Re US presidentials. Now could well be the time to back Trump again if you haven't already. His favourability ratings have improved somewhat (albeit from subterranean levels) over the last month and a half, and Hillary continues to under-perform. Nearly losing Kentucky? Not the sort of result she should be getting at this stage. Oregon more expected but still hardly impressive.
More seriously, her net lead on favourability over Trump has been seriously eroded to the point where he's now within range. At the beginning of April, she held a 17% net lead over him, -14 to -31; that gap is now down to just 5.5%, -13.5 to -19. With five and a half months to go, that's far too close for confidence. Yes, she's still in the better position but Trump now has a viable path to the White House
Kentucky was a great nail-biter - anyone know which state has been the tightest so far? No wonder Bernie is pushing on.
Last night over 2 States Bernie closed the gap in delegates by 4. He is currently 279 behind according to RCP. This is a ridiculous waste of time and energy.
Clinton isn't willing to give him a job (or he isn't willing to take one).
So he is pushing an agenda - and demonstrating that it has a lot of support in his party. That's not a waste of time and energy for him
The cut through message is: Unrestricted Immigration is Bad for the Voter.
By the way this is rather good. have you seen it?
shiney2 posts this (at least once) every day - as it is consuming OGH bandwith, might I suggest it be treated as SPAM and removed, and further such posting stopped?
I thought it was rather trite.
But censoring people who disagree with you is not a good look.
If a different video was being posted day after day, then I agree, why not?
But its the same video, day after day, sometimes multiple times a day......I don't know what you call that - I'd call it SPAM.....
You're the one filling up threads about it. Just ignore it. Do you want to censor Sunil's BeLeave posts too? They appear much more often.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
In which case the population will need to grow infinitely.
No. The effect is to smooth out the baby boom, and relative baby shortage of the seventies and eighties, to a more even population pyramid, so no need for indefinite population growth.
So how do you do that with your open door immigration policy? You cannot control and manage the population if you can't control immigration.
And please don't refer to your Filipino colleague, we've all got friends and colleagues from abroad.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
In which case the population will need to grow infinitely.
No, you just need to keep the ratio of retirees and workers constant.
But as I say elsewhere, you can't manage the population without managing immigration.
Australia and Canada are for all practical purposes empty with ribbons of population around the coast and along the US border. Space is really not an issue, it is more what the economy can absorb at any particular time.
The UK, and in particular England are not in that position. Hundreds of thousands of people coming to a country who find it impossible to build enough houses for its current population is a problem. We find it difficult to build the houses because to do so we have to give up more of our space and accept population densities that our traffic infrastructure cannot really cope with.
But as I said earlier, the idea this is all going to magically change because we are not in the EU is, well, oversold.
It sure is. But it's also true that there is plenty of space in England - especially in the north, where brownfield sites are plentiful. The problem is that London and the south-east are such a magnet. That is one of our huge challenges, whether in or out of the EU.
Southern England is where the jobs and the economic growth are. Scotland could, over a relatively brief period and with investment in housing, probably cope with another million people but it doesn't matter because they are not going to come.
Our migration policies must recognise these realities. When the EU was a very small club of countries on broadly the same standard of living freedom of movement made some sort of sense. In a greatly expanded Europe with very wide differentials in living standards it does not. And as the largest source of jobs speaking the lingua franca of the age it is a major problem for us.
If your object is an integrated state with a single unified economy like the EZ the freedom of movement policy still makes sense in the same way that Americans could always travel to California (not that they were always welcome when they got there). If, however, you do not want to be a part of that integrated state it really makes no sense whatsoever.
The cut through message is: Unrestricted Immigration is Bad for the Voter.
By the way this is rather good. have you seen it?
shiney2 posts this (at least once) every day - as it is consuming OGH bandwith, might I suggest it be treated as SPAM and removed, and further such posting stopped?
I thought it was rather trite.
But censoring people who disagree with you is not a good look.
If a different video was being posted day after day, then I agree, why not?
But its the same video, day after day, sometimes multiple times a day......I don't know what you call that - I'd call it SPAM.....
I call it boring and pretty poor campaigning (although I doubt there are many votes to be won on here)
But it's not up to you to decide what another poster should post.
I'd have more sympathy if he was on the same side as you - but trying to stop him posting a video on the Brexit case looks bad.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
Surely the ageing population is a healthier and more productive one than those in the 1980s ?
The kind that can wind down into it's retirement doing the kind of work that is often being done by new arrivals? A move to partial retirement rather than constantly shifting the retirement age is something worthy of consideration.
The important thing with Australia is that they have control over both the quality and quantity of new arrivals, which they can adjust up and down according to their national need and situation.
Introduce that and combine it with Cameron's intelligent approach to refugee settlement and we could have a more content society, and certainly one where it is much easier to plan public spending, infrastructure development and so on.
If voting Leave to significantly reduce immigration is a vote for working into your 70s don't you think people should be told?
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
In which case the population will need to grow infinitely.
No, you just need to keep the ratio of retirees and workers constant.
A mobile stream of temporary EU migrants helps with that hugely, of course. And all without any red tape.
The other thing to remember is that a lot of older EU immigrants will end up retiring home.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
Surely the ageing population is a healthier and more productive one than those in the 1980s ?
The kind that can wind down into it's retirement doing the kind of work that is often being done by new arrivals? A move to partial retirement rather than constantly shifting the retirement age is something worthy of consideration.
The important thing with Australia is that they have control over both the quality and quantity of new arrivals, which they can adjust up and down according to their national need and situation.
Introduce that and combine it with Cameron's intelligent approach to refugee settlement and we could have a more content society, and certainly one where it is much easier to plan public spending, infrastructure development and so on.
If voting Leave to significantly reduce immigration is a vote for working into your 70s don't you think people should be told?
Re US presidentials. Now could well be the time to back Trump again if you haven't already. His favourability ratings have improved somewhat (albeit from subterranean levels) over the last month and a half, and Hillary continues to under-perform. Nearly losing Kentucky? Not the sort of result she should be getting at this stage. Oregon more expected but still hardly impressive.
More seriously, her net lead on favourability over Trump has been seriously eroded to the point where he's now within range. At the beginning of April, she held a 17% net lead over him, -14 to -31; that gap is now down to just 5.5%, -13.5 to -19. With five and a half months to go, that's far too close for confidence. Yes, she's still in the better position but Trump now has a viable path to the White House
Kentucky was a great nail-biter - anyone know which state has been the tightest so far? No wonder Bernie is pushing on.
Last night over 2 States Bernie closed the gap in delegates by 4. He is currently 279 behind according to RCP. This is a ridiculous waste of time and energy.
He's pushing Hillary leftwards though - and it's its a great last hurrah for his career. I wouldn't pack it in either!
Hence the recovery for Trump. We both have money on him so we shouldn't complain but if I was a democrat in the States I would be seriously pissed by this self indulgence.
With respect to Trump, it seems he has not tapped into millions of new voters:
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
Surely the ageing population is a healthier and more productive one than those in the 1980s ?
The kind that can wind down into it's retirement doing the kind of work that is often being done by new arrivals? A move to partial retirement rather than constantly shifting the retirement age is something worthy of consideration.
The important thing with Australia is that they have control over both the quality and quantity of new arrivals, which they can adjust up and down according to their national need and situation.
Introduce that and combine it with Cameron's intelligent approach to refugee settlement and we could have a more content society, and certainly one where it is much easier to plan public spending, infrastructure development and so on.
If voting Leave to significantly reduce immigration is a vote for working into your 70s don't you think people should be told?
Who won't be working into their seventies?
I imagine many millions of voters think they won't be. The current retirement age is 68 (edited), isn't it?
The hyperbole from some politicians on the Remain side, e.g. the divisive Heseltine, is OTT. I don't understand the need for it, given that Remain are highly likely to win.
BJ merely pointed out from a historical perspective that the EU is the continuation by other means of the desire of powerful French/German rulers to dominate the European continent from the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The German Drang nach Osten, which is so evident in the current attitude of the EU to territories in Eastern Europe, is many centuries old. The 3rd Reich was merely the most recent previous manifestation of this desire, and many of the leading economists and industrialists of this failed enterprise were among the founders of the EEC.
It seems that the Remain campaigners wish to focus on economics, and obscure the fact that the fundamental question on 23/6/16 is whether the UK wishes to remain part of the project towards ever closer union, or detach itself from this megalithic scheme. The "status quo" option is not on the table.
I think the Leave campaign may well succeed in reducing the margin of a Remain victory from something like the 62:38 slam dunk it looked like last year, with a decent renegotiation anticipated, to a fairly narrow and sullen margin of 54:46 due to the Government trying to take us all for fools, but still clinching it through Project terror.
It's just a personal view but I doubt that is a healthy basis for our future relationship with the EU.
Post result - we'll also have a much better informed population. Assuming Remain wins by not very much - that's a big slab of awkward squad voters/MPs and Party members to manage.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
Surely the ageing population is a healthier and more productive one than those in the 1980s ?
The kind that can wind down into it's retirement doing the kind of work that is often being done by new arrivals? A move to partial retirement rather than constantly shifting the retirement age is something worthy of consideration.
The important thing with Australia is that they have control over both the quality and quantity of new arrivals, which they can adjust up and down according to their national need and situation.
Introduce that and combine it with Cameron's intelligent approach to refugee settlement and we could have a more content society, and certainly one where it is much easier to plan public spending, infrastructure development and so on.
If voting Leave to significantly reduce immigration is a vote for working into your 70s don't you think people should be told?
