Prominent Left politician in Germany argues the left has been co-opted by a middle-class academic elite which has little interest in workers, is obsessed with identity politics, political correctness, minorities & intolerance of those with different views
Germany’s Left Party convulsed by effort to expel internal critic Sahra Wagenknecht’s criticism of left-wing politics has triggered a bitter debate irishtimes.com"
Someone called Jon Redman has posted this comment on an UnHerd article:
"If you look at the comments on politicalbetting, they’re all politically partisan, not particularly smart and they clearly bet on what they want to happen, not what they think actually will, whether they realise it or not."
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
It's potentially more than 10%. Some EU residents are now British Citizens so don't need to apply, and some have undoubtedly gone home over the last year so the peak figure would have been higher.
In the wake of the Brexit vote, there was a well publicized serge in people form the UK for a variety of EU passports, I don't know the total number, but have More EU nationals applied to live in the UK or vice versa?
Here is my take on the by-election. I think it is a massive warning klaxon for the Conservatives.
Pooh pooh, say the Johnson fanbois, excuse excuse etc. No, sorry you Boris obsessives, the truth was that everyone expected the Tories to win this, and they should have done, if the narrative that they have put out there really has any validity, you know the one, Boris reaches parts etc., and the Red Wall has turned permanently blue due to Johnsonian populism. This bolstered by the vaccine and the continuous exposure that the pandemic has given to those in government (including Sturgeon and Blackford), should mean that they should be winning these types of contests particularly when helped by Galloway.
What if the Tory narrative is wrong? What if Johnson's popularity is transient and largely limited to the last election? The Tories have invested heavily in brand Boris. They believe he appeals to WWC in spite the paradox of his own demeanour and privileged upbringing, but perhaps what we are actually seeing is the effects of the divisions created by Brexit gradually healing and the electorate gradually catching up with the fact that Labour is no longer led by Corbyn so is less of a worry now? What if the so-called remoaners in the south haven't forgiven Johnson and now that Corbyn has gone feel they should vote LD? This could create a perfect storm at the next GE
I think it is possible the Tories are in a lot of trouble, even though I am not hoping for a Labour government . The Tory problem is exacerbated by arrogance, hubris and complacency. They should seriously look at moving back to being proper Conservatives.
Boris narrowed the gap in Batley & Spen in 2019 and narrowed it again yesterday, how is that evidence of him failing to reach the kind of voters needed to win? Labour scored their worst vote share ever in the constituency and its being celebrated like they gained an unwinnable seat!
As I understand it, the Conservative vote was considerably down on the GE, not up, so you are playing with statistics. I doubt those voters went to Galloway ffs!
Dont be silly, if you are going to go on actual number of votes, then Labours is massively down! It is the vote share that matters and Labour got their worst ever whilst Boris narrowed the gap for the second time running!
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
What I find interesting is the way that today's elites view themselves as being totally different to the elites in previous eras, whereas the reality is they're exactly the same as elites in previous eras. Which is to say their attitude is "We'll do what suits us, and ordinary people should just lump it without complaining." Nothing has changed.
Fascinating on how Johnson wrote his Churchill book, and planned to do Shakespeare one; record Q&A with expert, then rehash in his own words and style. V like how he operated as a journo ... https://twitter.com/AndrewSparrow/status/1410969568219181058
It is quite definitely the worst book I have ever read. It is even worse than the one I read by SeanT.
With few exceptions political leadership and decent authorship are incompatible occupations, requiring different talents and skills. Top leadership requires a peculiar sort of lack of insight, essential to the brutal focus of being at the top of power. Among notable exceptions: Roy Jenkins; perhaps Gladstone. Many would say Churchill but I am not convinced. The list of unreadable powerful people is endless. It saves a lot of time never to even think about reading them.
Lloyd George's War Memoirs are good, if highly partisan.
The problem with politicians, like generals, is that they want to claim the credit for every success in their memoirs, while pinning the blame for failure on others.
Asked to sum up how she feels about Boris Johnson as a person, Angela Merkel replies: "We look at each other, we look at how different people can be and we make the best of it...." https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1410954102775943170
In fairness it can't be easy for him.
Do you mean that it can't be easy knowing that all serious leaders in the world think you are a clownish version of Donald Trump?
Merkel's record of disastrous failures is a problem for many people, particularly in Europe. Her appalling handling of the Greek crisis which resulted in a country which is part of the EZ effectively defaulting on its debts, the resistance to QE which aggravated the recession after 2008, the disastrous response to the immigration crisis and her failed attempts to dump the responsibility of caring for those she had invited on others, her failure to appreciate the pressures that Cameron was under resulting in the EU's second largest economy leaving, the determination to proceed with Nord Stream and increase the EU's dependency on Putin, it really goes on and on. Still, not long now.
I don't disagree with any of that. It doesn't change the fact that she is regarded internationally, rather like Mrs T, as someone not necessarily loved but greatly recognised and largely respected. Boris Johnson is a laughing stock.
You agree with the list of big policy mistakes and yet feel she is largely respected.....
Are you suggesting Margaret Thatcher wasn't internationally respected? Or are you suggesting she didn't make any policy mistakes?
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
What I find interesting is the way that today's elites view themselves as being totally different to the elites in previous eras, whereas the reality is they're exactly the same as elites in previous eras. Which is to say their attitude is "We'll do what suits us, and ordinary people should just lump it without complaining."
Yes, the government's behaviour over the last few weeks has illustrated that very well.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
So it's not just the Romanians that are double the expected number, it is basically every EU state's citizens. I wonder what the real population of the UK is? There could easily be another couple of million people living here from outside of the EU, and even a number like four or five million isn't implausible now.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
What I find interesting is the way that today's elites view themselves as being totally different to the elites in previous eras, whereas the reality is they're exactly the same as elites in previous eras. Which is to say their attitude is "We'll do what suits us, and ordinary people should just lump it without complaining."
Yes. Our new Upper 10,000 are just like the old Upper 10,000. Just with worse table manners, and their behaviour towards the servants......
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
EU migration has been bloody brilliant for this country. London became capital of the world in approximately 2001, in large part because of the influx of talented, young, skilled Europeans.
There’s very little evidence that migration has suppressed working class wages - and it’s not as if people haven’t looked. Rather, the evidence suggests that European migration has been of significant benefit to U.K. productivity.
I am sympathetic to the argument that “nobody asked us”, but sadly the alternative this country looks likely to face is slow economic decline and cultural stagnation.
Someone called Jon Redman has posted this comment on an UnHerd article:
"If you look at the comments on politicalbetting, they’re all politically partisan, not particularly smart and they clearly bet on what they want to happen, not what they think actually will, whether they realise it or not."
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Well said. All I would disagree with is that no one was ever asked - the public were asked in 2016 at the referendum and the reply was they didn't like it. They were asked again at the 2019 GE and they said it again. But prevention is better than a cure as we see
They were asked consistently as, over the past 40 years, they voted in parties which did all those things such as let in Eastern European immigrants, etc.
They decided in 2016 that they had changed their mind and that they didn't after all like immigration.
I think much of that is down to the GFC but of course there will have been many reasons.
Here is my take on the by-election. I think it is a massive warning klaxon for the Conservatives.
Pooh pooh, say the Johnson fanbois, excuse excuse etc. No, sorry you Boris obsessives, the truth was that everyone expected the Tories to win this, and they should have done, if the narrative that they have put out there really has any validity, you know the one, Boris reaches parts etc., and the Red Wall has turned permanently blue due to Johnsonian populism. This bolstered by the vaccine and the continuous exposure that the pandemic has given to those in government (including Sturgeon and Blackford), should mean that they should be winning these types of contests particularly when helped by Galloway.
What if the Tory narrative is wrong? What if Johnson's popularity is transient and largely limited to the last election? The Tories have invested heavily in brand Boris. They believe he appeals to WWC in spite the paradox of his own demeanour and privileged upbringing, but perhaps what we are actually seeing is the effects of the divisions created by Brexit gradually healing and the electorate gradually catching up with the fact that Labour is no longer led by Corbyn so is less of a worry now? What if the so-called remoaners in the south haven't forgiven Johnson and now that Corbyn has gone feel they should vote LD? This could create a perfect storm at the next GE
I think it is possible the Tories are in a lot of trouble, even though I am not hoping for a Labour government . The Tory problem is exacerbated by arrogance, hubris and complacency. They should seriously look at moving back to being proper Conservatives.
Boris narrowed the gap in Batley & Spen in 2019 and narrowed it again yesterday, how is that evidence of him failing to reach the kind of voters needed to win? Labour scored their worst vote share ever in the constituency and its being celebrated like they gained an unwinnable seat!
As I understand it, the Conservative vote was considerably down on the GE, not up, so you are playing with statistics. I doubt those voters went to Galloway ffs!
Dont be silly, if you are going to go on actual number of votes, then Labours is massively down! It is the vote share that matters and Labour got their worst ever whilst Boris narrowed the gap for the second time running!
If that makes you feel happier fanboy
'Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate' - T. Swift.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
So it's not just the Romanians that are double the expected number, it is basically every EU state's citizens. I wonder what the real population of the UK is? There could easily be another couple of million people living here from outside of the EU, and even a number like four or five million isn't implausible now.
The Galloway vote is deeply conservative, with a small 'c'. Why on earth pursue it, when it appears to entail giving up core moral values to do so?
They gave up on the idea of unequivocally defending that teacher. If Labour is happy to walk away from right wing wwc votes on the basis that their opinions conflict with basic Labour values, to be consistent it should walk away from right wing ethnic votes as well.
The issue with the wwc is part cultural but also in part the absence of clear economic message. Will I be economically better off under Labour? The Labour answer appears to be 'Dunno squire, we're thinking about it, but we've got other things on our plate like Trans Rights or divided leaderships or antisemitism'.
