The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
I would think that in a case involving Iran the problem is that the system finds any reason to reject an application for asylum, where you would think the presumption - given what we know about Iran, its theocracy, the nature of its justice system, etc - is that most Iranians are likely to have a good case for asylum.
I think about the impossible obstacles my grandmother would have had to face, even above the difficulties in 1939 - I doubt she would have been able to prove her case to today's Home Office.
I think of the hypocrites like Theresa May who would laud those who helped my grandmother then, in the face of official obstruction, claim their mantle for the country as a whole, and then criticise the people who seek to help refugees today. We have some of those hypocrites on this board too.
To the story we can add the parties we were promised (or threatened with) that never got done. Alan Sked - the very original founder of UKIp who parted company with his baby long ago - was briefly in the news again a few years ago through some new party he was intending to launch. Arron Banks during the Brexit parliamentary saga was apparently going to pour his money into a new party. And Farage at various times has threatened us with new political entities.
Once you start with a new party it clearly becomes a habit.
First they ignore you, then laugh at you, then they fight you.. then you win.
We've gone from "win" (2016) back to ignoring and laughing, which is where we were in the late 90s/ early 00s, but we shouldn't forget what's happened next.
If you want to keep laughing (or ignoring) the populist right then centrist parties need to address the issues that mobilise voters around them or they'll be doomed to relive the same experiences all over again - or worse. Just shouting more loudly that they're wrong and you don't agree won't do it.
The reason I keep saying centrists are like the Bourbons is that I don't see much evidence they've learn anything or forgotten anything from the last five years. So I'm not overly hopeful although I pray there is at least some cognitive diversity and intelligence out there.
It is a populist govt in charge making decisions and has been for the last 4 years. Their job to find the solutions and address the issues at the moment.
Oh, I quite agree.
Nevertheless it's because the issue of the EU and full immigration control (on the levers) was addressed that so many left-wing/centrist liberals on here this morning can enjoy laughing at the patheticness of UKIP and their outriders.
It has precisely nothing at all to do with them. Had we followed their policies those parties would now be on 30%+ of the national vote and the kingmakers in any Government, and demanding even more radical politics than we have at present.
A fair voting system might have been nice.
Ok, but do you see any evidence the outcomes would have been different if we had?
I'm not saying you're saying this but a lot of centrist PR advocates seem to want it because they think it'd be an effective way of benefiting centrists and structurally locking out everyone else.
I'm baffled as to why they think this. It hasn't been the case in Europe and, had we had it here, we'd have had a Tory-UKIP coalition in 2015 and probably Farage as Deputy PM or foreign secretary.
To the story we can add the parties we were promised (or threatened with) that never got done. Alan Sked - the very original founder of UKIp who parted company with his baby long ago - was briefly in the news again a few years ago through some new party he was intending to launch. Arron Banks during the Brexit parliamentary saga was apparently going to pour his money into a new party. And Farage at various times has threatened us with new political entities.
Once you start with a new party it clearly becomes a habit.
First they ignore you, then laugh at you, then they fight you.. then you win.
We've gone from "win" (2016) back to ignoring and laughing, which is where we were in the late 90s/ early 00s, but we shouldn't forget what's happened next.
If you want to keep laughing (or ignoring) the populist right then centrist parties need to address the issues that mobilise voters around them or they'll be doomed to relive the same experiences all over again - or worse. Just shouting more loudly that they're wrong and you don't agree won't do it.
The reason I keep saying centrists are like the Bourbons is that I don't see much evidence they've learn anything or forgotten anything from the last five years. So I'm not overly hopeful although I pray there is at least some cognitive diversity and intelligence out there.
There is a lot to criticise in the asylum system which was written in and for another age and needs thoughtful updating, as you say.
But two points:-
1.Facts should not be ignored. Asylum claims are down this year. Wishing such facts away does not help anyone. 2.One country on its own can do relatively little. Britain could, for instance, invest in the system which determines asylum claims some that they are dealt with speedily and efficiently. But there is a resistance to that because that would involve spending money on courts and lawyers or something. The delays will therefore get worse, which is unfair and infuriating to everyone concerned.