Who won't be working into their seventies?
Public secctor workers will be relatively ok, the private sector will pay the price. Read this site, the public sector workers stick out a mile.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
Because we have an ageing and more unproductive population. Before the boom of the late 80s there was mass unemployment. We don't have that now.
We've had an ageing population for about 250 years. Economic growth post 2000 has been pathetic by the standards of 1950-2000, notwithstanding the surge in immigration. My own view is that economic benefits of immigration are massively oversold.
Of course they are. The 'benefits' go mostly to immigrants, the impact on the native population, in per capita terms, is in the aggregate probably around zero (as the bulk of the serious literature on the topic argues) and for some groups negative.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
Because we have an ageing and more unproductive population. Before the boom of the late 80s there was mass unemployment. We don't have that now.
We've had an ageing population for about 250 years. Economic growth post 2000 has been pathetic by the standards of 1950-2000, notwithstanding the surge in immigration. My own view is that economic benefits of immigration are massively oversold.
The benefits are distorted enormously by high earning footballers and people working in the city. The benefit of low earning immigrants is highly debatable.
The total earnings of foreign born footballers come to well under 0.1% of the total UK wage bill, so it isn't going to have any meaningful impact on the figures.
It skews the argument over the benefits of immigration, SOME immigration benefits the UK, but not all of it. Any country should have both the right and common sense to decide who visits.
Australia and Canada are for all practical purposes empty with ribbons of population around the coast and along the US border. Space is really not an issue, it is more what the economy can absorb at any particular time.
The UK, and in particular England are not in that position. Hundreds of thousands of people coming to a country who find it impossible to build enough houses for its current population is a problem. We find it difficult to build the houses because to do so we have to give up more of our space and accept population densities that our traffic infrastructure cannot really cope with.
But as I said earlier, the idea this is all going to magically change because we are not in the EU is, well, oversold.
It sure is. But it's also true that there is plenty of space in England - especially in the north, where brownfield sites are plentiful. The problem is that London and the south-east are such a magnet. That is one of our huge challenges, whether in or out of the EU.
Southern England is where the jobs and the economic growth are. Scotland could, over a relatively brief period and with investment in housing, probably cope with another million people but it doesn't matter because they are not going to come.
Our migration policies must recognise these realities. When the EU was a very small club of countries on broadly the same standard of living freedom of movement made some sort of sense. In a greatly expanded Europe with very wide differentials in living standards it does not. And as the largest source of jobs speaking the lingua franca of the age it is a major problem for us.
If your object is an integrated state with a single unified economy like the EZ the freedom of movement policy still makes sense in the same way that Americans could always travel to California (not that they were always welcome when they got there). If, however, you do not want to be a part of that integrated state it really makes no sense whatsoever.
It makes sense if you are opposed to sharp tax hikes and/or savage public spending cuts. Both of which would be unavoidable if we significantly reduced immigration flows.
John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, heads a list of Brexit ministers earmarked for the sack by David Cameron as he draws up plans for a post- referendum reshuffle.
Priti Patel, the employment minister, and Penny Mordaunt, the armed forces minister, are also judged to have abused their freedom to campaign to leave the EU. However, Chris Grayling, leader of the Commons, is set to keep his cabinet role after sticking to the rules that were supposed to limit criticism of government policy.
Australia and Canada are for all practical purposes empty with ribbons of population around the coast and along the US border. Space is really not an issue, it is more what the economy can absorb at any particular time.
The UK, and in particular England are not in that position. Hundreds of thousands of people coming to a country who find it impossible to build enough houses for its current population is a problem. We find it difficult to build the houses because to do so we have to give up more of our space and accept population densities that our traffic infrastructure cannot really cope with.
But as I said earlier, the idea this is all going to magically change because we are not in the EU is, well, oversold.
It sure is. But it's also true that there is plenty of space in England - especially in the north, where brownfield sites are plentiful. The problem is that London and the south-east are such a magnet. That is one of our huge challenges, whether in or out of the EU.
Southern England is where the jobs and the economic growth are. Scotland could, over a relatively brief period and with investment in housing, probably cope with another million people but it doesn't matter because they are not going to come.
Our migration policies must recognise these realities. When the EU was a very small club of countries on broadly the same standard of living freedom of movement made some sort of sense. In a greatly expanded Europe with very wide differentials in living standards it does not. And as the largest source of jobs speaking the lingua franca of the age it is a major problem for us.
If your object is an integrated state with a single unified economy like the EZ the freedom of movement policy still makes sense in the same way that Americans could always travel to California (not that they were always welcome when they got there). If, however, you do not want to be a part of that integrated state it really makes no sense whatsoever.
Very good post. And of course the object of people who want unlimited immigration is indeed a single integrated state. Some of them might even admit that.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
Surely the ageing population is a healthier and more productive one than those in the 1980s ?
The kind that can wind down into it's retirement doing the kind of work that is often being done by new arrivals? A move to partial retirement rather than constantly shifting the retirement age is something worthy of consideration.
The important thing with Australia is that they have control over both the quality and quantity of new arrivals, which they can adjust up and down according to their national need and situation.
Introduce that and combine it with Cameron's intelligent approach to refugee settlement and we could have a more content society, and certainly one where it is much easier to plan public spending, infrastructure development and so on.
If voting Leave to significantly reduce immigration is a vote for working into your 70s don't you think people should be told?
Who won't be working into their seventies?
Public secctor workers will be relatively ok, the private sector will pay the price. Read this site, the public sector workers stick out a mile.
As far as I can tell there are very few public service workers active on this site.
I live in a smugly Liberal area. Most people are not concerned with immigration (except travellers). They are very pro the Green Belt, and they hate 'attacks' on it.
But when you try to point out the link between immigration and the shortage of housing, and thus the pressure on the Green Belt, they get uncomfortable. They become defensive and illogical.
"95 houses have recently been completed in the next village. None has been bought by immigrants. Therefore there is no link."
It is not that they are too stupid to understand that if the population is significantly increased, it will exacerbate housing shortages.
Re US presidentials. Now could well be the time to back Trump again if you haven't already. His favourability ratings have improved somewhat (albeit from subterranean levels) over the last month and a half, and Hillary continues to under-perform. Nearly losing Kentucky? Not the sort of result she should be getting at this stage. Oregon more expected but still hardly impressive.
More seriously, her net lead on favourability over Trump has been seriously eroded to the point where he's now within range. At the beginning of April, she held a 17% net lead over him, -14 to -31; that gap is now down to just 5.5%, -13.5 to -19. With five and a half months to go, that's far too close for confidence. Yes, she's still in the better position but Trump now has a viable path to the White House
Kentucky was a great nail-biter - anyone know which state has been the tightest so far? No wonder Bernie is pushing on.
Last night over 2 States Bernie closed the gap in delegates by 4. He is currently 279 behind according to RCP. This is a ridiculous waste of time and energy.
Clinton isn't willing to give him a job (or he isn't willing to take one).
So he is pushing an agenda - and demonstrating that it has a lot of support in his party. That's not a waste of time and energy for him
I never quite get this platform nonsense in US politics. At the end of the day it is a very personalised political system. Clinton will be the nominee and what she says goes because she is, if successful, going to hold the office. Once she is the nominee, which she will be after California, who cares how many delegates Bernie got? He lost. Who cares what he thinks the policy should be? He is not running for office.
In fairness Clinton herself kept going after Obama 8 years ago long after she had clearly lost. It is a common phenomena in US politics. It just seems a relic of a different age when the nominee would be told what the party's policy was and would have to abide by it. No one would pretend that happens any more.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
Surely the ageing population is a healthier and more productive one than those in the 1980s ?
The kind that can wind down into it's retirement doing the kind of work that is often being done by new arrivals? A move to partial retirement rather than constantly shifting the retirement age is something worthy of consideration.
The important thing with Australia is that they have control over both the quality and quantity of new arrivals, which they can adjust up and down according to their national need and situation.
Introduce that and combine it with Cameron's intelligent approach to refugee settlement and we could have a more content society, and certainly one where it is much easier to plan public spending, infrastructure development and so on.
If voting Leave to significantly reduce immigration is a vote for working into your 70s don't you think people should be told?
Who won't be working into their seventies?
Public secctor workers will be relatively ok, the private sector will pay the price. Read this site, the public sector workers stick out a mile.
As far as I can tell there are very few public service workers active on this site.
I live in a smugly Liberal area. Most people are not concerned with immigration (except travellers). They are very pro the Green Belt, and they hate 'attacks' on it.
But when you try to point out the link between immigration and the shortage of housing, and thus the pressure on the Green Belt, they get uncomfortable. They become defensive and illogical.
"95 houses have recently been completed in the next village. None has been bought by immigrants. Therefore there is no link."
It is not that they are too stupid to understand that if the population is significantly increased, it will exacerbate housing shortages.
It is that they don't want to see it.
How many Leavers are prepared to make the case for the major spending cuts and tax hikes substantially reducing the amount of immigration will lead to, or the big falls in house prices?
Australia and Canada are for all practical purposes empty with ribbons of population around the coast and along the US border. Space is really not an issue, it is more what the economy can absorb at any particular time.
The UK, and in particular England are not in that position. Hundreds of thousands of people coming to a country who find it impossible to build enough houses for its current population is a problem. We find it difficult to build the houses because to do so we have to give up more of our space and accept population densities that our traffic infrastructure cannot really cope with.
But as I said earlier, the idea this is all going to magically change because we are not in the EU is, well, oversold.
