for stories about wearing the veil in schools, Muslim schools e.g. in Derby, sex segregation in universities and the refusal to serve alcohol in Marks and Spencers. Liberals only take against immigration when it affects their interests, as I discovered to my cost in 2006.
- Riddick (Vin Diesel) in "Pitch Black".
Sure, the numbers are bonkers, but that right-wing demonisation that focuses on the negatives will also make them seem more threatening and of far greater import which feeds into the myth that if it's a massive danger then there just might be massive numbers of Muslims causing it. Even though, as we have established, the numbers are just daft.
EDIT - I see Cyclefree covered the IRA as well.
5:33PM
"Mostly people with an abnormally high interest in politics but not actually standing, with a smattering of professionals (sometimes including me) and general public.
On Gove, I always liked his Times column and have nothing against him personally. But he does turn up in doorstep conversations, always negatively. The problem is I think (leaving aside the rights and wrongs) that he's seen by teachers as anti-teacher but not really seen by parents as pro-parent, partly perhaps because teachers follow his comments closely while parents are pretty much the general public, who don't in general follow ANYTHING political closely. Indeed I suspect that more than 75% of parents would struggle to name him."
I was catching up with yesterday's threads and I came across this post as I read the thread from the bottom upwards. I did a double take when I read this comment, and then I immediately concluded that it had to have been penned by a Labour politician with no kids spinning like a top. So I immediately thought of Nick Palmer, I scrolled up and was proved correct!!
Former Minister Tom Watson said Labour ‘should never have licensed these machines’ as his party prepares today to force a Commons vote on the issue."
Watson goes off piste - again.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535591/We-dropped-ball-gambling-says-Labour-MP-Tom-Watson-believes-party-never-licenced-fixed-odds-machines.html