But changing what asylum means / getting agreement with other countries re the return of those who do not qualify / sharing information and intelligence / dealing with people traffickers etc all necessarily involve working with other countries. Just shouting about controlling our borders will not get us very far but that - and attacking those doing their job under existing laws - seem to be the extent of this government’s policy.
The problem I see is that there are a lot of people caught in the middle. So take the example of the case I linked to. He is not thought to have a sufficiently strong case to qualify for asylum because he was not as persecuted there as he claimed (in our assessment). But we know Iran is a violent and oppressive society where criticism of the regime is genuinely dangerous. If we had sent him back in 2015 would his life have been in danger because of what he had said, even if his original claims of persecution were overstated?
Quite possibly and at various times we have had various countries to which we do not, as a matter of policy, return people for their own safety. The result is that many are left in limbo for many years, not eligible to be here, not a part of our society, subject to much of May's hostile environment and yet still here. Its cruel but we fear the alternatives are worse.
My daughter has got very involved in helping refugees in Calais. She is empathetic to their plight and the pretty awful way that the French treat them. She is a part of that Charity world you mention but gets no pay for her work although others in the charity do. I admire her humanity and her determination to see the individual, not the system. I find it hard to say she is wrong.
Nice piece. On one level the populist right just looks like a laughable collection of nut jobs, weirdos and closet racists (and outed racists too of course). On the other hand they effected the most significant political change in Britain in decades - albeit with some help from mainstream right wing politicians - so dismiss them at your peril. They're like a damp patch on your wall - nasty and unsightly, and indicative of a more serious underlying problem that will take time and money to fix. And if you ignore it and hope it just goes away, you will regret it.
Wouldn't have happened without a treacherous sellout by the left, so stop being partisan about it. The right wing politicians were up front about being shits and were doing the job they were elected to do. Corbyn otoh...
Sorry, could you clarify what you mean? Are you saying that Brexit was Corbyn's fault? I'm not sure what particular act of treachery I am being implicated in here.
I admire Alastair's diligence in tracking these people and even working out who the leaders of UKIP have been but it is wrong to think that this sad bunch of nutters and assorted fruitcakes have any significance, political or otherwise. Or, frankly, that they ever did. Mocking these inadequates is a pretty cheap way of mocking an idea.
I liked Alastair's article and PB.com has such an interesting range of knowledgeable characters that it is often very illuminating to hear what they have to say. However, I think an article about why people are attracted to these groups (and the populist right) would be more beneficial. The argument of "they are basically racists" is just a lazy one - and also, in the case of the US, weird given many of Trump's supporters in the Rust Belt had voted for Obama previously.
The difference in the US though is Trump leads the Republican Party, the main right of centre party there, most of the main populist parties in Europe eg National Rally, Vox, the Swedish Democrats, Party for Freedom, Lega Nord, the AfD and of course UKIP and the Brexit Party are to the right of the main centre right party (though Lega is now in coalition with Forza Italia) and the same is true in Australia with the One Nation Party or New Zealand with New Zealand First
Yes, I agree that's an important difference. Britain is unusual in that elements of the militant right are now dominant in the main traditionally centre-right party - similarly to the US, but unlike anywhere else that I can think of (in Germany, arguably, the reverse has happened, with centrists marginalising the populists).
I agree with MrEd that understanding the attraction of militant populism (which appears on the left too, e.g. Melanchon) is interesting and important - Ed Balls' tour of rural America was illmuniating and we need more like that. Most of us know a few people in that camp, and they are by no means necessarily unpleasant, but the ones I know share a high level of impatience with traditional politics and a lack of interest in detail. In that they differ from thoughtful right-wingers (or left-wingers), but that doesn't make them unimportant or altogether mpervious to persuasion.