Sort that out the economics before worrying about two wards in Batley and Spen - not least because the Moslem vote is quite concentrated and small. Whereas there are shitloads of wwc.
For me, the main take away from last night is the surprisingly high proportion of the sophisticated PB electorate who really, really struggle to spell the name Leadbeater correctly. It's not that hard, is it?
It's probably because all those political commentators have been mispronouncing it "ledbetter". Not our fault
In general, I think those are fair points in the header.
That said, holding on (narrowly) to B & S is no more than the very first step towards Labour presenting an electoral challenge to this government. For Labour to hold this seat was a necessity, For the Conservatives to have gained it would have been nice to have, but no more than that.
On balance that is probably fair, but for reasons I pointed out previously it also asks a lot of questions about assumptions that have been made about the Tories and their ability to hold the so-called Red wall seats at the next GE. If Tories become a little less complacent that is better for all.
It's very variable. One can look at seats where the UKIP/Brexit Party vote has broken very heavily towards the Conservatives. Hartlepool is the obvious case, but also Heywood & Middleton, or Rother Valley.
Then, you get a seat like this, where a big vote for UKIP in 2015, divided pretty evenly between the big two in 2017.
Exactly. And therein lies the risk for those that are complacent about Tory performance at the next GE. I think the risk for the Conservatives is that those in the south that don't like populism think they have nothing to lose by voting LD as Mr Starmer is boring but harmless, while the Red Wall seats fully or partially revert to type and vote Lab.
Fascinating on how Johnson wrote his Churchill book, and planned to do Shakespeare one; record Q&A with expert, then rehash in his own words and style. V like how he operated as a journo ... https://twitter.com/AndrewSparrow/status/1410969568219181058
It is quite definitely the worst book I have ever read. It is even worse than the one I read by SeanT.
With few exceptions political leadership and decent authorship are incompatible occupations, requiring different talents and skills. Top leadership requires a peculiar sort of lack of insight, essential to the brutal focus of being at the top of power. Among notable exceptions: Roy Jenkins; perhaps Gladstone. Many would say Churchill but I am not convinced. The list of unreadable powerful people is endless. It saves a lot of time never to even think about reading them.
Here is my take on the by-election. I think it is a massive warning klaxon for the Conservatives.
Pooh pooh, say the Johnson fanbois, excuse excuse etc. No, sorry you Boris obsessives, the truth was that everyone expected the Tories to win this, and they should have done, if the narrative that they have put out there really has any validity, you know the one, Boris reaches parts etc., and the Red Wall has turned permanently blue due to Johnsonian populism. This bolstered by the vaccine and the continuous exposure that the pandemic has given to those in government (including Sturgeon and Blackford), should mean that they should be winning these types of contests particularly when helped by Galloway.
What if the Tory narrative is wrong? What if Johnson's popularity is transient and largely limited to the last election? The Tories have invested heavily in brand Boris. They believe he appeals to WWC in spite the paradox of his own demeanour and privileged upbringing, but perhaps what we are actually seeing is the effects of the divisions created by Brexit gradually healing and the electorate gradually catching up with the fact that Labour is no longer led by Corbyn so is less of a worry now? What if the so-called remoaners in the south haven't forgiven Johnson and now that Corbyn has gone feel they should vote LD? This could create a perfect storm at the next GE
I think it is possible the Tories are in a lot of trouble, even though I am not hoping for a Labour government . The Tory problem is exacerbated by arrogance, hubris and complacency. They should seriously look at moving back to being proper Conservatives.
Boris narrowed the gap in Batley & Spen in 2019 and narrowed it again yesterday, how is that evidence of him failing to reach the kind of voters needed to win? Labour scored their worst vote share ever in the constituency and its being celebrated like they gained an unwinnable seat!
As I understand it, the Conservative vote was considerably down on the GE, not up, so you are playing with statistics. I doubt those voters went to Galloway ffs!
Dont be silly, if you are going to go on actual number of votes, then Labours is massively down! It is the vote share that matters and Labour got their worst ever whilst Boris narrowed the gap for the second time running!
If that makes you feel happier fanboy
'Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate' - T. Swift.
Speaking of the ultimate in small brained fanbois, how are you Philip?
as the 12th count basically says the basis of every loan made to Trump is based on lies
Read some decent analysis that marvels at how crap the fraud is, no pay rises for years, just more and more blatant tax fraud to boost employee renumeration.
The conclusion is that the Trump Org is realllllllly strapped for cash.
Yes but an awful lot of the Trump Organisation's debt is to just one institution, Deutsche Bank. Recently @Charles mentioned David Enrich's book, Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction.
Google will doubtless find other sources, such as this from a year ago:- Trump’s biggest creditor is Deutsche Bank, which in the late 1990s took a gamble on the real estate developer whose history of corporate bankruptcies made him untouchable by most other lenders. Although Trump and the Frankfurt-based bank pulled off several profitable deals, eventually Deutsche’s commercial lending division learned the hard way one reason why other banks considered him persona non grata: If pushed by his creditors on payments, Trump shoves back. In 2008, after he defaulted on a loan for his Chicago hotel and condo development, he filed a multibillion-dollar suit accusing Deutsche Bank and others of contributing to the recent financial meltdown, which he blamed for his inability to repay the loan.
Nevertheless, Deutsche’s private banking division, which caters to wealthy clientele, continued to lend to Trump, giving him $125 million, spread over two loans, to finance the purchase and renovation of his Doral golf resort in 2012. Both are floating rate loans, meaning the interest rate fluctuates based on market conditions, which lending experts say usually indicates they are interest-only loans. If so, Trump probably hasn’t paid down much if any of the principal and will owe something close to the whole $125 million when the loans come due in 2023.
In 2014, Trump took out a separate floating loan from Deutsche’s private bank to bankroll the development of his luxury hotel in Washington, DC. The balance of this $170 million debt is payable in 2024. That year, Trump will also owe Deutsche between $25 million and $50 million in connection with his Chicago hotel and complex. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/donald-trump-loans-deutsche-bank/
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
It's potentially more than 10%. Some EU residents are now British Citizens so don't need to apply, and some have undoubtedly gone home over the last year so the peak figure would have been higher.
In the wake of the Brexit vote, there was a well publicized serge in people form the UK for a variety of EU passports, I don't know the total number, but have More EU nationals applied to live in the UK or vice versa?
Quite right to ask. I've been wondering that myself when reading this thread. How many Brits moved to the rest of Europe (the EU bits anyway)?
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Well said. All I would disagree with is that no one was ever asked - the public were asked in 2016 at the referendum and the reply was they didn't like it. They were asked again at the 2019 GE and they said it again. But prevention is better than a cure as we see
They were asked consistently as, over the past 40 years, they voted in parties which did all those things such as let in Eastern European immigrants, etc.
They decided in 2016 that they had changed their mind and that they didn't after all like immigration.
I think much of that is down to the GFC but of course there will have been many reasons.
Or the voters got fed up of voting for parties with politicians that lied.
I didn't care about immigration, but you can't deny Labour were elected pledging that expanding Europe to Eastern Europe would only increase immigration by a few thousands, not hundreds of thousands.
Then Labour were elected pledging that the EU Constitution wouldn't be ratified without a referendum, which was a lie and they ratified it as a Lisbon Treaty.
Then the Tories were elected pledging to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands, without any mechanism or ability to do so. Another lie.
So eventually enough of the public decided enough was enough - and then Remain voters get outraged and react with horror that supposedly Boris is uniquely a "Liar" after decades of British politicians lying to us. Key lie apparently being putting on a bus that NHS spending would go up £350mn a week if we voted leave, when actually it went up over £400mn instead.
EU migration has been bloody brilliant for this country. London became capital of the world in approximately 2001, in large part because of the influx of talented, young, skilled Europeans.
There’s very little evidence that migration has suppressed working class wages - and it’s not as if people haven’t looked. Rather, the evidence suggests that European migration has been of significant benefit to U.K. productivity.
I am sympathetic to the argument that “nobody asked us”, but sadly the alternative this country looks likely to face is slow economic decline and cultural stagnation.
UK productivity has been in the toilet for years. It was cheaper to hire people at minimum wage to do physical tasks (literally digging holes in some cases) than to invest in machinery.
Yes, it was great for the credentialed classes - my self included. This is because there is a world wide shortage of highly educated people. All of the capacity in that regard in China and India has been used up - either exported or now devoted more and more to their own economies.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
It's potentially more than 10%. Some EU residents are now British Citizens so don't need to apply, and some have undoubtedly gone home over the last year so the peak figure would have been higher.
In the wake of the Brexit vote, there was a well publicized serge in people form the UK for a variety of EU passports, I don't know the total number, but have More EU nationals applied to live in the UK or vice versa?
Quite right to ask. I've been wondering that myself when reading this thread. How many Brits moved to the rest of Europe (the EU bits anyway)?
I guess mainly the retired, to Spain, Portugal, Italy and France. Portugal has an amazingly good tax incentive as well as sunshine!
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
So it's not just the Romanians that are double the expected number, it is basically every EU state's citizens. I wonder what the real population of the UK is? There could easily be another couple of million people living here from outside of the EU, and even a number like four or five million isn't implausible now.
What's your take on it?
My take is simply we have no real idea who lives in the UK. It's extraordinary that something as basic as "how many X live in the UK" could be out by a factor of two. It's not just that immigration from the EU was unlimited, we haven't even been able to keep track of it. It is a poor way to run things whatever anyone thinks the right level of migration is.
"Delta variant 'neutralised' by Johnson and Johnson vaccine, study finds - as No 10 appears to confirm EU won't let people with some AstraZeneca jabs in"
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
It's potentially more than 10%. Some EU residents are now British Citizens so don't need to apply, and some have undoubtedly gone home over the last year so the peak figure would have been higher.