It sure is. But it's also true that there is plenty of space in England - especially in the north, where brownfield sites are plentiful. The problem is that London and the south-east are such a magnet. That is one of our huge challenges, whether in or out of the EU.
Southern England is where the jobs and the economic growth are. Scotland could, over a relatively brief period and with investment in housing, probably cope with another million people but it doesn't matter because they are not going to come.
Our migration policies must recognise these realities. When the EU was a very small club of countries on broadly the same standard of living freedom of movement made some sort of sense. In a greatly expanded Europe with very wide differentials in living standards it does not. And as the largest source of jobs speaking the lingua franca of the age it is a major problem for us.
If your object is an integrated state with a single unified economy like the EZ the freedom of movement policy still makes sense in the same way that Americans could always travel to California (not that they were always welcome when they got there). If, however, you do not want to be a part of that integrated state it really makes no sense whatsoever.
It makes sense if you are opposed to sharp tax hikes and/or savage public spending cuts. Both of which would be unavoidable if we significantly reduced immigration flows.
You are now assuming all immigrants make a net contribution to the exchequer. That isn't true.
In fact, to an even greater extent than the UK working population, the net benefit is likely to come from a relatively small subset of higher earners.
We could improve and refine the situation still further by adopting a proposal like Robert's of charging a hefty fee on would-be immigrants and requiring them to purchase private health insurance up front as well.
It sure is. But it's also true that there is plenty of space in England - especially in the north, where brownfield sites are plentiful. The problem is that London and the south-east are such a magnet. That is one of our huge challenges, whether in or out of the EU.
Southern England is where the jobs and the economic growth are. Scotland could, over a relatively brief period and with investment in housing, probably cope with another million people but it doesn't matter because they are not going to come.
Our migration policies must recognise these realities. When the EU was a very small club of countries on broadly the same standard of living freedom of movement made some sort of sense. In a greatly expanded Europe with very wide differentials in living standards it does not. And as the largest source of jobs speaking the lingua franca of the age it is a major problem for us.
If your object is an integrated state with a single unified economy like the EZ the freedom of movement policy still makes sense in the same way that Americans could always travel to California (not that they were always welcome when they got there). If, however, you do not want to be a part of that integrated state it really makes no sense whatsoever.
It makes sense if you are opposed to sharp tax hikes and/or savage public spending cuts. Both of which would be unavoidable if we significantly reduced immigration flows.
No it doesn't. We can argue the figures forever but the best case scenario is that EU immigrants broadly wash their faces in terms of their net contribution to the public purse with an above average employment rate but below average earnings generating entitlements to in work benefits. Immigration does boost our economic growth but our per capita output is pretty well static so we may have more public services but they are spread over more people.
Anyway, I must away to earn more cash for George. He needs it, apparently.
I live in a smugly Liberal area. Most people are not concerned with immigration (except travellers). They are very pro the Green Belt, and they hate 'attacks' on it.
But when you try to point out the link between immigration and the shortage of housing, and thus the pressure on the Green Belt, they get uncomfortable. They become defensive and illogical.
"95 houses have recently been completed in the next village. None has been bought by immigrants. Therefore there is no link."
It is not that they are too stupid to understand that if the population is significantly increased, it will exacerbate housing shortages.
It is that they don't want to see it.
How many Leavers are prepared to make the case for the major spending cuts and tax hikes substantially reducing the amount of immigration will lead to, or the big falls in house prices?
If Brexit wins, and immigration is reduced, it will not be all good. Accepted. But it won't be tough to sell the idea that fewer immigrants would be more good than bad.
I live in a smugly Liberal area. Most people are not concerned with immigration (except travellers). They are very pro the Green Belt, and they hate 'attacks' on it.
But when you try to point out the link between immigration and the shortage of housing, and thus the pressure on the Green Belt, they get uncomfortable. They become defensive and illogical.
"95 houses have recently been completed in the next village. None has been bought by immigrants. Therefore there is no link."
It is not that they are too stupid to understand that if the population is significantly increased, it will exacerbate housing shortages.
It is that they don't want to see it.
How many Leavers are prepared to make the case for the major spending cuts and tax hikes substantially reducing the amount of immigration will lead to, or the big falls in house prices?
Hilarious, because all those farm workers and people doing other menial jobs are paying bumper levels of tax?
The threshold to be a net economic contributor is a salary of about £32k.
You dont become a net contributor on national minimum wage, paying virtually no income tax, and taking home £6k in tax credits and £2.5k in child benefit.
Utter fanciful to believe that this is in anyway a contribution to the exchequer.
You might argue that they keep food prices lower and that will have an impact in the supermarket, but it will make little to no meaningful difference to public expenditure.
I live in a smugly Liberal area. Most people are not concerned with immigration (except travellers). They are very pro the Green Belt, and they hate 'attacks' on it.
But when you try to point out the link between immigration and the shortage of housing, and thus the pressure on the Green Belt, they get uncomfortable. They become defensive and illogical.
"95 houses have recently been completed in the next village. None has been bought by immigrants. Therefore there is no link."
It is not that they are too stupid to understand that if the population is significantly increased, it will exacerbate housing shortages.
It is that they don't want to see it.
How many Leavers are prepared to make the case for the major spending cuts and tax hikes substantially reducing the amount of immigration will lead to, or the big falls in house prices?
I'll have a go.
Anybody on this site could find ways to cut public spending, we all know people who work in NHS and education, vital services where there is evident waste. Try military procurement too. And the unsustainable pensions offered to the public sector.
House prices falling would be good news, more people could buy and rents would fall. I'm tired of hearing how people bought a house for sixpence and now its worth £2million. Its where you live, not an investment.
And as pointed out, if we manage immigration and focus on productivity there is no reason to suggest the economy would slow down. Its moot whether the economy is doing well anyway, the worse off aren't feeling it.
I live in a smugly Liberal area. Most people are not concerned with immigration (except travellers). They are very pro the Green Belt, and they hate 'attacks' on it.
But when you try to point out the link between immigration and the shortage of housing, and thus the pressure on the Green Belt, they get uncomfortable. They become defensive and illogical.
"95 houses have recently been completed in the next village. None has been bought by immigrants. Therefore there is no link."
It is not that they are too stupid to understand that if the population is significantly increased, it will exacerbate housing shortages.
It is that they don't want to see it.
How many Leavers are prepared to make the case for the major spending cuts and tax hikes substantially reducing the amount of immigration will lead to, or the big falls in house prices?
SO - you are generally an intelligent poster. Please don't degenerate into a Richard N-type repetitive spinner.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
Because we have an ageing and more unproductive population. Before the boom of the late 80s there was mass unemployment. We don't have that now.
We've had an ageing population for about 250 years.
Is that true, even while the population was rocketing during the 19th century?
Australia and Canada are for all practical purposes empty with ribbons of population around the coast and along the US border. Space is really not an issue, it is more what the economy can absorb at any particular time.
The UK, and in particular England are not in that position. Hundreds of thousands of people coming to a country who find it impossible to build enough houses for its current population is a problem. We find it difficult to build the houses because to do so we have to give up more of our space and accept population densities that our traffic infrastructure cannot really cope with.
But as I said earlier, the idea this is all going to magically change because we are not in the EU is, well, oversold.
It sure is. But it's also true that there is plenty of space in England - especially in the north, where brownfield sites are plentiful. The problem is that London and the south-east are such a magnet. That is one of our huge challenges, whether in or out of the EU.
Southern England is where the jobs and the economic growth are. Scotland could, over a relatively brief period and with investment in housing, probably cope with another million people but it doesn't matter because they are not going to come.
Our migration policies must recognise these realities. When the EU was a very small club of countries on broadly the same standard of living freedom of movement made some sort ofmericans could always travel to California (not that they were always welcome when they got there). If, however, you do not want to be a part of that integrated state it really makes no sense whatsoever.
It makes sense if you are opposed to sharp tax hikes and/or savage public spending cuts. Both of which would be unavoidable if we significantly reduced immigration flows.
You are now assuming all immigrants make a net contribution to the exchequer. That isn't true.
In fact, to an even greater extent than the UK working population, the net benefit is likely to come from a relatively small subset of higher earners.
We could improve and refine the situation still further by adopting a proposal like Robert's of charging a hefty fee on would-be immigrants and requiring them to purchase private health insurance up front as well.
I am assuming that EU immigrants do. And all the evidence I have seen indicates that is the case. Non-EU immigration does entail giving entry to a far higher proportion of non-productive, less educated individuals. But we do have the ability now to control that.
I live in a smugly Liberal area. Most people are not concerned with immigration (except travellers). They are very pro the Green Belt, and they hate 'attacks' on it.
But when you try to point out the link between immigration and the shortage of housing, and thus the pressure on the Green Belt, they get uncomfortable. They become defensive and illogical.
"95 houses have recently been completed in the next village. None has been bought by immigrants. Therefore there is no link."
It is not that they are too stupid to understand that if the population is significantly increased, it will exacerbate housing shortages.
It is that they don't want to see it.
How many Leavers are prepared to make the case for the major spending cuts and tax hikes substantially reducing the amount of immigration will lead to, or the big falls in house prices?
I am.
'generation rent' will finally be able to buy a house as wages rise with reduced competiton from low wage immigrants.
taxes will fall when we get the billions from the EU.
Expensive houses will still be expensive as there is no conceivable shortage of tax avoiding foriegners hiding their money in london.
I live in a smugly Liberal area. Most people are not concerned with immigration (except travellers). They are very pro the Green Belt, and they hate 'attacks' on it.
But when you try to point out the link between immigration and the shortage of housing, and thus the pressure on the Green Belt, they get uncomfortable. They become defensive and illogical.