I admire Alastair's diligence in tracking these people and even working out who the leaders of UKIP have been but it is wrong to think that this sad bunch of nutters and assorted fruitcakes have any significance, political or otherwise. Or, frankly, that they ever did. Mocking these inadequates is a pretty cheap way of mocking an idea.
I liked Alastair's article and PB.com has such an interesting range of knowledgeable characters that it is often very illuminating to hear what they have to say. However, I think an article about why people are attracted to these groups (and the populist right) would be more beneficial. The argument of "they are basically racists" is just a lazy one - and also, in the case of the US, weird given many of Trump's supporters in the Rust Belt had voted for Obama previously.
Of course calling them racist, loony, nutjobs, etc is lazy but it also saves the critics from questioning any of their own beliefs or the issues in question.
Lazily I don't usually take my own advice, but the word 'populist' is often unhelpful. What is needed in looking at policy and party is: firstly a reasoned non emotive overview of their worldview, and secondly a detailed look at the actual policies currently proposed, especially about the boring bits like budgets, debt, tax, social care, universities, state intervention, international trade.
Hooray/boo terms like 'populist' don't really inform.
What if what works in our electoral system isnt reasoned non emotive analysis and policies but following opinion polls and manipulating the media to amplify prior beliefs and prejudices?
Your proposal would be wonderful if everyone approached it like that but self defeating if the winners just circumvent all the boring detail and effective policies with proposals that are pie in the sky but sunny and optimistic.
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
I would think that in a case involving Iran the problem is that the system finds any reason to reject an application for asylum, where you would think the presumption - given what we know about Iran, its theocracy, the nature of its justice system, etc - is that most Iranians are likely to have a good case for asylum.
I think about the impossible obstacles my grandmother would have had to face, even above the difficulties in 1939 - I doubt she would have been able to prove her case to today's Home Office.
I think of the hypocrites like Theresa May who would laud those who helped my grandmother then, in the face of official obstruction, claim their mantle for the country as a whole, and then criticise the people who seek to help refugees today. We have some of those hypocrites on this board too.
That's not a justification for the situation today.
If you're saying the claim is legitimate then the court should say the clam is legitimate, grant asylum, remove the individual from the purgatory of not being allowed to work and settle down and let them get on with their lives.
If the court is saying the claim is illegitimate they should be deported.
The court needs to make an actual decision and implement it. Keeping someone in purgatory for five years without any actual decision is inhumane too.
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
Because there is an agency of people in the charity and legal sector who see it as their job to maximise inward immigration and frustrate deportations on any grounds whatsoever. And, to be fair, our existing system of domestic law and international treaties and conventions allows for it.
The fact that their values marry up with what's in their business interests is entirely coincidential of course.
Following the rule of Law?
How shocking to the Right Wing Populists, and how reassuring to patriotic Britons.
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
Is it beyond the wit of man that if a court lawfully says asylum is denied that the individual is taking direct from the court to an airport?
While of course I see what you say, the problem is the word 'lawfully'. There have been too many cases where asylum has been denied at a lower court and allowed at a higher one. At what point do you put the seeker in the bus to the airport?
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
Why is he still here? That is a failure of the deportation system which is in the hands of the government. This case shows the legal side of it working well - application and final appeal all dealt with in less than 2 years. But the government end failing. And yet the government - rather than do anything about its end - attacks lawyers instead.
Whilst partially agreeing, I think 2 years is way too long to hear and appeal a case in the first place. If it was properly funded I dont see why it couldnt be 1-3 months for the case and the same for an appeal.
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
I would think that in a case involving Iran the problem is that the system finds any reason to reject an application for asylum, where you would think the presumption - given what we know about Iran, its theocracy, the nature of its justice system, etc - is that most Iranians are likely to have a good case for asylum.
I think about the impossible obstacles my grandmother would have had to face, even above the difficulties in 1939 - I doubt she would have been able to prove her case to today's Home Office.