In the wake of the Brexit vote, there was a well publicized serge in people form the UK for a variety of EU passports, I don't know the total number, but have More EU nationals applied to live in the UK or vice versa?
Quite right to ask. I've been wondering that myself when reading this thread. How many Brits moved to the rest of Europe (the EU bits anyway)?
I guess mainly the retired, to Spain, Portugal, Italy and France. Portugal has an amazingly good tax incentive as well as sunshine!
That's certainly part of it, but not all - I've known people (including one or two surprises) move to e.g. Germany [edit] for work and settle there.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
You seem to view the minimum wage as a maximum. Why is that?
Fascinating on how Johnson wrote his Churchill book, and planned to do Shakespeare one; record Q&A with expert, then rehash in his own words and style. V like how he operated as a journo ... https://twitter.com/AndrewSparrow/status/1410969568219181058
It is quite definitely the worst book I have ever read. It is even worse than the one I read by SeanT.
With few exceptions political leadership and decent authorship are incompatible occupations, requiring different talents and skills. Top leadership requires a peculiar sort of lack of insight, essential to the brutal focus of being at the top of power. Among notable exceptions: Roy Jenkins; perhaps Gladstone. Many would say Churchill but I am not convinced. The list of unreadable powerful people is endless. It saves a lot of time never to even think about reading them.
Michael Foot? (Haven't read him.)
I seem to recall his books were quite well received. He had to have some redeeming features bless him!
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
It's potentially more than 10%. Some EU residents are now British Citizens so don't need to apply, and some have undoubtedly gone home over the last year so the peak figure would have been higher.
In the wake of the Brexit vote, there was a well publicized serge in people form the UK for a variety of EU passports, I don't know the total number, but have More EU nationals applied to live in the UK or vice versa?
I think substantially more EU nationals have applied to live in the UK than vice-versa - that is, we're a net importer of people.
That being said (and this is based off a sample size of one), at least some of the people who are applying for "Settled Status" in the UK aren't really settled here. I know one Latvian programmer who's done some contract work in the UK and who is an occasional resident. He's applying for settled status, because he *might* want to spend time in the future.
Now, I haven't investigated, but I suspect this is going to involve him lying on his forms to HMG. I also suspect he's not the only person engaging in this kind of practise.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
It's potentially more than 10%. Some EU residents are now British Citizens so don't need to apply, and some have undoubtedly gone home over the last year so the peak figure would have been higher.
In the wake of the Brexit vote, there was a well publicized serge in people form the UK for a variety of EU passports, I don't know the total number, but have More EU nationals applied to live in the UK or vice versa?
Quite right to ask. I've been wondering that myself when reading this thread. How many Brits moved to the rest of Europe (the EU bits anyway)?
I guess mainly the retired, to Spain, Portugal, Italy and France. Portugal has an amazingly good tax incentive as well as sunshine!
That's certainly part of it, but not all - I've known people (including one or two surprises) move to e.g. Germany [edit] for work and settle there.
Switzerland is very popular with Brits. Having been there a lot on business I can see the appeal.
as the 12th count basically says the basis of every loan made to Trump is based on lies
Read some decent analysis that marvels at how crap the fraud is, no pay rises for years, just more and more blatant tax fraud to boost employee renumeration.
The conclusion is that the Trump Org is realllllllly strapped for cash.
Yes but an awful lot of the Trump Organisation's debt is to just one institution, Deutsche Bank. Recently @Charles mentioned David Enrich's book, Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction.
Google will doubtless find other sources, such as this from a year ago:- Trump’s biggest creditor is Deutsche Bank, which in the late 1990s took a gamble on the real estate developer whose history of corporate bankruptcies made him untouchable by most other lenders. Although Trump and the Frankfurt-based bank pulled off several profitable deals, eventually Deutsche’s commercial lending division learned the hard way one reason why other banks considered him persona non grata: If pushed by his creditors on payments, Trump shoves back. In 2008, after he defaulted on a loan for his Chicago hotel and condo development, he filed a multibillion-dollar suit accusing Deutsche Bank and others of contributing to the recent financial meltdown, which he blamed for his inability to repay the loan.
Nevertheless, Deutsche’s private banking division, which caters to wealthy clientele, continued to lend to Trump, giving him $125 million, spread over two loans, to finance the purchase and renovation of his Doral golf resort in 2012. Both are floating rate loans, meaning the interest rate fluctuates based on market conditions, which lending experts say usually indicates they are interest-only loans. If so, Trump probably hasn’t paid down much if any of the principal and will owe something close to the whole $125 million when the loans come due in 2023.
In 2014, Trump took out a separate floating loan from Deutsche’s private bank to bankroll the development of his luxury hotel in Washington, DC. The balance of this $170 million debt is payable in 2024. That year, Trump will also owe Deutsche between $25 million and $50 million in connection with his Chicago hotel and complex. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/donald-trump-loans-deutsche-bank/
Any news stories on these issues just gives the impression that large scale international finances are a complete basket case.
Fascinating on how Johnson wrote his Churchill book, and planned to do Shakespeare one; record Q&A with expert, then rehash in his own words and style. V like how he operated as a journo ... https://twitter.com/AndrewSparrow/status/1410969568219181058
It is quite definitely the worst book I have ever read. It is even worse than the one I read by SeanT.
With few exceptions political leadership and decent authorship are incompatible occupations, requiring different talents and skills. Top leadership requires a peculiar sort of lack of insight, essential to the brutal focus of being at the top of power. Among notable exceptions: Roy Jenkins; perhaps Gladstone. Many would say Churchill but I am not convinced. The list of unreadable powerful people is endless. It saves a lot of time never to even think about reading them.
Lloyd George's War Memoirs are good, if highly partisan.
The problem with politicians, like generals, is that they want to claim the credit for every success in their memoirs, while pinning the blame for failure on others.
There is a famous quote attributed to Churchill.
‘I agree that we had better leave the past to history,’ he wrote in a draft reply to Stalin ‘But remember if I live long enough I may be one of the historians.’”
EU migration has been bloody brilliant for this country. London became capital of the world in approximately 2001, in large part because of the influx of talented, young, skilled Europeans.
There’s very little evidence that migration has suppressed working class wages - and it’s not as if people haven’t looked. Rather, the evidence suggests that European migration has been of significant benefit to U.K. productivity.
I am sympathetic to the argument that “nobody asked us”, but sadly the alternative this country looks likely to face is slow economic decline and cultural stagnation.
And yet house prices have surged as planning restrictions mean that there isn't a free market for construction to match free movement of labour - so the young and poor in this country are trapped renting and absolutely ripped off.
And the data on productivity is not on your side.
I had no objection to free movement of labour and I still don't in principle, so long as there is a complete and utter free market on construction too. Abolish all planning requirements and I couldn't care less how many people move here, let them come and build a home wherever they want.
But if you're going to say that people can come here, but they can't build a home. Or they can come and buy a home, but then the young can't build one to move out into - that's just not on.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
It's potentially more than 10%. Some EU residents are now British Citizens so don't need to apply, and some have undoubtedly gone home over the last year so the peak figure would have been higher.
In the wake of the Brexit vote, there was a well publicized serge in people form the UK for a variety of EU passports, I don't know the total number, but have More EU nationals applied to live in the UK or vice versa?
I think substantially more EU nationals have applied to live in the UK than vice-versa - that is, we're a net importer of people.
That being said (and this is based off a sample size of one), at least some of the people who are applying for "Settled Status" in the UK aren't really settled here. I know one Latvian programmer who's done some contract work in the UK and who is an occasional resident. He's applying for settled status, because he *might* want to spend time in the future.
Now, I haven't investigated, but I suspect this is going to involve him lying on his forms to HMG. I also suspect he's not the only person engaging in this kind of practise.
I think this is clearly the case....for all the talk of the nasty evil xenophobic government, the UK scheme is incredibly "generous" compared to the EU countries approach and if you are an EU national that has worked and thinks they might want to work again in the UK you would be silly not to at least try and apply.
I am sympathetic to the argument that “nobody asked us”, but sadly the alternative this country looks likely to face is slow economic decline and cultural stagnation.
I think you are wrong. Net migration* was still running at 300,000 a year up to last March. There is little chance of it dropping down to the government's actual target. To keep pace with UK population growth we need to build an entire Birmingham's worth of everything (homes, schools, hospitals, roads, railways and so on) every two years. Five Birminghams per decade, and we aren't doing anything like enough development to match that demand.
* That said I do wonder how accurate those figures are.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
There always were factories notorious for not paying NMW where asylum seekers could work. Enforcement was under funded, so a blind eye was turned. If the authorities ever did act, a few people would be deported, and the owners fined. A laughable amount way below the weekly payroll saved by not paying NMW. If these places go bust, then I won't shed any tears. The owners want locking up.
I think substantially more EU nationals have applied to live in the UK than vice-versa - that is, we're a net importer of people.
That being said (and this is based off a sample size of one), at least some of the people who are applying for "Settled Status" in the UK aren't really settled here. I know one Latvian programmer who's done some contract work in the UK and who is an occasional resident. He's applying for settled status, because he *might* want to spend time in the future.
Now, I haven't investigated, but I suspect this is going to involve him lying on his forms to HMG. I also suspect he's not the only person engaging in this kind of practise.
I'm quite certain that a reasonably high proportion of EU citizens who were living and working in the UK before 2020 were not here all year round. I'm not sure exactly what the rules are in terms of how continuous their residence has to have been to qualify for settled (or pre-settled) status.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
You seem to view the minimum wage as a maximum. Why is that?
Where did the Brits go who were pushed out of these horrible jobs?
For me, the main take away from last night is the surprisingly high proportion of the sophisticated PB electorate who really, really struggle to spell the name Leadbeater correctly. It's not that hard, is it?