"95 houses have recently been completed in the next village. None has been bought by immigrants. Therefore there is no link."
It is not that they are too stupid to understand that if the population is significantly increased, it will exacerbate housing shortages.
It is that they don't want to see it.
How many Leavers are prepared to make the case for the major spending cuts and tax hikes substantially reducing the amount of immigration will lead to, or the big falls in house prices?
You could cut immigration to zero and there would still be increases in demand for housing, because of the birth-rate in this country (caused in turn by having already let in several million young, fertile migrants). There will be a natural pool of young Brits to feed the worker hopper as the elderly drop out of it.
You have made no case for their being "major" spending cuts and tax hikes. There would be no "big" falls in house prices either, especially if you allow foreign nationals to buy property here without living in it full time.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
Surely the ageing population is a healthier and more productive one than those in the 1980s ?
The kind that can wind down into it's retirement doing the kind of work that is often being done by new arrivals? A move to partial retirement rather than constantly shifting the retirement age is something worthy of consideration.
The important thing with Australia is that they have control over both the quality and quantity of new arrivals, which they can adjust up and down according to their national need and situation.
Introduce that and combine it with Cameron's intelligent approach to refugee settlement and we could have a more content society, and certainly one where it is much easier to plan public spending, infrastructure development and so on.
If voting Leave to significantly reduce immigration is a vote for working into your 70s don't you think people should be told?
Who won't be working into their seventies?
Public secctor workers will be relatively ok, the private sector will pay the price. Read this site, the public sector workers stick out a mile.
As far as I can tell there are very few public service workers active on this site.
Agreed, you can spot them a mile off.
Yes they are usually massively aggrieved because they might have to work until 63, and that their pension, which is not based on how much theyve put in, but how long theyve being doing it, might end up being based on an average of their working salary not their final salary.
It sure is. But it's also true that there is plenty of space in England - especially in the north, where brownfield sites are plentiful. The problem is that London and the south-east are such a magnet. That is one of our huge challenges, whether in or out of the EU.
Southern England is where the jobs and the economic growth are. Scotland could, over a relatively brief period and with investment in housing, probably cope with another million people but it doesn't matter because they are not going to come.
Our migration policies must recognise these realities. When the EU was a very small club of countries on broadly the same standard of living freedom of movement made some sort of sense. In a greatly expanded Europe with very wide differentials in living standards it does not. And as the largest source of jobs speaking the lingua franca of the age it is a major problem for us.
If your object is an integrated state with a single unified economy like the EZ the freedom of movement policy still makes sense in the same way that Americans could always travel to California (not that they were always welcome when they got there). If, however, you do not want to be a part of that integrated state it really makes no sense whatsoever.
It makes sense if you are opposed to sharp tax hikes and/or savage public spending cuts. Both of which would be unavoidable if we significantly reduced immigration flows.
No it doesn't. We can argue the figures forever but the best case scenario is that EU immigrants broadly wash their faces in terms of their net contribution to the public purse with an above average employment rate but below average earnings generating entitlements to in work benefits. Immigration does boost our economic growth but our per capita output is pretty well static so we may have more public services but they are spread over more people.
Anyway, I must away to earn more cash for George. He needs it, apparently.
George has to hit targets you are fully signed up to.
So Hillary scrapes home in Kentucky, her first win since the northeast primaries but the victory of Sanders in Oregon ensures he will keep his campaign going until California and the final primaries at the beginning of next month
The rather strange Jacob Rees Mogg spent the weekend suggesting that the Tories would stay together post referendum because they would remain "courteous". Fast forward a couple of days and he has accused his leader of lying and demanded his resignation. It really is increasingly hard to see a post referendum forgive and forget amongst the Conservatives... Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch *popcorn*
I am surprised more hasn't been made of Piri Patel saying that George Osborne colluded with the IMF to bully us. Clearly, she can't work in the same government as GO post-referendum.
So you reckon Osborne will be on his way out then?
If Leave win, as I expect them to, then unquestionably. Our government will move even further to the right.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
Because we have an ageing and more unproductive population. Before the boom of the late 80s there was mass unemployment. We don't have that now.
We've had an ageing population for about 250 years.
Is that true, even while the population was rocketing during the 19th century?
The rocketing population would have partly been a function of great advances in medicine and public health works on sanitation, which would have extended lifespans across all age groups.
The rather strange Jacob Rees Mogg spent the weekend suggesting that the Tories would stay together post referendum because they would remain "courteous". Fast forward a couple of days and he has accused his leader of lying and demanded his resignation. It really is increasingly hard to see a post referendum forgive and forget amongst the Conservatives... Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch *popcorn*
I am surprised more hasn't been made of Piri Patel saying that George Osborne colluded with the IMF to bully us. Clearly, she can't work in the same government as GO post-referendum.
So you reckon Osborne will be on his way out then?
If Leave win, as I expect them to, then unquestionably. Our government will move even further to the right.
I do wish you'd stop saying that.
Your predictions are always wrong.
Nah, he predicted the Tories winning the last election.
Re US presidentials. Now could well be the time to back Trump again if you haven't already. His favourability ratings have improved somewhat (albeit from subterranean levels) over the last month and a half, and Hillary continues to under-perform. Nearly losing Kentucky? Not the sort of result she should be getting at this stage. Oregon more expected but still hardly impressive.
More seriously, her net lead on favourability over Trump has been seriously eroded to the point where he's now within range. At the beginning of April, she held a 17% net lead over him, -14 to -31; that gap is now down to just 5.5%, -13.5 to -19. With five and a half months to go, that's far too close for confidence. Yes, she's still in the better position but Trump now has a viable path to the White House
Kentucky was a great nail-biter - anyone know which state has been the tightest so far? No wonder Bernie is pushing on.
Last night over 2 States Bernie closed the gap in delegates by 4. He is currently 279 behind according to RCP. This is a ridiculous waste of time and energy.
Clinton isn't willing to give him a job (or he isn't willing to take one).
So he is pushing an agenda - and demonstrating that it has a lot of support in his party. That's not a waste of time and energy for him
I never quite get this platform nonsense in US politics. At the end of the day it is a very personalised political system. Clinton will be the nominee and what she says goes because she is, if successful, going to hold the office. Once she is the nominee, which she will be after California, who cares how many delegates Bernie got? He lost. Who cares what he thinks the policy should be? He is not running for office.
In fairness Clinton herself kept going after Obama 8 years ago long after she had clearly lost. It is a common phenomena in US politics. It just seems a relic of a different age when the nominee would be told what the party's policy was and would have to abide by it. No one would pretend that happens any more.
Don't forget that the President doesn't actually have that much power to legislate - he (or she) needs to cajole, persuade and bully Representatives and Senators into supporting his agenda. If Bernie can demonstrate that a big % of the party supports a left wing agenda that should make Congressmen more likely to support his agenda vs bow to Clinton's wishes
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
An ageing population. In the eighties and nineties the baby boomers were in their prime working years. As I pointed out previously the projected population increase by the ONS over the next decades has a stable working age population. The increase is nearly all in the elderly.
Surely the ageing population is a healthier and more productive one than those in the 1980s ?
The kind that can wind down into it's retirement doing the kind of work that is often being done by new arrivals? A move to partial retirement rather than constantly shifting the retirement age is something worthy of consideration.
The important thing with Australia is that they have control over both the quality and quantity of new arrivals, which they can adjust up and down according to their national need and situation.
Introduce that and combine it with Cameron's intelligent approach to refugee settlement and we could have a more content society, and certainly one where it is much easier to plan public spending, infrastructure development and so on.
If voting Leave to significantly reduce immigration is a vote for working into your 70s don't you think people should be told?
People are meant to be working until they are 66-68 now.
How many find themselves in protracted spells of unemployment in the period preceding that as the skills/qualifications gained fifty years ago no longer meet employer needs and the unskilled labour market is awash with new arrivals?
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
Because we have an ageing and more unproductive population. Before the boom of the late 80s there was mass unemployment. We don't have that now.
We've had an ageing population for about 250 years.
Is that true, even while the population was rocketing during the 19th century?
The rocketing population would have partly been a function of great advances in medicine and public health works on sanitation, which would have extended lifespans across all age groups.
But population grew just as fast in the first half of the 19th century, before the Victorian public health improvements.
The rather strange Jacob Rees Mogg spent the weekend suggesting that the Tories would stay together post referendum because they would remain "courteous". Fast forward a couple of days and he has accused his leader of lying and demanded his resignation. It really is increasingly hard to see a post referendum forgive and forget amongst the Conservatives... Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch *popcorn*
I am surprised more hasn't been made of Piri Patel saying that George Osborne colluded with the IMF to bully us. Clearly, she can't work in the same government as GO post-referendum.
So you reckon Osborne will be on his way out then?
If Leave win, as I expect them to, then unquestionably. Our government will move even further to the right.
I do wish you'd stop saying that.
Your predictions are always wrong.
Nah, he predicted the Tories winning the last election.
And Arsenal finishing above Spurs, to my profit :-)
I'm in the joyous departure lounge at Luton airport. Don't know where cchq are sending me to tinker with time zones on blogs.
On topic, I would have thought the ramification of a low interest topic would be reflected in a low turnout. It depends if either side convince the great British public that there is a connection between EU and issues further up the concern ladder.
Alastair has done a really good leader, but I don't think turnout will actually be low. The Don't Knows who I meet don't think it's not important, they just feel it's hard to get a grip on what's best, and in some cases they're not sure they want to bother, or that they reckon they could really see all round the issue if they did. So they will vote, but without great analysis.