I think of the hypocrites like Theresa May who would laud those who helped my grandmother then, in the face of official obstruction, claim their mantle for the country as a whole, and then criticise the people who seek to help refugees today. We have some of those hypocrites on this board too.
It's weird because political refugees from a country like Iran would probably constitute the kind of 'ideal immigrant' (hard working, well educated and keen to assimilate) that people on the right who like to claim they're not racists and only object to the wrong kind of immigration should welcome with open arms.
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
Because there is an agency of people in the charity and legal sector who see it as their job to maximise inward immigration and frustrate deportations on any grounds whatsoever. And, to be fair, our existing system of domestic law and international treaties and conventions allows for it.
The fact that their values marry up with what's in their business interests is entirely coincidential of course.
Don't blame lawyers for getting government to obey its own laws when government controls the only body with the power to make them. Don't blame lawyers for government incompetence. Don't blame lawyers for the scandal which is the Home Office and the Home Secretary.
Hmm. Do you think there are no exploitative or unscrupulous lawyers? The ambulance chasing ones? The ones who aggressively pursue minor acts of criticism online on behalf of a wealthy client? The ones who hand out business cards at Calais and advise their prospective clients how they can help exploit every loophole once they get across? The ones who make a sport out of springing as many deportees from a plane minutes before its due to take off with new grounds for appeal?
The lawyers don't control the law, but they do control how the law is practiced. Some need to look to their own ethics and behaviour too.
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
Is it beyond the wit of man that if a court lawfully says asylum is denied that the individual is taking direct from the court to an airport?
While of course I see what you say, the problem is the word 'lawfully'. There have been too many cases where asylum has been denied at a lower court and allowed at a higher one. At what point do you put the seeker in the bus to the airport?
There should be a final appeal court and it shouldn't take five years to get there.
Otherwise say the claim is legitimate, grant the asylum and let the individual start to rebuild their lives properly.
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
Because there is an agency of people in the charity and legal sector who see it as their job to maximise inward immigration and frustrate deportations on any grounds whatsoever. And, to be fair, our existing system of domestic law and international treaties and conventions allows for it.
The fact that their values marry up with what's in their business interests is entirely coincidential of course.
You have this the wrong way around. There are laws and treaties and conventions which the government happily signed up to in order to prevent the sorts of calamities that happened in the early part of the 20th century. There are people who do the work which arises under those laws. You - and many others - don’t like the results of those laws etc but government, which has the power to change them, has not done so.
Rather than attacking those who work within the system as it is, you might do better to ask yourself (1) why governments have been so bad at/unwilling to change those laws; (2) why they have been so poor at implementing those bits of the system they do have control over; and (3) how practically the laws could be changed to meet everyone’s desires.
If, for instance, we decided to place a numerical limit on asylum seekers in any one year (a proposal which Matthew Parris suggested in an article on asylum many years ago), we’d have to harden our hearts at the next deserving case which was over that limit. Would we do it? I’m not sure. The British public both wants to keep nasty foreigners out and then becomes gushingly sentimental when there is a picture of a dead child on a beach.
The last para of Alastair's header article seems disconnected from the main article
But, Starmer's performance is worthy of more scrutiny than given so far. OGH generally posts purringly about SKS dissecting Boris Johnson forensically at PMQs. So what? Nobody cares.
I actually think Corbyn would have done a better job than SKS in opposing Boris at the present time. And Labour would be ahead in the polls now.
Corby would have articulated the social inequalities inflicted by lockdown/COVID much more eloquently & powerfully than SKS. Corby was always good at exactly this.
Hell, Marcus Rashford has articulated the social inequalities more powerfully than SKS.
This is important because we are moving on to the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. It will be a rich vein for Labour to tap.
And I can see the Corbynistas being able to do this much more powerfully than a forensically questioning millionaire with a big house in North London, who was immune from most of the consequences.
For Corbynistas, the best may still be to come. I can certainly see them roaring back in the fertile territory ahead.