It's probably because all those political commentators have been mispronouncing it "ledbetter". Not our fault
Perhaps it is because those of us of a certain age remember Margo and Gerry Leadbetter
I am sympathetic to the argument that “nobody asked us”, but sadly the alternative this country looks likely to face is slow economic decline and cultural stagnation.
I think you are wrong. Net migration was still running at 300,000 a year up to last March. There is little chance of it dropping down to the government's actual target. To keep pace with UK population growth we need to build an entire Birmingham's worth of everything (homes, schools, hospitals, roads, railways and so on) every two years. Five Birminghams per decade, and we aren't doing anything like enough development to match that demand.
Net migration was officially 300k, but given we've just discovered 3 million people living here that we didn't know about, surely it was in fact even more than that?
Even if we eliminate half of the extra 3 million for duplicate applications or mistakes, then surely that means net migration was actually ~400k or 500k per annum instead?
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
To give a simple example - I paid a couple of carpet fitters in 1998 more money in actual pounds to lay a carpet, than I paid in 2015 to carpet fitters, to replace the carpet in the same flat.
Great for me. Not sure the carpet fitters were wild about that one.
I have a friend who was a school-leaver-into-work type, who changed jobs several times as skilled trades were steadily turned into minimum wage jobs.
Everywhere you look in the low wage economy - the same thing.
Here is my take on the by-election. I think it is a massive warning klaxon for the Conservatives.
Pooh pooh, say the Johnson fanbois, excuse excuse etc. No, sorry you Boris obsessives, the truth was that everyone expected the Tories to win this, and they should have done, if the narrative that they have put out there really has any validity, you know the one, Boris reaches parts etc., and the Red Wall has turned permanently blue due to Johnsonian populism. This bolstered by the vaccine and the continuous exposure that the pandemic has given to those in government (including Sturgeon and Blackford), should mean that they should be winning these types of contests particularly when helped by Galloway.
What if the Tory narrative is wrong? What if Johnson's popularity is transient and largely limited to the last election? The Tories have invested heavily in brand Boris. They believe he appeals to WWC in spite the paradox of his own demeanour and privileged upbringing, but perhaps what we are actually seeing is the effects of the divisions created by Brexit gradually healing and the electorate gradually catching up with the fact that Labour is no longer led by Corbyn so is less of a worry now? What if the so-called remoaners in the south haven't forgiven Johnson and now that Corbyn has gone feel they should vote LD? This could create a perfect storm at the next GE
I think it is possible the Tories are in a lot of trouble, even though I am not hoping for a Labour government . The Tory problem is exacerbated by arrogance, hubris and complacency. They should seriously look at moving back to being proper Conservatives.
Boris narrowed the gap in Batley & Spen in 2019 and narrowed it again yesterday, how is that evidence of him failing to reach the kind of voters needed to win? Labour scored their worst vote share ever in the constituency and its being celebrated like they gained an unwinnable seat!
As I understand it, the Conservative vote was considerably down on the GE, not up, so you are playing with statistics. I doubt those voters went to Galloway ffs!
Dont be silly, if you are going to go on actual number of votes, then Labours is massively down! It is the vote share that matters and Labour got their worst ever whilst Boris narrowed the gap for the second time running!
Not much to do with Boris, though.
Conservative vote share in B+S peaked under TMay the Terrible in 2017, drifted down in 2019 and fell a bit more yesterday.
Fascinating on how Johnson wrote his Churchill book, and planned to do Shakespeare one; record Q&A with expert, then rehash in his own words and style. V like how he operated as a journo ... https://twitter.com/AndrewSparrow/status/1410969568219181058
It is quite definitely the worst book I have ever read. It is even worse than the one I read by SeanT.
With few exceptions political leadership and decent authorship are incompatible occupations, requiring different talents and skills. Top leadership requires a peculiar sort of lack of insight, essential to the brutal focus of being at the top of power. Among notable exceptions: Roy Jenkins; perhaps Gladstone. Many would say Churchill but I am not convinced. The list of unreadable powerful people is endless. It saves a lot of time never to even think about reading them.
Lloyd George's War Memoirs are good, if highly partisan.
The problem with politicians, like generals, is that they want to claim the credit for every success in their memoirs, while pinning the blame for failure on others.
There is a famous quote attributed to Churchill.
‘I agree that we had better leave the past to history,’ he wrote in a draft reply to Stalin ‘But remember if I live long enough I may be one of the historians.’”
I think he also said "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it".
In general, I think those are fair points in the header.
That said, holding on (narrowly) to B & S is no more than the very first step towards Labour presenting an electoral challenge to this government. For Labour to hold this seat was a necessity, For the Conservatives to have gained it would have been nice to have, but no more than that.
On balance that is probably fair, but for reasons I pointed out previously it also asks a lot of questions about assumptions that have been made about the Tories and their ability to hold the so-called Red wall seats at the next GE. If Tories become a little less complacent that is better for all.
It's very variable. One can look at seats where the UKIP/Brexit Party vote has broken very heavily towards the Conservatives. Hartlepool is the obvious case, but also Heywood & Middleton, or Rother Valley.
Then, you get a seat like this, where a big vote for UKIP in 2015, divided pretty evenly between the big two in 2017.
Exactly. And therein lies the risk for those that are complacent about Tory performance at the next GE. I think the risk for the Conservatives is that those in the south that don't like populism think they have nothing to lose by voting LD as Mr Starmer is boring but harmless, while the Red Wall seats fully or partially revert to type and vote Lab.
You need to distinguish between the Northern marginals, and those seats which have shifted Conservative at a rate of knots. The latter won't be shifting back.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
You seem to view the minimum wage as a maximum. Why is that?
Where did the Brits go who were pushed out of these horrible jobs?
Many of them still do these jobs but the wages are suppressed by ensuring they're kept at the bottom.
To take one example that's been in the news a lot of care homes - 84% of care staff are actually British, but free movement has helped ensure that a job like care that really ought to not be a minimum wage job has been held down to being one.
If there were staff shortages seeing pay rise across the board that would see pay rises above the minimum for the 84% of Britons doing that job not just those attracted by higher wages.
For me, the main take away from last night is the surprisingly high proportion of the sophisticated PB electorate who really, really struggle to spell the name Leadbeater correctly. It's not that hard, is it?
It's probably because all those political commentators have been mispronouncing it "ledbetter". Not our fault
Perhaps it is because those of us of a certain age remember Margo and Gerry Leadbetter
For me, the main take away from last night is the surprisingly high proportion of the sophisticated PB electorate who really, really struggle to spell the name Leadbeater correctly. It's not that hard, is it?
It's probably because all those political commentators have been mispronouncing it "ledbetter". Not our fault
Perhaps it is because those of us of a certain age remember Margo and Gerry Leadbetter
Fascinating on how Johnson wrote his Churchill book, and planned to do Shakespeare one; record Q&A with expert, then rehash in his own words and style. V like how he operated as a journo ... https://twitter.com/AndrewSparrow/status/1410969568219181058
It is quite definitely the worst book I have ever read. It is even worse than the one I read by SeanT.
With few exceptions political leadership and decent authorship are incompatible occupations, requiring different talents and skills. Top leadership requires a peculiar sort of lack of insight, essential to the brutal focus of being at the top of power. Among notable exceptions: Roy Jenkins; perhaps Gladstone. Many would say Churchill but I am not convinced. The list of unreadable powerful people is endless. It saves a lot of time never to even think about reading them.
Michael Foot? (Haven't read him.)
Never in power, and a hopeless contender for it. Good example of the gulf. Good writer.
I am sympathetic to the argument that “nobody asked us”, but sadly the alternative this country looks likely to face is slow economic decline and cultural stagnation.
I think you are wrong. Net migration was still running at 300,000 a year up to last March. There is little chance of it dropping down to the government's actual target. To keep pace with UK population growth we need to build an entire Birmingham's worth of everything (homes, schools, hospitals, roads, railways and so on) every two years. Five Birminghams per decade, and we aren't doing anything like enough development to match that demand.
Net migration was officially 300k, but given we've just discovered 3 million people living here that we didn't know about, surely it was in fact even more than that?
Even if we eliminate half of the extra 3 million for duplicate applications or mistakes, then surely that means net migration was actually ~400k or 500k per annum instead?
Yes I just added a note to my post. Given we clearly can't keep track of who is resident I don't see how we can have much confidence in such figures, they could be out by a lot, in fact the settled status scheme suggests that they are.
Here is my take on the by-election. I think it is a massive warning klaxon for the Conservatives.
Pooh pooh, say the Johnson fanbois, excuse excuse etc. No, sorry you Boris obsessives, the truth was that everyone expected the Tories to win this, and they should have done, if the narrative that they have put out there really has any validity, you know the one, Boris reaches parts etc., and the Red Wall has turned permanently blue due to Johnsonian populism. This bolstered by the vaccine and the continuous exposure that the pandemic has given to those in government (including Sturgeon and Blackford), should mean that they should be winning these types of contests particularly when helped by Galloway.
What if the Tory narrative is wrong? What if Johnson's popularity is transient and largely limited to the last election? The Tories have invested heavily in brand Boris. They believe he appeals to WWC in spite the paradox of his own demeanour and privileged upbringing, but perhaps what we are actually seeing is the effects of the divisions created by Brexit gradually healing and the electorate gradually catching up with the fact that Labour is no longer led by Corbyn so is less of a worry now? What if the so-called remoaners in the south haven't forgiven Johnson and now that Corbyn has gone feel they should vote LD? This could create a perfect storm at the next GE
I think it is possible the Tories are in a lot of trouble, even though I am not hoping for a Labour government . The Tory problem is exacerbated by arrogance, hubris and complacency. They should seriously look at moving back to being proper Conservatives.
Boris narrowed the gap in Batley & Spen in 2019 and narrowed it again yesterday, how is that evidence of him failing to reach the kind of voters needed to win? Labour scored their worst vote share ever in the constituency and its being celebrated like they gained an unwinnable seat!