As Alastair says, we have MUCH more in common with each other than the not-that-involved section of the public. True at elections too. It's why MPs tend to rub along well personally even when they shout at each other in public. They are colleagues in an environment that thinks their work both largely uninteresting and poorly executed.
I am assuming that EU immigrants do. And all the evidence I have seen indicates that is the case. Non-EU immigration does entail giving entry to a far higher proportion of non-productive, less educated individuals. But we do have the ability now to control that.
---------------------------------
My comment is true about EU immigration too, though not to the same extent. A large chunk of EU immigrants work in relatively poorly-paid jobs that will be beneath the break-even point as far as net exchequer contributions are concerned.
And of course, insofar as their inflow pushes down or restrains wages of natives too, that is also negative for the exchequer.
The rather strange Jacob Rees Mogg spent the weekend suggesting that the Tories would stay together post referendum because they would remain "courteous". Fast forward a couple of days and he has accused his leader of lying and demanded his resignation. It really is increasingly hard to see a post referendum forgive and forget amongst the Conservatives... Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch *popcorn*
I am surprised more hasn't been made of Piri Patel saying that George Osborne colluded with the IMF to bully us. Clearly, she can't work in the same government as GO post-referendum.
So you reckon Osborne will be on his way out then?
If Leave win, as I expect them to, then unquestionably. Our government will move even further to the right.
I do wish you'd stop saying that.
Your predictions are always wrong.
Nah, he predicted the Tories winning the last election.
And Arsenal finishing above Spurs, to my profit :-)
I hope you enjoy the profit. Spurs season ticket for next season with the profits?
No. The big increase in the elderly is mostly in the over 75's of whom 50% or so self describe as poor health.
That may well be so, but if we look back to the late 1980s for example, the retirement age was respectively 60 for females and 65 for males.
The definition of elderly/pensioner has moved, and economically productive lives have been extended.
That must have translated into millions of additional people available for the labour pool without turning to imported labour.
The proportion of working women has also increased.
I'd like to see more women in senior roles, unofficially women run the country anyway. In general they don't start wars, the % prison population is tiny, they are more conscientious and loyal and lie less. Almost without exception its men that ruin things.
The rather strange Jacob Rees Mogg spent the weekend suggesting that the Tories would stay together post referendum because they would remain "courteous". Fast forward a couple of days and he has accused his leader of lying and demanded his resignation. It really is increasingly hard to see a post referendum forgive and forget amongst the Conservatives... Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch *popcorn*
I am surprised more hasn't been made of Piri Patel saying that George Osborne colluded with the IMF to bully us. Clearly, she can't work in the same government as GO post-referendum.
So you reckon Osborne will be on his way out then?
If Leave win, as I expect them to, then unquestionably. Our government will move even further to the right.
I do wish you'd stop saying that.
Your predictions are always wrong.
Nah, he predicted the Tories winning the last election.
And Arsenal finishing above Spurs, to my profit :-)
I hope you enjoy the profit. Spurs season ticket for next season with the profits?
Re US presidentials. Now could well be the time to back Trump again if you haven't already. His favourability ratings have improved somewhat (albeit from subterranean levels) over the last month and a half, and Hillary continues to under-perform. Nearly losing Kentucky? Not the sort of result she should be getting at this stage. Oregon more expected but still hardly impressive.
More seriously, her net lead on favourability over Trump has been seriously eroded to the point where he's now within range. At the beginning of April, she held a 17% net lead over him, -14 to -31; that gap is now down to just 5.5%, -13.5 to -19. With five and a half months to go, that's far too close for confidence. Yes, she's still in the better position but Trump now has a viable path to the White House
Kentucky was a great nail-biter - anyone know which state has been the tightest so far? No wonder Bernie is pushing on.
Last night over 2 States Bernie closed the gap in delegates by 4. He is currently 279 behind according to RCP. This is a ridiculous waste of time and energy.
Clinton isn't willing to give him a job (or he isn't willing to take one).
So he is pushing an agenda - and demonstrating that it has a lot of support in his party. That's not a waste of time and energy for him
I never quite get this platform nonsense in US politics. At the end of the day it is a very personalised political system. Clinton will be the nominee and what she says goes because she is, if successful, going to hold the office. Once she is the nominee, which she will be after California, who cares how many delegates Bernie got? He lost. Who cares what he thinks the policy should be? He is not running for office.
In fairness Clinton herself kept going after Obama 8 years ago long after she had clearly lost. It is a common phenomena in US politics. It just seems a relic of a different age when the nominee would be told what the party's policy was and would have to abide by it. No one would pretend that happens any more.
Don't forget that the President doesn't actually have that much power to legislate - he (or she) needs to cajole, persuade and bully Representatives and Senators into supporting his agenda. If Bernie can demonstrate that a big % of the party supports a left wing agenda that should make Congressmen more likely to support his agenda vs bow to Clinton's wishes
Isn't that one of the big gripes with Obama? He keeps using Executive Orders to ram stuff through? I'm not familiar enough with the details here.
No. The big increase in the elderly is mostly in the over 75's of whom 50% or so self describe as poor health.
That may well be so, but if we look back to the late 1980s for example, the retirement age was respectively 60 for females and 65 for males.
The definition of elderly/pensioner has moved, and economically productive lives have been extended.
That must have translated into millions of additional people available for the labour pool without turning to imported labour.
The proportion of working women has also increased.
What you find, which is a curious observation, in areas of the UK which have had very low levels of immigration, those jobs that we desperately needed immigrants to do... Guess what, they still got done, but are done in larger numbers by working women.
It is a curious phenomena. Bus drivers, taxi drivers, factory processing etc, done by women in larger numbers.
Since the EU enlargement though, previously largely untouched, the larger eastern european population means that the many jobs often done by youngsters, and the agricultural work has now become what seems exclusively by those.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
Because we have an ageing and more unproductive population. Before the boom of the late 80s there was mass unemployment. We don't have that now.
We've had an ageing population for about 250 years.
Is that true, even while the population was rocketing during the 19th century?
Very much so. There were occasional periods (I think the 1840's was one) where life expectancy fell, but it's been pretty much one way since the Industrial Revolution started.
Average life expectancy in 1800 was about 30. That average figure was depressed by high infant death rates, but very few working class people could expect to to live or work beyond 50.
So Hillary scrapes home in Kentucky, her first win since the northeast primaries but the victory of Sanders in Oregon ensures he will keep his campaign going until California and the final primaries at the beginning of next month
Just as Clinton did to Obama in 08 when Clinton was winning states through to the end.
Australia has a population of 23 million, so equivalent to about half a million migrants re-based to a UK population. Australia with its points system has twice the percapita immigration that we do. I recall the figures for Canada are pretty similar.
I believe the reason behind a points-based system is to sift based on quality, not quantity.
Is there a qualitatitve difference between the Australian and UK net migration?
I think only about a quarter of Australian migrants come through on the point based system. Most, like with immigration from the Indian subcontinent to the UK, comes via family connections and the like.
What makes my blood boil is that if one of these illegals manages to make it to the UK, then is granted asylum, suddenly there's a myriad of family members who have to be allowed in because of the 'right to a family life'
And of course they can then avail themselves of all the services free of charge and free of ever paying any taxes previously. There are always some genuine cases of course and we should certainly not turn our backs in those circumstances. As soon as the " right to family life" card is played you know it's as good as a scam. Remember the 3000 children we have just saved from the appalling, inhumane conditions of the life threatening war zone in northern France. No doubt families will follow under the right to a family life.
Re US presidentials. Now could well be the time to back Trump again if you haven't already. His favourability ratings have improved somewhat (albeit from subterranean levels) over the last month and a half, and Hillary continues to under-perform. Nearly losing Kentucky? Not the sort of result she should be getting at this stage. Oregon more expected but still hardly impressive.
More seriously, her net lead on favourability over Trump has been seriously eroded to the point where he's now within range. At the beginning of April, she held a 17% net lead over him, -14 to -31; that gap is now down to just 5.5%, -13.5 to -19. With five and a half months to go, that's far too close for confidence. Yes, she's still in the better position but Trump now has a viable path to the White House
Kentucky was a great nail-biter - anyone know which state has been the tightest so far? No wonder Bernie is pushing on.
Definitional as not all contests are counted the same way but it's probably still Iowa. Had that gone the other way, particularly had it been followed up by a Sanders win in Nevada (which given a well-organised caucus and the momentum that a win in Iowa would have given him isn't out of the question), we'd now be in a very different race. But that's one for alternate history fans.
I shake my head when anybody describes this govt as "right wing". Cameron is a pillock, he's not a "right wing" pillock.
I feel I've got Blair MkII now - only worse as I lent Tony my vote. I signed up for Cameron, boy do I feel stupid - and cheated.
I could get all smug and say I told you so ;-)
I can't ever remember a PM held in such contempt by his own people, at least Labour had the decency to let Blair step down before they turned. Regardless of the referendum, witnessing Cameron's defenestration will be fun, schadenfreude at its best, seeing a bully bullied.
Perhaps some of those more attuned to the niceties of Holyrood can advise:
Yesterday Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister ignored the glares of a crammed Scottish Parliament by hugging her close friend Shona Robison, Mr Hosie’s wife.
But Miss Sturgeon refused to offer a single supportive word for Ms Robison’s husband after his admission that their marriage was over.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
Because we have an ageing and more unproductive population. Before the boom of the late 80s there was mass unemployment. We don't have that now.
We've had an ageing population for about 250 years.