I don't think the years to come are for Rehashed Blairism with another well-heeled Labour lawyer.
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
To the story we can add the parties we were promised (or threatened with) that never got done. Alan Sked - the very original founder of UKIp who parted company with his baby long ago - was briefly in the news again a few years ago through some new party he was intending to launch. Arron Banks during the Brexit parliamentary saga was apparently going to pour his money into a new party. And Farage at various times has threatened us with new political entities.
Once you start with a new party it clearly becomes a habit.
First they ignore you, then laugh at you, then they fight you.. then you win.
We've gone from "win" (2016) back to ignoring and laughing, which is where we were in the late 90s/ early 00s, but we shouldn't forget what's happened next.
If you want to keep laughing (or ignoring) the populist right then centrist parties need to address the issues that mobilise voters around them or they'll be doomed to relive the same experiences all over again - or worse. Just shouting more loudly that they're wrong and you don't agree won't do it.
The reason I keep saying centrists are like the Bourbons is that I don't see much evidence they've learn anything or forgotten anything from the last five years. So I'm not overly hopeful although I pray there is at least some cognitive diversity and intelligence out there.
It is a populist govt in charge making decisions and has been for the last 4 years. Their job to find the solutions and address the issues at the moment.
Oh, I quite agree.
Nevertheless it's because the issue of the EU and full immigration control (on the levers) was addressed that so many left-wing/centrist liberals on here this morning can enjoy laughing at the patheticness of UKIP and their outriders.
It has precisely nothing at all to do with them. Had we followed their policies those parties would now be on 30%+ of the national vote and the kingmakers in any Government, and demanding even more radical politics than we have at present.
A fair voting system might have been nice.
AV does not meet my standard for a "fair" voting system, but would the pro-AV side have done better in the referendum if they had accepted UKIP into their camp?
[..] The most interesting thing about the Scottish polling is the massively high approval rating for Nicola Sturgeon, despite the utter shambles on almost everything from the exam-grade fiasco to the Covid-19 response via the Alex Salmond brouhaha. It's obviously a tribal rallying-around the figurehead.
I am aware that Covid related outcomes in Scotland are only slightly better than those in England, mainly because Nicola Sturgeon made the same mistakes as her counterparts in England. The really big mistakes being dumping infected older people into nursing homes and reopening universities.
However I do give Ms Sturgeon credit for turning out day after day to address the grim reality of the Covid situation in Scotland, answer people's questions, plead with them to stick with the measures and largely avoid scoring partisan points. This must be exhausting and depressing but she has kept at it. The contrast with her counterparts in London is total.
To the story we can add the parties we were promised (or threatened with) that never got done. Alan Sked - the very original founder of UKIp who parted company with his baby long ago - was briefly in the news again a few years ago through some new party he was intending to launch. Arron Banks during the Brexit parliamentary saga was apparently going to pour his money into a new party. And Farage at various times has threatened us with new political entities.
Once you start with a new party it clearly becomes a habit.
First they ignore you, then laugh at you, then they fight you.. then you win.
We've gone from "win" (2016) back to ignoring and laughing, which is where we were in the late 90s/ early 00s, but we shouldn't forget what's happened next.
If you want to keep laughing (or ignoring) the populist right then centrist parties need to address the issues that mobilise voters around them or they'll be doomed to relive the same experiences all over again - or worse. Just shouting more loudly that they're wrong and you don't agree won't do it.
The reason I keep saying centrists are like the Bourbons is that I don't see much evidence they've learn anything or forgotten anything from the last five years. So I'm not overly hopeful although I pray there is at least some cognitive diversity and intelligence out there.
There is a lot to criticise in the asylum system which was written in and for another age and needs thoughtful updating, as you say.
But two points:-
1.Facts should not be ignored. Asylum claims are down this year. Wishing such facts away does not help anyone. 2.One country on its own can do relatively little. Britain could, for instance, invest in the system which determines asylum claims some that they are dealt with speedily and efficiently. But there is a resistance to that because that would involve spending money on courts and lawyers or something. The delays will therefore get worse, which is unfair and infuriating to everyone concerned.