As I understand it, the Conservative vote was considerably down on the GE, not up, so you are playing with statistics. I doubt those voters went to Galloway ffs!
Dont be silly, if you are going to go on actual number of votes, then Labours is massively down! It is the vote share that matters and Labour got their worst ever whilst Boris narrowed the gap for the second time running!
If that makes you feel happier fanboy
Haha you cant beat me in an argument, so have to try and call names.. I can guarantee you it wont bother me x
(1) The Conservatives are not very particularly well organised on the ground. This is a marginal. They should have known from canvas returns and knocking up that this was going to be very close. They didn't know. And I don't think they knew in C&A that they were losing either. By contrast, Labour is well organised on the ground. There isn't anything massive you can learn from this, but it does speak to a weakness of Boris Johnson: he's not a details person.
(2) Well done Galloway. For the first time in an election, he dramatically outpolled the Muslim share of the vote. Now, he didn't come close to winning, and his performance seems to have been mostly due to very high turnout in a few wards, but still an impressive performance. Of course, the reality is that (a) this is the context of a low turnout by-elections, and (b) there are only a dozen seats where there are enough Muslim voters for his Wankers Party to stand a chance, but he's an undoubted thorn in Labour's side.
(3) Focusing on the closeness of the margin of victory is displacement activity for disappointed Conservatives. The Conservatives lost a third of their vote compared to 2019, and went backwards in vote share. This is a distinct change from Hartlepool and the locals, where they swept up the Brexit (and related) vote.
(4) Starmer is probably safe for now. And while his obvious lack of charisma is a positive for the government, it's not clear that any of the alternatives would do much better. If I were an ambitious Labour MP, I think I'd rather become leader in 2024, after the Conservative majority is cut to 20 and Johnson is ready to sail off into the sunset.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
It's potentially more than 10%. Some EU residents are now British Citizens so don't need to apply, and some have undoubtedly gone home over the last year so the peak figure would have been higher.
In the wake of the Brexit vote, there was a well publicized serge in people form the UK for a variety of EU passports, I don't know the total number, but have More EU nationals applied to live in the UK or vice versa?
I think substantially more EU nationals have applied to live in the UK than vice-versa - that is, we're a net importer of people.
That being said (and this is based off a sample size of one), at least some of the people who are applying for "Settled Status" in the UK aren't really settled here. I know one Latvian programmer who's done some contract work in the UK and who is an occasional resident. He's applying for settled status, because he *might* want to spend time in the future.
Now, I haven't investigated, but I suspect this is going to involve him lying on his forms to HMG. I also suspect he's not the only person engaging in this kind of practise.
I think this is clearly the case....for all the talk of the nasty evil xenophobic government, the UK scheme is incredibly "generous" compared to the EU countries approach and if you are an EU national that has worked and thinks they might want to work again in the UK you would be silly not to at least try and apply.
The question is "is this 300,000 people or is it 2,000,000", and we'll need to wait for the census to get a feel for that.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
It's potentially more than 10%. Some EU residents are now British Citizens so don't need to apply, and some have undoubtedly gone home over the last year so the peak figure would have been higher.
In the wake of the Brexit vote, there was a well publicized serge in people form the UK for a variety of EU passports, I don't know the total number, but have More EU nationals applied to live in the UK or vice versa?
I think substantially more EU nationals have applied to live in the UK than vice-versa - that is, we're a net importer of people.
That being said (and this is based off a sample size of one), at least some of the people who are applying for "Settled Status" in the UK aren't really settled here. I know one Latvian programmer who's done some contract work in the UK and who is an occasional resident. He's applying for settled status, because he *might* want to spend time in the future.
Now, I haven't investigated, but I suspect this is going to involve him lying on his forms to HMG. I also suspect he's not the only person engaging in this kind of practise.
I think this is clearly the case....for all the talk of the nasty evil xenophobic government, the UK scheme is incredibly "generous" compared to the EU countries approach and if you are an EU national that has worked and thinks they might want to work again in the UK you would be silly not to at least try and apply.
Also, based on this comment, the person I know may not have needed to lie on his forms to HMG, so maybe I shouldn't be shopping him to the authorities.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
There always were factories notorious for not paying NMW where asylum seekers could work. Enforcement was under funded, so a blind eye was turned. If the authorities ever did act, a few people would be deported, and the owners fined. A laughable amount way below the weekly payroll saved by not paying NMW. If these places go bust, then I won't shed any tears. The owners want locking up.
Edit: Goodness! I'm in hang and flog mode today.
Ha! It's Friday afternoon if you can't be a bit hang 'em flog 'em then, when can you.
So your examples are illegal. We have to exclude the illegal side because that is not how this country runs (as in not how it is supposed to run).
In general, I think those are fair points in the header.
That said, holding on (narrowly) to B & S is no more than the very first step towards Labour presenting an electoral challenge to this government. For Labour to hold this seat was a necessity, For the Conservatives to have gained it would have been nice to have, but no more than that.
On balance that is probably fair, but for reasons I pointed out previously it also asks a lot of questions about assumptions that have been made about the Tories and their ability to hold the so-called Red wall seats at the next GE. If Tories become a little less complacent that is better for all.
It's very variable. One can look at seats where the UKIP/Brexit Party vote has broken very heavily towards the Conservatives. Hartlepool is the obvious case, but also Heywood & Middleton, or Rother Valley.
Then, you get a seat like this, where a big vote for UKIP in 2015, divided pretty evenly between the big two in 2017.
Exactly. And therein lies the risk for those that are complacent about Tory performance at the next GE. I think the risk for the Conservatives is that those in the south that don't like populism think they have nothing to lose by voting LD as Mr Starmer is boring but harmless, while the Red Wall seats fully or partially revert to type and vote Lab.
You need to distinguish between the Northern marginals, and those seats which have shifted Conservative at a rate of knots. The latter won't be shifting back.
To complicate it further. You need to distinguish again amongst those seats which have shifted Conservative at a rate of knots. Some now have pretty large majorities, some have only recently become marginal. The former won't be coming back any time soon. The latter are still very much in play.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
(1) The Conservatives are not very particularly well organised on the ground. This is a marginal. They should have known from canvas returns and knocking up that this was going to be very close. They didn't know. And I don't think they knew in C&A that they were losing either. By contrast, Labour is well organised on the ground. There isn't anything massive you can learn from this, but it does speak to a weakness of Boris Johnson: he's not a details person.
(2) Well done Galloway. For the first time in an election, he dramatically outpolled the Muslim share of the vote. Now, he didn't come close to winning, and his performance seems to have been mostly due to very high turnout in a few wards, but still an impressive performance. Of course, the reality is that (a) this is the context of a low turnout by-elections, and (b) there are only a dozen seats where there are enough Muslim voters for his Wankers Party to stand a chance, but he's an undoubted thorn in Labour's side.
(3) Focusing on the closeness of the margin of victory is displacement activity for disappointed Conservatives. The Conservatives lost a third of their vote compared to 2019, and went backwards in vote share. This is a distinct change from Hartlepool and the locals, where they swept up the Brexit (and related) vote.
(4) Starmer is probably safe for now. And while his obvious lack of charisma is a positive for the government, it's not clear that any of the alternatives would do much better. If I were an ambitious Labour MP, I think I'd rather become leader in 2024, after the Conservative majority is cut to 20 and Johnson is ready to sail off into the sunset.
If SKS cuts the Tory majority to 20 he may well stay on unless there are some people in the background of the Parliamentary Labour Party I'm missing. Remember Kinnock had 2 goes (both in 1997 and 2002).
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
You seem to view the minimum wage as a maximum. Why is that?
Where did the Brits go who were pushed out of these horrible jobs?
Many of them still do these jobs but the wages are suppressed by ensuring they're kept at the bottom.
To take one example that's been in the news a lot of care homes - 84% of care staff are actually British, but free movement has helped ensure that a job like care that really ought to not be a minimum wage job has been held down to being one.
If there were staff shortages seeing pay rise across the board that would see pay rises above the minimum for the 84% of Britons doing that job not just those attracted by higher wages.
Who is keeping them at the bottom?
If a worker in a care home felt they were being underpaid, why didn't they move jobs?
You of all people should be championing the market working in this way. You say you don't mind free movement of labour as long as there is ample housing but then cite an employment example as to why it's bad.
Fascinating on how Johnson wrote his Churchill book, and planned to do Shakespeare one; record Q&A with expert, then rehash in his own words and style. V like how he operated as a journo ... https://twitter.com/AndrewSparrow/status/1410969568219181058
It is quite definitely the worst book I have ever read. It is even worse than the one I read by SeanT.
With few exceptions political leadership and decent authorship are incompatible occupations, requiring different talents and skills. Top leadership requires a peculiar sort of lack of insight, essential to the brutal focus of being at the top of power. Among notable exceptions: Roy Jenkins; perhaps Gladstone. Many would say Churchill but I am not convinced. The list of unreadable powerful people is endless. It saves a lot of time never to even think about reading them.
Michael Foot? (Haven't read him.)
Foot's biography (2 volumes) of Aneurin Bevan is very good.
And Jennie Lee's "My Life with Nye" is even better.
A wonderfully moving story of what Labour once was.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Well said. All I would disagree with is that no one was ever asked - the public were asked in 2016 at the referendum and the reply was they didn't like it. They were asked again at the 2019 GE and they said it again. But prevention is better than a cure as we see
They were asked consistently as, over the past 40 years, they voted in parties which did all those things such as let in Eastern European immigrants, etc.
They decided in 2016 that they had changed their mind and that they didn't after all like immigration.
I think much of that is down to the GFC but of course there will have been many reasons.
Or the voters got fed up of voting for parties with politicians that lied.