Is that true, even while the population was rocketing during the 19th century?
Very much so. There were occasional periods (I think the 1840's was one) where life expectancy fell, but it's been pretty much one way since the Industrial Revolution started.
Average life expectancy in 1800 was about 30. That average figure was depressed by high infant death rates, but very few working class people could expect to to live or work beyond 50.
Look at how the 'dependency ratio' has dropped since, say 1800, as well. On the arguments used by mass immigration fans, the exchequer should have run dry and the economy run into the ground long since. There is this thing called productivity growth though...
Re US presidentials. Now could well be the time to back Trump again if you haven't already. His favourability ratings have improved somewhat (albeit from subterranean levels) over the last month and a half, and Hillary continues to under-perform. Nearly losing Kentucky? Not the sort of result she should be getting at this stage. Oregon more expected but still hardly impressive.
More seriously, her net lead on favourability over Trump has been seriously eroded to the point where he's now within range. At the beginning of April, she held a 17% net lead over him, -14 to -31; that gap is now down to just 5.5%, -13.5 to -19. With five and a half months to go, that's far too close for confidence. Yes, she's still in the better position but Trump now has a viable path to the White House
Kentucky was a great nail-biter - anyone know which state has been the tightest so far? No wonder Bernie is pushing on.
Last night over 2 States Bernie closed the gap in delegates by 4. He is currently 279 behind according to RCP. This is a ridiculous waste of time and energy.
Clinton isn't willing to give him a job (or he isn't willing to take one).
So he is pushing an agenda - and demonstrating that it has a lot of support in his party. That's not a waste of time and energy for him
I never quite get this platform nonsense in US politics. At the end of the day it is a very personalised political system. Clinton will be the nominee and what she says goes because she is, if successful, going to hold the office. Once she is the nominee, which she will be after California, who cares how many delegates Bernie got? He lost. Who cares what he thinks the policy should be? He is not running for office.
In fairness Clinton herself kept going after Obama 8 years ago long after she had clearly lost. It is a common phenomena in US politics. It just seems a relic of a different age when the nominee would be told what the party's policy was and would have to abide by it. No one would pretend that happens any more.
Sanders did win Oregon last night though had he lost there and Kentucky it would have been more difficult for him to have any momentum to press on. In 2012 Ron Paul stayed in well after Romney had won and he barely won a state from that point
The rather strange Jacob Rees Mogg spent the weekend suggesting that the Tories would stay together post referendum because they would remain "courteous". Fast forward a couple of days and he has accused his leader of lying and demanded his resignation. It really is increasingly hard to see a post referendum forgive and forget amongst the Conservatives... Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch *popcorn*
I am surprised more hasn't been made of Piri Patel saying that George Osborne colluded with the IMF to bully us. Clearly, she can't work in the same government as GO post-referendum.
So you reckon Osborne will be on his way out then?
If Leave win, as I expect them to, then unquestionably. Our government will move even further to the right.
I do wish you'd stop saying that.
Your predictions are always wrong.
Nah, he predicted the Tories winning the last election.
And Arsenal finishing above Spurs, to my profit :-)
I hope you enjoy the profit. Spurs season ticket for next season with the profits?
Why pay to be made miserable?
Won't get one anyway, numbers reduced part of the North Stand coming down.
Last night over 2 States Bernie closed the gap in delegates by 4. He is currently 279 behind according to RCP. This is a ridiculous waste of time and energy.
He's pushing Hillary leftwards though - and it's a great last hurrah for his career. I wouldn't pack it in either!
Yes, plato's right. I know Clinton Democrats, and they aren't too bothered. By November nobody's going to care exactly when Benie called it a day. So long as Bernie keeps it reasonably civil and never suggests in any way that Trump might be better than Clinton, it'll be fine, and arguably gives the Democrats more news coverage than if it was all done an dusted.
No. The big increase in the elderly is mostly in the over 75's of whom 50% or so self describe as poor health.
That may well be so, but if we look back to the late 1980s for example, the retirement age was respectively 60 for females and 65 for males.
The definition of elderly/pensioner has moved, and economically productive lives have been extended.
That must have translated into millions of additional people available for the labour pool without turning to imported labour.
The proportion of working women has also increased.
I'd like to see more women in senior roles, unofficially women run the country anyway. In general they don't start wars, the % prison population is tiny, they are more conscientious and loyal and lie less. Almost without exception its men that ruin things.
So the more male foetuses that get aborted, the better, eh?
Australia has a population of 23 million, so equivalent to about half a million migrants re-based to a UK population. Australia with its points system has twice the percapita immigration that we do. I recall the figures for Canada are pretty similar.
I believe the reason behind a points-based system is to sift based on quality, not quantity.
Is there a qualitatitve difference between the Australian and UK net migration?
I think only about a quarter of Australian migrants come through on the point based system. Most, like with immigration from the Indian subcontinent to the UK, comes via family connections and the like.
What makes my blood boil is that if one of these illegals manages to make it to the UK, then is granted asylum, suddenly there's a myriad of family members who have to be allowed in because of the 'right to a family life'
And of course they can then avail themselves of all the services free of charge and free of ever paying any taxes previously. There are always some genuine cases of course and we should certainly not turn our backs in those circumstances. As soon as the " right to family life" card is played you know it's as good as a scam. Remember the 3000 children we have just saved from the appalling, inhumane conditions of the life threatening war zone in northern France. No doubt families will follow under the right to a family life.
I have read that savvy migrants stay for just less than a year, *go home*, reclaim their tax and return. Is there evidence for this?
No. The big increase in the elderly is mostly in the over 75's of whom 50% or so self describe as poor health.
That may well be so, but if we look back to the late 1980s for example, the retirement age was respectively 60 for females and 65 for males.
The definition of elderly/pensioner has moved, and economically productive lives have been extended.
That must have translated into millions of additional people available for the labour pool without turning to imported labour.
The proportion of working women has also increased.
What you find, which is a curious observation, in areas of the UK which have had very low levels of immigration, those jobs that we desperately needed immigrants to do... Guess what, they still got done, but are done in larger numbers by working women.
It is a curious phenomena. Bus drivers, taxi drivers, factory processing etc, done by women in larger numbers.
Since the EU enlargement though, previously largely untouched, the larger eastern european population means that the many jobs often done by youngsters, and the agricultural work has now become what seems exclusively by those.
More broadly, what we observed in the 1980s when the economy was growing strongly and demand for labour with it, was a sharp rise in the participation ratio - people coming off the sidelines into work. The domestic labour supply is more elastic than we sometimes assume.
How many Leavers are prepared to make the case for the major spending cuts and tax hikes substantially reducing the amount of immigration will lead to, or the big falls in house prices?
This argument is flawed because it presumes that all immigration adds value.
Some doesn't. Some is a financial and structural burden. You really don't have to go far to find it in London.
The rather strange Jacob Rees Mogg spent the weekend suggesting that the Tories would stay together post referendum because they would remain "courteous". Fast forward a couple of days and he has accused his leader of lying and demanded his resignation. It really is increasingly hard to see a post referendum forgive and forget amongst the Conservatives... Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch *popcorn*
I am surprised more hasn't been made of Piri Patel saying that George Osborne colluded with the IMF to bully us. Clearly, she can't work in the same government as GO post-referendum.
So you reckon Osborne will be on his way out then?
If Leave win, as I expect them to, then unquestionably. Our government will move even further to the right.
I do wish you'd stop saying that.
Your predictions are always wrong.
You could always call for SO to be banned. Just like you do for others whose message you don't like or disagree with.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
Because we have an ageing and more unproductive population. Before the boom of the late 80s there was mass unemployment. We don't have that now.
We've had an ageing population for about 250 years.
Is that true, even while the population was rocketing during the 19th century?
Very much so. There were occasional periods (I think the 1840's was one) where life expectancy fell, but it's been pretty much one way since the Industrial Revolution started.
Average life expectancy in 1800 was about 30. That average figure was depressed by high infant death rates, but very few working class people could expect to to live or work beyond 50.
There are quite a lot of societal things we need to do to improve the number of older workers. Participation rates for the over 60s are woeful in the UK compared with some other countries.
The rather strange Jacob Rees Mogg spent the weekend suggesting that the Tories would stay together post referendum because they would remain "courteous". Fast forward a couple of days and he has accused his leader of lying and demanded his resignation. It really is increasingly hard to see a post referendum forgive and forget amongst the Conservatives... Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch *popcorn*
I am surprised more hasn't been made of Piri Patel saying that George Osborne colluded with the IMF to bully us. Clearly, she can't work in the same government as GO post-referendum.
So you reckon Osborne will be on his way out then?
If Leave win, as I expect them to, then unquestionably. Our government will move even further to the right.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
Because we have an ageing and more unproductive population. Before the boom of the late 80s there was mass unemployment. We don't have that now.
We've had an ageing population for about 250 years.
Is that true, even while the population was rocketing during the 19th century?
The rocketing population would have partly been a function of great advances in medicine and public health works on sanitation, which would have extended lifespans across all age groups.
IIRC, if you look at stats the significant increase in average lifespan was a function of the collapse in infant mortality.
If you survived beyond 5 in the 19th century, then you actually had a pretty good life-expectancy
The "the EU isn't important, no one cites it as a top issue" is a complete misreading of the data.
Sure few people put "the EU' as one of their issues. But when you think through what they actually care about - immigration is the obvious one - then when you consider solutions out relationship with the EU *has* to be part of the answer (whichever side of the argument you are on).