But changing what asylum means / getting agreement with other countries re the return of those who do not qualify / sharing information and intelligence / dealing with people traffickers etc all necessarily involve working with other countries. Just shouting about controlling our borders will not get us very far but that - and attacking those doing their job under existing laws - seem to be the extent of this government’s policy.
Thanks.
(1) Asylum claims may well be down this year. But I think that misses the point. The issue is the channel crossings. Both for their sheer brazenness and the visceral images they create but also because people fear it could spiral out of control. There's nothing in law to stop 7,000 crossings a year becoming 70,000 - or even 700,000 - and this needs to be addressed. I think pointing to total numbers being down is deflection. And, I've said this before, I think Britons would accept *higher* total numbers of asylum claimants (say, 80k a year rather than 30-40k a year) provided they were all fairly assessed and total migration was kept <200k pa.
(2) I agree, the solution must be international. In particular, we need an immediate repatriation deal with France (which would benefit them too by making the Pas de Calais far less attractive rather than a transitory holding camp) but we can also do quite a lot by ourselves too through international aid, funding high-quality refugee camps overseas (where people can both work and live and go to school) near zones of conflict, and amending our domestic laws to stop the worst excesses of legal frustration. This would include making it ineligible to apply for conversion from asylum to a work/resident permit without leaving the UK first for at least 6 months and then re-applying through formal migration routes. I'd also agree a rough cap over 4-5 years of total claimants (USA and Canada do this) and seek political consent for it through our domestic elections. I'd do an annual lottery for 10-15k of those in camps worldwide, each year, because everyone deserves some hope.
I'm increasingly sceptical of the government's approach and certainly don't think a national lockdown (which incidentally I think will end up being for months with a short break at Xmas) is the right thing at the moment.
Yet I voted Remain.
Matthew Parris and Melanie Phillips are examples of people who are on the opposite side on both subjects. Parris is a strong Remainer and opposes the lockdown, Phillips is a Leaver and is a big supporter of lockdown.
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
I would think that in a case involving Iran the problem is that the system finds any reason to reject an application for asylum, where you would think the presumption - given what we know about Iran, its theocracy, the nature of its justice system, etc - is that most Iranians are likely to have a good case for asylum.
I think about the impossible obstacles my grandmother would have had to face, even above the difficulties in 1939 - I doubt she would have been able to prove her case to today's Home Office.
I think of the hypocrites like Theresa May who would laud those who helped my grandmother then, in the face of official obstruction, claim their mantle for the country as a whole, and then criticise the people who seek to help refugees today. We have some of those hypocrites on this board too.
That's not a justification for the situation today.
If you're saying the claim is legitimate then the court should say the clam is legitimate, grant asylum, remove the individual from the purgatory of not being allowed to work and settle down and let them get on with their lives.
If the court is saying the claim is illegitimate they should be deported.
The court needs to make an actual decision and implement it. Keeping someone in purgatory for five years without any actual decision is inhumane too.
Most cases shouldn't need to go to court in the first place. These aren't criminal cases. It should be possible for the Home Office to grant asylum without being forced to by the courts - and then it's a simple administrative procedure.
The courts, of course, are bound by the law, and it's asylum law which creates such a strong documentary burden of proof on the part of the refugee.
This is why we often have the absurdity of refugees having to ask charities for money to travel from Glasgow to the London embassies of the country they have fled from, so that they can try to obtain the documentary evidence to satisfy asylum law.
That's a Kafkaesque system designed to deny people asylum for as long as possible, not because they aren't refugees, but because the overriding priority is to keep the numbers down regardless of the people who suffer as a result.
For the avoidance of doubt, I think the title at least is misleading. There is no pressure from the populist right in the UK.
The populist right were instrumental in the Brexit win and have toppled 2 prime ministers in the past five years.