I didn't care about immigration, but you can't deny Labour were elected pledging that expanding Europe to Eastern Europe would only increase immigration by a few thousands, not hundreds of thousands.
Then Labour were elected pledging that the EU Constitution wouldn't be ratified without a referendum, which was a lie and they ratified it as a Lisbon Treaty.
Then the Tories were elected pledging to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands, without any mechanism or ability to do so. Another lie.
So eventually enough of the public decided enough was enough - and then Remain voters get outraged and react with horror that supposedly Boris is uniquely a "Liar" after decades of British politicians lying to us. Key lie apparently being putting on a bus that NHS spending would go up £350mn a week if we voted leave, when actually it went up over £400mn instead.
Perhaps you might spend some of your winnings on Tory author Peter Oborne's book, The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism. Oborne has previously written The Rise of Political Lying covering the Major and Blair years, so is aware of historical context. Spoiler: Boris's disregard for truth goes gangbusters.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
To give a simple example - I paid a couple of carpet fitters in 1998 more money in actual pounds to lay a carpet, than I paid in 2015 to carpet fitters, to replace the carpet in the same flat.
Great for me. Not sure the carpet fitters were wild about that one.
I have a friend who was a school-leaver-into-work type, who changed jobs several times as skilled trades were steadily turned into minimum wage jobs.
Everywhere you look in the low wage economy - the same thing.
I bet you would pay the carpet fitters a damn sight more now than you did in 2015 (not long post-GFC) or in 1998.
Here is my take on the by-election. I think it is a massive warning klaxon for the Conservatives.
Pooh pooh, say the Johnson fanbois, excuse excuse etc. No, sorry you Boris obsessives, the truth was that everyone expected the Tories to win this, and they should have done, if the narrative that they have put out there really has any validity, you know the one, Boris reaches parts etc., and the Red Wall has turned permanently blue due to Johnsonian populism. This bolstered by the vaccine and the continuous exposure that the pandemic has given to those in government (including Sturgeon and Blackford), should mean that they should be winning these types of contests particularly when helped by Galloway.
What if the Tory narrative is wrong? What if Johnson's popularity is transient and largely limited to the last election? The Tories have invested heavily in brand Boris. They believe he appeals to WWC in spite the paradox of his own demeanour and privileged upbringing, but perhaps what we are actually seeing is the effects of the divisions created by Brexit gradually healing and the electorate gradually catching up with the fact that Labour is no longer led by Corbyn so is less of a worry now? What if the so-called remoaners in the south haven't forgiven Johnson and now that Corbyn has gone feel they should vote LD? This could create a perfect storm at the next GE
I think it is possible the Tories are in a lot of trouble, even though I am not hoping for a Labour government . The Tory problem is exacerbated by arrogance, hubris and complacency. They should seriously look at moving back to being proper Conservatives.
Boris narrowed the gap in Batley & Spen in 2019 and narrowed it again yesterday, how is that evidence of him failing to reach the kind of voters needed to win? Labour scored their worst vote share ever in the constituency and its being celebrated like they gained an unwinnable seat!
As I understand it, the Conservative vote was considerably down on the GE, not up, so you are playing with statistics. I doubt those voters went to Galloway ffs!
Dont be silly, if you are going to go on actual number of votes, then Labours is massively down! It is the vote share that matters and Labour got their worst ever whilst Boris narrowed the gap for the second time running!
If that makes you feel happier fanboy
Haha you cant beat me in an argument, so have to try and call names.. I can guarantee you it wont bother me x
Erm, I think I pointed out that the Tory vote was down. I didn't say the Labour vote wasn't down (and as I am not a Labour supporter don't care), so you are talking out of your extreme right wing backside, which of course, is how you normally articulate yourself. I don't think I have ever seen your small minded simplistic posts ever get the better of anyone in an argument, but dream on erstwhile Farage fanboy, now uber-gullible fanboy of that other public school charlatan, Mr Johnson.
BTW, "Fanboy" is probably the politest name I can think of for someone who is an ex hate filled UKIP supporter. The other words range, but even a UKIP supporter probably has the vocabulary to work out they start with W, T, and most appropriately C.
Fascinating on how Johnson wrote his Churchill book, and planned to do Shakespeare one; record Q&A with expert, then rehash in his own words and style. V like how he operated as a journo ... https://twitter.com/AndrewSparrow/status/1410969568219181058
Here is my take on the by-election. I think it is a massive warning klaxon for the Conservatives.
Pooh pooh, say the Johnson fanbois, excuse excuse etc. No, sorry you Boris obsessives, the truth was that everyone expected the Tories to win this, and they should have done, if the narrative that they have put out there really has any validity, you know the one, Boris reaches parts etc., and the Red Wall has turned permanently blue due to Johnsonian populism. This bolstered by the vaccine and the continuous exposure that the pandemic has given to those in government (including Sturgeon and Blackford), should mean that they should be winning these types of contests particularly when helped by Galloway.
What if the Tory narrative is wrong? What if Johnson's popularity is transient and largely limited to the last election? The Tories have invested heavily in brand Boris. They believe he appeals to WWC in spite the paradox of his own demeanour and privileged upbringing, but perhaps what we are actually seeing is the effects of the divisions created by Brexit gradually healing and the electorate gradually catching up with the fact that Labour is no longer led by Corbyn so is less of a worry now? What if the so-called remoaners in the south haven't forgiven Johnson and now that Corbyn has gone feel they should vote LD? This could create a perfect storm at the next GE
I think it is possible the Tories are in a lot of trouble, even though I am not hoping for a Labour government . The Tory problem is exacerbated by arrogance, hubris and complacency. They should seriously look at moving back to being proper Conservatives.
Boris narrowed the gap in Batley & Spen in 2019 and narrowed it again yesterday, how is that evidence of him failing to reach the kind of voters needed to win? Labour scored their worst vote share ever in the constituency and its being celebrated like they gained an unwinnable seat!
As I understand it, the Conservative vote was considerably down on the GE, not up, so you are playing with statistics. I doubt those voters went to Galloway ffs!
Dont be silly, if you are going to go on actual number of votes, then Labours is massively down! It is the vote share that matters and Labour got their worst ever whilst Boris narrowed the gap for the second time running!
If that makes you feel happier fanboy
Haha you cant beat me in an argument, so have to try and call names.. I can guarantee you it wont bother me x
Erm, I think I pointed out that the Tory vote was down. I didn't say the Labour vote wasn't down (and as I am not a Labour supporter don't care), so you are talking out of your extreme right wing backside, which of course, is how you normally articulate yourself. I don't think I have ever seen your small minded simplistic posts ever get the better of anyone in an argument, but dream on erstwhile Farage fanboy, now uber-gullible fanboy of that other public school charlatan, Mr Johnson.
BTW, "Fanboy" is probably the politest name I can think of for someone who is an ex hate filled UKIP supporter. The other words range, but even a UKIP supporter probably has the vocabulary to work out they start with W, T, and most appropriately C.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
To give a simple example - I paid a couple of carpet fitters in 1998 more money in actual pounds to lay a carpet, than I paid in 2015 to carpet fitters, to replace the carpet in the same flat.
Great for me. Not sure the carpet fitters were wild about that one.
I have a friend who was a school-leaver-into-work type, who changed jobs several times as skilled trades were steadily turned into minimum wage jobs.
Everywhere you look in the low wage economy - the same thing.
I bet you would pay the carpet fitters a damn sight more now than you did in 2015 (not long post-GFC) or in 1998.
Actually, as it happens, I am having some carpet laid in the next couple of weeks. A not dissimilar area. The price for the job hasn't gone up much from 2015, though I would have to check.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
You seem to view the minimum wage as a maximum. Why is that?
Where did the Brits go who were pushed out of these horrible jobs?
Many of them still do these jobs but the wages are suppressed by ensuring they're kept at the bottom.
To take one example that's been in the news a lot of care homes - 84% of care staff are actually British, but free movement has helped ensure that a job like care that really ought to not be a minimum wage job has been held down to being one.
If there were staff shortages seeing pay rise across the board that would see pay rises above the minimum for the 84% of Britons doing that job not just those attracted by higher wages.
Who is keeping them at the bottom?
If a worker in a care home felt they were being underpaid, why didn't they move jobs?
You of all people should be championing the market working in this way. You say you don't mind free movement of labour as long as there is ample housing but then cite an employment example as to why it's bad.
Philip believes in the primacy of the market in all things, except when he doesn't.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
You seem to view the minimum wage as a maximum. Why is that?
Where did the Brits go who were pushed out of these horrible jobs?
Many of them still do these jobs but the wages are suppressed by ensuring they're kept at the bottom.
To take one example that's been in the news a lot of care homes - 84% of care staff are actually British, but free movement has helped ensure that a job like care that really ought to not be a minimum wage job has been held down to being one.
If there were staff shortages seeing pay rise across the board that would see pay rises above the minimum for the 84% of Britons doing that job not just those attracted by higher wages.
Who is keeping them at the bottom?
If a worker in a care home felt they were being underpaid, why didn't they move jobs?
You of all people should be championing the market working in this way. You say you don't mind free movement of labour as long as there is ample housing but then cite an employment example as to why it's bad.
Philip believes in the primacy of the market in all things, except when he doesn't.
So it appears.
Edit: we'll probably get the there are 20 Philippino care home workers living in one room argument next.
I see the obsession over Boris Shakespeare book again....people do realise this is how lots of "celebrity" books are written right? Either the celeb witters to ghost writer or the named writer gets experts to condense a load of info.... shockingly its how those tv shows fronted by a "celeb" work as well, where a team of researchers do all the heavy lifting and the well known face deliveries it....sorry to bust the illusion.
Stephen Fry didn't really know or personally research all those "quite interesting" factoids....