Once people focus on a vote, and if they come to the conclusion that the EU is indelibly linked to an important issue then it becomes an important topic for them. That is, I think, what has happened here.
Frankly, I don't think people are focusing upon the vote, most are sick and tired of hearing about it. When you here Boris ranting like a loony, and Dave talking nonsense, then for "good" measure you get the bar room bore Farage ranting, most sensible people switch off. Its got to the state that the truth has become lost, and in reality NOONE knows what would happen if we left.. Guesses can be made, but no one knows for sure.
That's probably true. But people who say "no one puts the EU as top of their list of issues therefore no one cares" are simply wrong.
It's like saying "no one cares about membership of the MPC, therefore no one cares about interest rate policy"
I heard on radio yesterday an economist who said that economists are 10 to 1 in favour of staying in because they know the economic damage that will be caused if we leave. An equally articulate Brexiteer said that economic forcasts are not an exact science.
The economist replied that that was true. He said no economist can tell you that the stock market will fall next Wednesday but what we can say with absolute certainty is that in the event of leaving it will collapse.
Last night over 2 States Bernie closed the gap in delegates by 4. He is currently 279 behind according to RCP. This is a ridiculous waste of time and energy.
He's pushing Hillary leftwards though - and it's a great last hurrah for his career. I wouldn't pack it in either!
Yes, plato's right. I know Clinton Democrats, and they aren't too bothered. By November nobody's going to care exactly when Benie called it a day. So long as Bernie keeps it reasonably civil and never suggests in any way that Trump might be better than Clinton, it'll be fine, and arguably gives the Democrats more news coverage than if it was all done an dusted.
Indeed and Trump won only about 65% in Oregon last night, hardly the almost unanimous support you would expect when he effectively the only candidate left on the ballot
The rather strange Jacob Rees Mogg spent the weekend suggesting that the Tories would stay together post referendum because they would remain "courteous". Fast forward a couple of days and he has accused his leader of lying and demanded his resignation. It really is increasingly hard to see a post referendum forgive and forget amongst the Conservatives... Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch *popcorn*
I am surprised more hasn't been made of Piri Patel saying that George Osborne colluded with the IMF to bully us. Clearly, she can't work in the same government as GO post-referendum.
So you reckon Osborne will be on his way out then?
If Leave win, as I expect them to, then unquestionably. Our government will move even further to the right.
I do wish you'd stop saying that.
Your predictions are always wrong.
You could always call for SO to be banned. Just like you do for others whose message you don't like or disagree with.
I never quite get this platform nonsense in US politics. At the end of the day it is a very personalised political system. Clinton will be the nominee and what she says goes because she is, if successful, going to hold the office. Once she is the nominee, which she will be after California, who cares how many delegates Bernie got? He lost. Who cares what he thinks the policy should be? He is not running for office.
In fairness Clinton herself kept going after Obama 8 years ago long after she had clearly lost. It is a common phenomena in US politics. It just seems a relic of a different age when the nominee would be told what the party's policy was and would have to abide by it. No one would pretend that happens any more.
Don't forget that the President doesn't actually have that much power to legislate - he (or she) needs to cajole, persuade and bully Representatives and Senators into supporting his agenda. If Bernie can demonstrate that a big % of the party supports a left wing agenda that should make Congressmen more likely to support his agenda vs bow to Clinton's wishes
Isn't that one of the big gripes with Obama? He keeps using Executive Orders to ram stuff through? I'm not familiar enough with the details here.
Yes - in his case the GOP has a majority in both houses (I think) but instead of working with the legislature he is trying to ignore what the Framers envisaged as a political system
The "the EU isn't important, no one cites it as a top issue" is a complete misreading of the data.
Sure few people put "the EU' as one of their issues. But when you think through what they actually care about - immigration is the obvious one - then when you consider solutions out relationship with the EU *has* to be part of the answer (whichever side of the argument you are on).
Once people focus on a vote, and if they come to the conclusion that the EU is indelibly linked to an important issue then it becomes an important topic for them. That is, I think, what has happened here.
Frankly, I don't think people are focusing upon the vote, most are sick and tired of hearing about it. When you here Boris ranting like a loony, and Dave talking nonsense, then for "good" measure you get the bar room bore Farage ranting, most sensible people switch off. Its got to the state that the truth has become lost, and in reality NOONE knows what would happen if we left.. Guesses can be made, but no one knows for sure.
That's probably true. But people who say "no one puts the EU as top of their list of issues therefore no one cares" are simply wrong.
It's like saying "no one cares about membership of the MPC, therefore no one cares about interest rate policy"
I heard on radio yesterday an economist who said that economists are 10 to 1 in favour of staying in because they know the economic damage that will be caused if we leave. An equally articulate Brexiteer said that economic forcasts are not an exact science.
The economist replied that that was true. He said no economist can tell you that the stock market will fall next Wednesday but what we can say with absolute certainty is that in the event of leaving it will collapse.
The rather strange Jacob Rees Mogg spent the weekend suggesting that the Tories would stay together post referendum because they would remain "courteous". Fast forward a couple of days and he has accused his leader of lying and demanded his resignation. It really is increasingly hard to see a post referendum forgive and forget amongst the Conservatives... Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch *popcorn*
I am surprised more hasn't been made of Piri Patel saying that George Osborne colluded with the IMF to bully us. Clearly, she can't work in the same government as GO post-referendum.
So you reckon Osborne will be on his way out then?
If Leave win, as I expect them to, then unquestionably. Our government will move even further to the right.
I do wish you'd stop saying that.
Your predictions are always wrong.
Nah, he predicted the Tories winning the last election.
What was the level of immigration twenty to thirty years ago during the 1980s and 1990s booms? Why does it need to be five/ten times higher now to stop the economy tanking?
Because we have an ageing and more unproductive population. Before the boom of the late 80s there was mass unemployment. We don't have that now.
We've had an ageing population for about 250 years.
Is that true, even while the population was rocketing during the 19th century?
The rocketing population would have partly been a function of great advances in medicine and public health works on sanitation, which would have extended lifespans across all age groups.
IIRC, if you look at stats the significant increase in average lifespan was a function of the collapse in infant mortality.
If you survived beyond 5 in the 19th century, then you actually had a pretty good life-expectancy
Anecdata - my father's parents were born in 1898/1899 - they were from families of 14/15. Only one other sibling lasted to 60+. They lived into their mid-70s.
Australia has a population of 23 million, so equivalent to about half a million migrants re-based to a UK population. Australia with its points system has twice the percapita immigration that we do. I recall the figures for Canada are pretty similar.
I believe the reason behind a points-based system is to sift based on quality, not quantity.
Is there a qualitatitve difference between the Australian and UK net migration?
I think only about a quarter of Australian migrants come through on the point based system. Most, like with immigration from the Indian subcontinent to the UK, comes via family connections and the like.
What makes my blood boil is that if one of these illegals manages to make it to the UK, then is granted asylum, suddenly there's a myriad of family members who have to be allowed in because of the 'right to a family life'
And of course they can then avail themselves of all the services free of charge and free of ever paying any taxes previously. There are always some genuine cases of course and we should certainly not turn our backs in those circumstances. As soon as the " right to family life" card is played you know it's as good as a scam. Remember the 3000 children we have just saved from the appalling, inhumane conditions of the life threatening war zone in northern France. No doubt families will follow under the right to a family life.
Presumably, as we only took on orphans, if the families turn up then the kids right to remain will be automatically rescinded as they must have lied on their application.
No. The big increase in the elderly is mostly in the over 75's of whom 50% or so self describe as poor health.
That may well be so, but if we look back to the late 1980s for example, the retirement age was respectively 60 for females and 65 for males.
The definition of elderly/pensioner has moved, and economically productive lives have been extended.
That must have translated into millions of additional people available for the labour pool without turning to imported labour.
The proportion of working women has also increased.
What you find, which is a curious observation, in areas of the UK which have had very low levels of immigration, those jobs that we desperately needed immigrants to do... Guess what, they still got done, but are done in larger numbers by working women.
It is a curious phenomena. Bus drivers, taxi drivers, factory processing etc, done by women in larger numbers.
Since the EU enlargement though, previously largely untouched, the larger eastern european population means that the many jobs often done by youngsters, and the agricultural work has now become what seems exclusively by those.
Economic migration of low skilled workers affects those on the margin of employment severely - the young, the low skilled, the disabled, the long term unemployed, those with criminal records for example.
Its quite disgusting how willingly some privileged people are to hurt such groups in their desire for cheaper, more servile immigrant labour.
The "the EU isn't important, no one cites it as a top issue" is a complete misreading of the data.
Sure few people put "the EU' as one of their issues. But when you think through what they actually care about - immigration is the obvious one - then when you consider solutions out relationship with the EU *has* to be part of the answer (whichever side of the argument you are on).
Once people focus on a vote, and if they come to the conclusion that the EU is indelibly linked to an important issue then it becomes an important topic for them. That is, I think, what has happened here.
Frankly, I don't think people are focusing upon the vote, most are sick and tired of hearing about it. When you here Boris ranting like a loony, and Dave talking nonsense, then for "good" measure you get the bar room bore Farage ranting, most sensible people switch off. Its got to the state that the truth has become lost, and in reality NOONE knows what would happen if we left.. Guesses can be made, but no one knows for sure.
That's probably true. But people who say "no one puts the EU as top of their list of issues therefore no one cares" are simply wrong.
It's like saying "no one cares about membership of the MPC, therefore no one cares about interest rate policy"
I heard on radio yesterday an economist who said that economists are 10 to 1 in favour of staying in because they know the economic damage that will be caused if we leave. An equally articulate Brexiteer said that economic forcasts are not an exact science.