And whisper it, but there are loads of books supposedly written by a named author, who aren't actually written by them at all. They just own the rights to a character and perhaps sketch out an idea for a plot.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
You seem to view the minimum wage as a maximum. Why is that?
Where did the Brits go who were pushed out of these horrible jobs?
Many of them still do these jobs but the wages are suppressed by ensuring they're kept at the bottom.
To take one example that's been in the news a lot of care homes - 84% of care staff are actually British, but free movement has helped ensure that a job like care that really ought to not be a minimum wage job has been held down to being one.
If there were staff shortages seeing pay rise across the board that would see pay rises above the minimum for the 84% of Britons doing that job not just those attracted by higher wages.
Who is keeping them at the bottom?
If a worker in a care home felt they were being underpaid, why didn't they move jobs?
You of all people should be championing the market working in this way. You say you don't mind free movement of labour as long as there is ample housing but then cite an employment example as to why it's bad.
Philip believes in the primacy of the market in all things, except when he doesn't.
In general, I think those are fair points in the header.
That said, holding on (narrowly) to B & S is no more than the very first step towards Labour presenting an electoral challenge to this government. For Labour to hold this seat was a necessity, For the Conservatives to have gained it would have been nice to have, but no more than that.
On balance that is probably fair, but for reasons I pointed out previously it also asks a lot of questions about assumptions that have been made about the Tories and their ability to hold the so-called Red wall seats at the next GE. If Tories become a little less complacent that is better for all.
It's very variable. One can look at seats where the UKIP/Brexit Party vote has broken very heavily towards the Conservatives. Hartlepool is the obvious case, but also Heywood & Middleton, or Rother Valley.
Then, you get a seat like this, where a big vote for UKIP in 2015, divided pretty evenly between the big two in 2017.
Exactly. And therein lies the risk for those that are complacent about Tory performance at the next GE. I think the risk for the Conservatives is that those in the south that don't like populism think they have nothing to lose by voting LD as Mr Starmer is boring but harmless, while the Red Wall seats fully or partially revert to type and vote Lab.
You need to distinguish between the Northern marginals, and those seats which have shifted Conservative at a rate of knots. The latter won't be shifting back.
To complicate it further. You need to distinguish again amongst those seats which have shifted Conservative at a rate of knots. Some now have pretty large majorities, some have only recently become marginal. The former won't be coming back any time soon. The latter are still very much in play.
Maybe. One question is why the Red Wall shifted blue, which I think is partly due to culture war reasons, and also (of course) to economic decline and marginalisation as brilliantly identified and exploited by everyone's favourite psephological guru, Dominic Cummings. Trouble is, internationalist London lawyer Keir Starmer might be even more of a problem than was Jeremy Corbyn.
Someone called Jon Redman has posted this comment on an UnHerd article:
"If you look at the comments on politicalbetting, they’re all politically partisan, not particularly smart and they clearly bet on what they want to happen, not what they think actually will, whether they realise it or not."
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
To give a simple example - I paid a couple of carpet fitters in 1998 more money in actual pounds to lay a carpet, than I paid in 2015 to carpet fitters, to replace the carpet in the same flat.
Great for me. Not sure the carpet fitters were wild about that one.
I have a friend who was a school-leaver-into-work type, who changed jobs several times as skilled trades were steadily turned into minimum wage jobs.
Everywhere you look in the low wage economy - the same thing.
I bet you would pay the carpet fitters a damn sight more now than you did in 2015 (not long post-GFC) or in 1998.
Actually, as it happens, I am having some carpet laid in the next couple of weeks. A not dissimilar area. The price for the job hasn't gone up much from 2015, though I would have to check.
I think for much of the private sector wages haven't necessarily risen over time. As might be consistent with a low inflationary/interest rate environment.
Someone called Jon Redman has posted this comment on an UnHerd article:
"If you look at the comments on politicalbetting, they’re all politically partisan, not particularly smart and they clearly bet on what they want to happen, not what they think actually will, whether they realise it or not."
Someone called Jon Redman has posted this comment on an UnHerd article:
"If you look at the comments on politicalbetting, they’re all politically partisan, not particularly smart and they clearly bet on what they want to happen, not what they think actually will, whether they realise it or not."
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
To give a simple example - I paid a couple of carpet fitters in 1998 more money in actual pounds to lay a carpet, than I paid in 2015 to carpet fitters, to replace the carpet in the same flat.
Great for me. Not sure the carpet fitters were wild about that one.
I have a friend who was a school-leaver-into-work type, who changed jobs several times as skilled trades were steadily turned into minimum wage jobs.
Everywhere you look in the low wage economy - the same thing.
I bet you would pay the carpet fitters a damn sight more now than you did in 2015 (not long post-GFC) or in 1998.
Actually, as it happens, I am having some carpet laid in the next couple of weeks. A not dissimilar area. The price for the job hasn't gone up much from 2015, though I would have to check.
I think for much of the private sector wages haven't necessarily risen over time. As might be consistent with a low inflationary/interest rate environment.
I make a shitload more money than I did in 1997. In every possible measure - real adjusted, relative to GDP etc... Quite a bit more than in 2015 - again, in all the measures.
In general, I think those are fair points in the header.
That said, holding on (narrowly) to B & S is no more than the very first step towards Labour presenting an electoral challenge to this government. For Labour to hold this seat was a necessity, For the Conservatives to have gained it would have been nice to have, but no more than that.
On balance that is probably fair, but for reasons I pointed out previously it also asks a lot of questions about assumptions that have been made about the Tories and their ability to hold the so-called Red wall seats at the next GE. If Tories become a little less complacent that is better for all.
It's very variable. One can look at seats where the UKIP/Brexit Party vote has broken very heavily towards the Conservatives. Hartlepool is the obvious case, but also Heywood & Middleton, or Rother Valley.
Then, you get a seat like this, where a big vote for UKIP in 2015, divided pretty evenly between the big two in 2017.
Exactly. And therein lies the risk for those that are complacent about Tory performance at the next GE. I think the risk for the Conservatives is that those in the south that don't like populism think they have nothing to lose by voting LD as Mr Starmer is boring but harmless, while the Red Wall seats fully or partially revert to type and vote Lab.
You need to distinguish between the Northern marginals, and those seats which have shifted Conservative at a rate of knots. The latter won't be shifting back.
To complicate it further. You need to distinguish again amongst those seats which have shifted Conservative at a rate of knots. Some now have pretty large majorities, some have only recently become marginal. The former won't be coming back any time soon. The latter are still very much in play.
Maybe. One question is why the Red Wall shifted blue, which I think is partly due to culture war reasons, and also (of course) to economic decline and marginalisation as brilliantly identified and exploited by everyone's favourite psephological guru, Dominic Cummings. Trouble is, internationalist London lawyer Keir Starmer might be even more of a problem than was Jeremy Corbyn.
Why some but not others is another question? N Midlands, S Yorkshire, Teesside, Durham very much so. GM, Merseyside, Cheshire, Tyneside, W Yorks much less so. Even in demographically very similar seats.
I see the obsession over Boris Shakespeare book again....people do realise this is how lots of "celebrity" books are written right? Either the celeb witters to ghost writer or the named writer gets experts to condense a load of info.... shockingly its how those tv shows fronted by a "celeb" work as well, where a team of researchers do all the heavy lifting and the well known face deliveries it....sorry to bust the illusion.
Stephen Fry didn't really know or personally research all those "quite interesting" factoids....
And whisper it, but there are loads of books supposedly written by a named author, who aren't actually written by them at all. They just own the rights to a character and perhaps sketch out an idea for a plot.
Indeed. Is it normal though for Hodder & Stoughton to put the acknowledgements at the back, as they did in Johnson's The Churchill Factor? Johnson is also known for using the phrase "All glory goes to the führer" when demanding credit for other people's work in politics/policymaking.
The statistics released today (Friday 2 July) show there were 6.02 million applications made to the scheme by 30 June with 5.1 million grants of status. There have been more than 5.3 million applications from England, 291,200 from Scotland, 98,600 from Wales, and 98,400 from Northern Ireland.
The surge in applications, including more than 400,000 in June alone, means that there are around 570,000 pending applications. The Government has repeatedly assured those who applied before the deadline that they will have their rights protected until their application is decided, as set out in law, and they have the means to prove their protected rights if needed.
Immigration levels were off the scale from 2004-2016, utterly extraordinary.
How did it affect you personally?
Personally? I got quite a bit of sex out of it. If we're going to have mass immigration then having young nubile blonde females emigrating en-mass from Poland and Lithuanian is as good as it gets. But, I live in an affluent rural area and my salary & prospects were unaffected.
I also saw very rapid social change in big towns and cities, including Basingstoke, that took place over a very short number of years, that changed the character of the town, and caused housing and wage pressures for many lower-earning locals and a friction and resentment that wasn't necessary.
I thought the immigration rates were crazy then and still do now.
The reality for me is complex.
On the one hand family wise, it’s been a great plus for me. I have a wonderful Finnish sister in law via my older brother - and my younger brother, with profound learning difficulties has undoubtedly benefitted from Eastern European carers. That likely wouldn’t have happened without EU freedom of movement.
But it’s probably come at a personal cost for me, employment wise - and the wider economic cost to lower paid Brits is obvious.
The key point is - that no one was asked, and anyone who objected to a 10% increase in the population via immigration was called racist.
That was profoundly unfair. Labour, the LDs and the liberal tories share the blame for this.
Thanks for answering.
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
Well, that was the pitch.
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
So what did the plucky Brits that were pushed out of such jobs do? And rightly or wrongly there is a minimum and national living wage that puts a floor under wages so where were all these jobs where the conditions were so horrible? Car washes?
To give a simple example - I paid a couple of carpet fitters in 1998 more money in actual pounds to lay a carpet, than I paid in 2015 to carpet fitters, to replace the carpet in the same flat.
Great for me. Not sure the carpet fitters were wild about that one.
I have a friend who was a school-leaver-into-work type, who changed jobs several times as skilled trades were steadily turned into minimum wage jobs.
Everywhere you look in the low wage economy - the same thing.
I bet you would pay the carpet fitters a damn sight more now than you did in 2015 (not long post-GFC) or in 1998.
Actually, as it happens, I am having some carpet laid in the next couple of weeks. A not dissimilar area. The price for the job hasn't gone up much from 2015, though I would have to check.
I think for much of the private sector wages haven't necessarily risen over time. As might be consistent with a low inflationary/interest rate environment.
I make a shitload more money than I did in 1997. In every possible measure - real adjusted, relative to GDP etc... Quite a bit more than in 2015 - again, in all the measures.
Comments
The problem with politicians, like generals, is that they want to claim the credit for every success in their memoirs, while pinning the blame for failure on others.
A third of the people who get it are completely asymptomatic.
Any idea what the honest figure is? Especially post-vaccines?
Isn't the theory that lower paid Brits will, in the face of low-skilled immigration, move up the skills ladder?
There’s very little evidence that migration has suppressed working class wages - and it’s not as if people haven’t looked. Rather, the evidence suggests that European migration has been of significant benefit to U.K. productivity.
I am sympathetic to the argument that “nobody asked us”, but sadly the alternative this country looks likely to face is slow economic decline and cultural stagnation.
They decided in 2016 that they had changed their mind and that they didn't after all like immigration.
I think much of that is down to the GFC but of course there will have been many reasons.
They gave up on the idea of unequivocally defending that teacher. If Labour is happy to walk away from right wing wwc votes on the basis that their opinions conflict with basic Labour values, to be consistent it should walk away from right wing ethnic votes as well.
The issue with the wwc is part cultural but also in part the absence of clear economic message. Will I be economically better off under Labour? The Labour answer appears to be 'Dunno squire, we're thinking about it, but we've got other things on our plate like Trans Rights or divided leaderships or antisemitism'.
Sort that out the economics before worrying about two wards in Batley and Spen - not least because the Moslem vote is quite concentrated and small. Whereas there are shitloads of wwc.
Google will doubtless find other sources, such as this from a year ago:-
Trump’s biggest creditor is Deutsche Bank, which in the late 1990s took a gamble on the real estate developer whose history of corporate bankruptcies made him untouchable by most other lenders. Although Trump and the Frankfurt-based bank pulled off several profitable deals, eventually Deutsche’s commercial lending division learned the hard way one reason why other banks considered him persona non grata: If pushed by his creditors on payments, Trump shoves back. In 2008, after he defaulted on a loan for his Chicago hotel and condo development, he filed a multibillion-dollar suit accusing Deutsche Bank and others of contributing to the recent financial meltdown, which he blamed for his inability to repay the loan.
Nevertheless, Deutsche’s private banking division, which caters to wealthy clientele, continued to lend to Trump, giving him $125 million, spread over two loans, to finance the purchase and renovation of his Doral golf resort in 2012. Both are floating rate loans, meaning the interest rate fluctuates based on market conditions, which lending experts say usually indicates they are interest-only loans. If so, Trump probably hasn’t paid down much if any of the principal and will owe something close to the whole $125 million when the loans come due in 2023.
In 2014, Trump took out a separate floating loan from Deutsche’s private bank to bankroll the development of his luxury hotel in Washington, DC. The balance of this $170 million debt is payable in 2024. That year, Trump will also owe Deutsche between $25 million and $50 million in connection with his Chicago hotel and complex.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/donald-trump-loans-deutsche-bank/
The way it turned out, low skilled immigrants were used, conveyor belt style, to reduce and hold wages at minimum wage levels in a number of jobs. The fact that the conditions of the jobs were horrible could be sustained by a steady stream of immigrants to replace the ones that were escaping from the shit jobs.
This resulted in chunks of the job market where pay was so low that it could only sustain living x adults in a room etc...
Yes, the PB Spelling Experts have again excelled themselves.
I didn't care about immigration, but you can't deny Labour were elected pledging that expanding Europe to Eastern Europe would only increase immigration by a few thousands, not hundreds of thousands.
Then Labour were elected pledging that the EU Constitution wouldn't be ratified without a referendum, which was a lie and they ratified it as a Lisbon Treaty.
Then the Tories were elected pledging to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands, without any mechanism or ability to do so. Another lie.
So eventually enough of the public decided enough was enough - and then Remain voters get outraged and react with horror that supposedly Boris is uniquely a "Liar" after decades of British politicians lying to us. Key lie apparently being putting on a bus that NHS spending would go up £350mn a week if we voted leave, when actually it went up over £400mn instead.
Yes, it was great for the credentialed classes - my self included. This is because there is a world wide shortage of highly educated people. All of the capacity in that regard in China and India has been used up - either exported or now devoted more and more to their own economies.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-news-live-uk-latest-coronavirus-symptoms-daily-cases-green-list-travel-holidays-restrictions-12343658
That being said (and this is based off a sample size of one), at least some of the people who are applying for "Settled Status" in the UK aren't really settled here. I know one Latvian programmer who's done some contract work in the UK and who is an occasional resident. He's applying for settled status, because he *might* want to spend time in the future.
Now, I haven't investigated, but I suspect this is going to involve him lying on his forms to HMG. I also suspect he's not the only person engaging in this kind of practise.
‘I agree that we had better leave the past to history,’ he wrote in a draft reply to Stalin ‘But remember if I live long enough I may be one of the historians.’”
And the data on productivity is not on your side.
I had no objection to free movement of labour and I still don't in principle, so long as there is a complete and utter free market on construction too. Abolish all planning requirements and I couldn't care less how many people move here, let them come and build a home wherever they want.
But if you're going to say that people can come here, but they can't build a home. Or they can come and buy a home, but then the young can't build one to move out into - that's just not on.
* That said I do wonder how accurate those figures are.
If the authorities ever did act, a few people would be deported, and the owners fined.
A laughable amount way below the weekly payroll saved by not paying NMW.
If these places go bust, then I won't shed any tears. The owners want locking up.
Edit: Goodness! I'm in hang and flog mode today.
Even if we eliminate half of the extra 3 million for duplicate applications or mistakes, then surely that means net migration was actually ~400k or 500k per annum instead?
Great for me. Not sure the carpet fitters were wild about that one.
I have a friend who was a school-leaver-into-work type, who changed jobs several times as skilled trades were steadily turned into minimum wage jobs.
Everywhere you look in the low wage economy - the same thing.
Conservative vote share in B+S peaked under TMay the Terrible in 2017, drifted down in 2019 and fell a bit more yesterday.
To take one example that's been in the news a lot of care homes - 84% of care staff are actually British, but free movement has helped ensure that a job like care that really ought to not be a minimum wage job has been held down to being one.
If there were staff shortages seeing pay rise across the board that would see pay rises above the minimum for the 84% of Britons doing that job not just those attracted by higher wages.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/02/gavin-newsom-california-fire-prevention-investigation
We wish the government would lead better.
Its not something i would be willing to do under the current leadership, apart from for a good local Councillor.
(1) The Conservatives are not very particularly well organised on the ground. This is a marginal. They should have known from canvas returns and knocking up that this was going to be very close. They didn't know. And I don't think they knew in C&A that they were losing either. By contrast, Labour is well organised on the ground. There isn't anything massive you can learn from this, but it does speak to a weakness of Boris Johnson: he's not a details person.
(2) Well done Galloway. For the first time in an election, he dramatically outpolled the Muslim share of the vote. Now, he didn't come close to winning, and his performance seems to have been mostly due to very high turnout in a few wards, but still an impressive performance. Of course, the reality is that (a) this is the context of a low turnout by-elections, and (b) there are only a dozen seats where there are enough Muslim voters for his Wankers Party to stand a chance, but he's an undoubted thorn in Labour's side.
(3) Focusing on the closeness of the margin of victory is displacement activity for disappointed Conservatives. The Conservatives lost a third of their vote compared to 2019, and went backwards in vote share. This is a distinct change from Hartlepool and the locals, where they swept up the Brexit (and related) vote.
(4) Starmer is probably safe for now. And while his obvious lack of charisma is a positive for the government, it's not clear that any of the alternatives would do much better. If I were an ambitious Labour MP, I think I'd rather become leader in 2024, after the Conservative majority is cut to 20 and Johnson is ready to sail off into the sunset.
So your examples are illegal. We have to exclude the illegal side because that is not how this country runs (as in not how it is supposed to run).
The former won't be coming back any time soon.
The latter are still very much in play.
(Albeit, quite a few won't actually be resident in the UK, so it may well be that the effect is not as dramatic as all that.)
If a worker in a care home felt they were being underpaid, why didn't they move jobs?
You of all people should be championing the market working in this way. You say you don't mind free movement of labour as long as there is ample housing but then cite an employment example as to why it's bad.
And Jennie Lee's "My Life with Nye" is even better.
A wonderfully moving story of what Labour once was.
BTW, "Fanboy" is probably the politest name I can think of for someone who is an ex hate filled UKIP supporter. The other words range, but even a UKIP supporter probably has the vocabulary to work out they start with W, T, and most appropriately C.
Although to be fair he does have a good understanding of rhetoric.
Controlled self-assembly of plant proteins into high-performance multifunctional nanostructured films
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23813-6
Edit: we'll probably get the there are 20 Philippino care home workers living in one room argument next.
Stephen Fry didn't really know or personally research all those "quite interesting" factoids....
And whisper it, but there are loads of books supposedly written by a named author, who aren't actually written by them at all. They just own the rights to a character and perhaps sketch out an idea for a plot.
Quite a bit more than in 2015 - again, in all the measures.
GM, Merseyside, Cheshire, Tyneside, W Yorks much less so.
Even in demographically very similar seats.