The economist replied that that was true. He said no economist can tell you that the stock market will fall next Wednesday but what we can say with absolute certainty is that in the event of leaving it will collapse.
Collapse?
So if you can say that "with absolute certainty", by how much?
No. The big increase in the elderly is mostly in the over 75's of whom 50% or so self describe as poor health.
That may well be so, but if we look back to the late 1980s for example, the retirement age was respectively 60 for females and 65 for males.
The definition of elderly/pensioner has moved, and economically productive lives have been extended.
That must have translated into millions of additional people available for the labour pool without turning to imported labour.
The proportion of working women has also increased.
What you find, which is a curious observation, in areas of the UK which have had very low levels of immigration, those jobs that we desperately needed immigrants to do... Guess what, they still got done, but are done in larger numbers by working women.
It is a curious phenomena. Bus drivers, taxi drivers, factory processing etc, done by women in larger numbers.
Since the EU enlargement though, previously largely untouched, the larger eastern european population means that the many jobs often done by youngsters, and the agricultural work has now become what seems exclusively by those.
Economic migration of low skilled workers affects those on the margin of employment severely - the young, the low skilled, the disabled, the long term unemployed, those with criminal records for example.
Its quite disgusting how willingly some privileged people are to hurt such groups in their desire for cheaper, more servile immigrant labour.
On topic, Alastair wins the internet today with this line
With Leave’s condemnations of the EU having moved from forthright to Fourth Reich over the weekend
With prominent Brexiteers calling for people to be sacked, and threatening civil unrest, it does not feel like a campaign imbued with winning confidence...
No. The big increase in the elderly is mostly in the over 75's of whom 50% or so self describe as poor health.
That may well be so, but if we look back to the late 1980s for example, the retirement age was respectively 60 for females and 65 for males.
The definition of elderly/pensioner has moved, and economically productive lives have been extended.
That must have translated into millions of additional people available for the labour pool without turning to imported labour.
The proportion of working women has also increased.
What you find, which is a curious observation, in areas of the UK which have had very low levels of immigration, those jobs that we desperately needed immigrants to do... Guess what, they still got done, but are done in larger numbers by working women.
It is a curious phenomena. Bus drivers, taxi drivers, factory processing etc, done by women in larger numbers.
Since the EU enlargement though, previously largely untouched, the larger eastern european population means that the many jobs often done by youngsters, and the agricultural work has now become what seems exclusively by those.
Economic migration of low skilled workers affects those on the margin of employment severely - the young, the low skilled, the disabled, the long term unemployed, those with criminal records for example.
Its quite disgusting how willingly some privileged people are to hurt such groups in their desire for cheaper, more servile immigrant labour.
Yup. That's my biggest issue with it. Deliberately fostering an Under Class by importing others with better qualifications and more intrinsic get-up-and-go to replace them.
If a Tory suggested this was a cracking idea - the Left would be screaming Evil!!
Comments
So he is pushing an agenda - and demonstrating that it has a lot of support in his party. That's not a waste of time and energy for him
And please don't refer to your Filipino colleague, we've all got friends and colleagues from abroad.
Our migration policies must recognise these realities. When the EU was a very small club of countries on broadly the same standard of living freedom of movement made some sort of sense. In a greatly expanded Europe with very wide differentials in living standards it does not. And as the largest source of jobs speaking the lingua franca of the age it is a major problem for us.
If your object is an integrated state with a single unified economy like the EZ the freedom of movement policy still makes sense in the same way that Americans could always travel to California (not that they were always welcome when they got there). If, however, you do not want to be a part of that integrated state it really makes no sense whatsoever.
The other thing to remember is that a lot of older EU immigrants will end up retiring home.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-polling-turnout-early-voting-data-213897
Priti Patel, the employment minister, and Penny Mordaunt, the armed forces minister, are also judged to have abused their freedom to campaign to leave the EU. However, Chris Grayling, leader of the Commons, is set to keep his cabinet role after sticking to the rules that were supposed to limit criticism of government policy.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/no-10-to-settle-scores-with-revenge-reshuffle-vjh5vx3s0
But when you try to point out the link between immigration and the shortage of housing, and thus the pressure on the Green Belt, they get uncomfortable. They become defensive and illogical.
"95 houses have recently been completed in the next village. None has been bought by immigrants. Therefore there is no link."
It is not that they are too stupid to understand that if the population is significantly increased, it will exacerbate housing shortages.
It is that they don't want to see it.
In fairness Clinton herself kept going after Obama 8 years ago long after she had clearly lost. It is a common phenomena in US politics. It just seems a relic of a different age when the nominee would be told what the party's policy was and would have to abide by it. No one would pretend that happens any more.
In fact, to an even greater extent than the UK working population, the net benefit is likely to come from a relatively small subset of higher earners.
We could improve and refine the situation still further by adopting a proposal like Robert's of charging a hefty fee on would-be immigrants and requiring them to purchase private health insurance up front as well.
Anyway, I must away to earn more cash for George. He needs it, apparently.
The threshold to be a net economic contributor is a salary of about £32k.
You dont become a net contributor on national minimum wage, paying virtually no income tax, and taking home £6k in tax credits and £2.5k in child benefit.
Utter fanciful to believe that this is in anyway a contribution to the exchequer.
You might argue that they keep food prices lower and that will have an impact in the supermarket, but it will make little to no meaningful difference to public expenditure.
Anybody on this site could find ways to cut public spending, we all know people who work in NHS and education, vital services where there is evident waste. Try military procurement too. And the unsustainable pensions offered to the public sector.
House prices falling would be good news, more people could buy and rents would fall. I'm tired of hearing how people bought a house for sixpence and now its worth £2million. Its where you live, not an investment.
And as pointed out, if we manage immigration and focus on productivity there is no reason to suggest the economy would slow down. Its moot whether the economy is doing well anyway, the worse off aren't feeling it.
The definition of elderly/pensioner has moved, and economically productive lives have been extended.
That must have translated into millions of additional people available for the labour pool without turning to imported labour.
'generation rent' will finally be able to buy a house as wages rise with reduced competiton from low wage immigrants.
taxes will fall when we get the billions from the EU.
Expensive houses will still be expensive as there is no conceivable shortage of tax avoiding foriegners hiding their money in london.
You have made no case for their being "major" spending cuts and tax hikes. There would be no "big" falls in house prices either, especially if you allow foreign nationals to buy property here without living in it full time.
Yes they are usually massively aggrieved because they might have to work until 63, and that their pension, which is not based on how much theyve put in, but how long theyve being doing it, might end up being based on an average of their working salary not their final salary.
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/732318723810430977
Your predictions are always wrong.
How many find themselves in protracted spells of unemployment in the period preceding that as the skills/qualifications gained fifty years ago no longer meet employer needs and the unskilled labour market is awash with new arrivals?
As Alastair says, we have MUCH more in common with each other than the not-that-involved section of the public. True at elections too. It's why MPs tend to rub along well personally even when they shout at each other in public. They are colleagues in an environment that thinks their work both largely uninteresting and poorly executed.
SO
I am assuming that EU immigrants do. And all the evidence I have seen indicates that is the case. Non-EU immigration does entail giving entry to a far higher proportion of non-productive, less educated individuals. But we do have the ability now to control that.
---------------------------------
My comment is true about EU immigration too, though not to the same extent. A large chunk of EU immigrants work in relatively poorly-paid jobs that will be beneath the break-even point as far as net exchequer contributions are concerned.
And of course, insofar as their inflow pushes down or restrains wages of natives too, that is also negative for the exchequer.
It is a curious phenomena. Bus drivers, taxi drivers, factory processing etc, done by women in larger numbers.
Since the EU enlargement though, previously largely untouched, the larger eastern european population means that the many jobs often done by youngsters, and the agricultural work has now become what seems exclusively by those.
Average life expectancy in 1800 was about 30. That average figure was depressed by high infant death rates, but very few working class people could expect to to live or work beyond 50.
I can't ever remember a PM held in such contempt by his own people, at least Labour had the decency to let Blair step down before they turned. Regardless of the referendum, witnessing Cameron's defenestration will be fun, schadenfreude at its best, seeing a bully bullied.
Yesterday Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister ignored the glares of a crammed Scottish Parliament by hugging her close friend Shona Robison, Mr Hosie’s wife.
But Miss Sturgeon refused to offer a single supportive word for Ms Robison’s husband after his admission that their marriage was over.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/17/snp-love-triangle-scandal-nicola-sturgeon-makes-feelings-clear-i/
Now in Tony Blair's day we knew:
'The Prime Minister has full confidence in Minister X' = 'Dead man walking'
What runes are there to be read in Holyrood?
Some doesn't. Some is a financial and structural burden. You really don't have to go far to find it in London.
Think of OGH's bandwidth heh?
If you survived beyond 5 in the 19th century, then you actually had a pretty good life-expectancy
The economist replied that that was true. He said no economist can tell you that the stock market will fall next Wednesday but what we can say with absolute certainty is that in the event of leaving it will collapse.
@MrHarryCole: Somewhere Benard Jenkin's head just exploded. https://t.co/PWtOqot5mP
Or am I being naive...
Its quite disgusting how willingly some privileged people are to hurt such groups in their desire for cheaper, more servile immigrant labour.
With Leave’s condemnations of the EU having moved from forthright to Fourth Reich over the weekend
So if you can say that "with absolute certainty", by how much?
If a Tory suggested this was a cracking idea - the Left would be screaming Evil!!