They have the most visited news website in the UK after BBC and Twitter. They are definitely powerful in the UK.
No, this is a fantasy of those who want to despise the ideas held by many, many others. @algarkirk is exactly right on this and creating straw men amongst shadowy and irrelevant figures is displacement activity at best, delusional at worst.
Perhaps we have a different understanding of populist right. For me - Nigel Farage, the Brexit Party, UKIP, the Daily Mail (often but not all the time) - part of the populist right. I don't seem them as shadowy irrelevant figures - I see them as central to understanding the current political situation.
The last para of Alastair's header article seems disconnected from the main article
But, Starmer's performance is worthy of more scrutiny than given so far. OGH generally posts purringly about SKS dissecting Boris Johnson forensically at PMQs. So what? Nobody cares.
I actually think Corbyn would have done a better job than SKS in opposing Boris at the present time. And Labour would be ahead in the polls now.
Corby would have articulated the social inequalities inflicted by lockdown/COVID much more eloquently & powerfully than SKS. Corby was always good at exactly this.
Hell, Marcus Rashford has articulated the social inequalities more powerfully than SKS.
This is important because we are moving on to the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. It will be a rich vein for Labour to tap.
And I can see the Corbynistas being able to do this much more powerfully than a forensically questioning millionaire with a big house in North London, who was immune from most of the consequences.
For Corbynistas, the best may still be to come. I can certainly see them roaring back in the fertile territory ahead.
I don't think the years to come are for Rehashed Blairism with another well-heeled Labour lawyer.
Absolutely, I think SKS is hopeless, Labour should be 10% clear in the polls at the moment. His call for a 2 week circuit breaker was him just trying to say something different from the Government.
Actually that's exactly what its supposed to be like.
"intensifying the battles over the future of the UK" is also known as "taking back control".
The more one deploys cretinisms like "take back control", the more one outs oneself as a mindless serf who is destined to lick up crumbs from the christmas top table before being euthanised before January is out.
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
I've noticed the word "popular" is replaced by "populist" among the chattering classes when it is about things that they disapprove of.
If the things you are trying to sell aren't popular, maybe it's because they are a bit shit.
One of my early failures was an ad for an outdoor swimming pool in Scotland. They sold two. There are many reasons why people don't buy what you are selling. 'Being shit' is just one of them!
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
Because there is an agency of people in the charity and legal sector who see it as their job to maximise inward immigration and frustrate deportations on any grounds whatsoever. And, to be fair, our existing system of domestic law and international treaties and conventions allows for it.
The fact that their values marry up with what's in their business interests is entirely coincidential of course.
Following the rule of Law?
How shocking to the Right Wing Populists, and how reassuring to patriotic Britons.
I don't think people have a problem with following the rule of law.
The problem is with those that start with a goal in mind and use every loophole or piece of legal chicanery possible to block things that they don't like. It's not just people trying to do everything by the book.
We've seen it with Brexit as well as with immigration.
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
Because there is an agency of people in the charity and legal sector who see it as their job to maximise inward immigration and frustrate deportations on any grounds whatsoever. And, to be fair, our existing system of domestic law and international treaties and conventions allows for it.
The fact that their values marry up with what's in their business interests is entirely coincidential of course.
You have this the wrong way around. There are laws and treaties and conventions which the government happily signed up to in order to prevent the sorts of calamities that happened in the early part of the 20th century. There are people who do the work which arises under those laws. You - and many others - don’t like the results of those laws etc but government, which has the power to change them, has not done so.
Rather than attacking those who work within the system as it is, you might do better to ask yourself (1) why governments have been so bad at/unwilling to change those laws; (2) why they have been so poor at implementing those bits of the system they do have control over; and (3) how practically the laws could be changed to meet everyone’s desires.
If, for instance, we decided to place a numerical limit on asylum seekers in any one year (a proposal which Matthew Parris suggested in an article on asylum many years ago), we’d have to harden our hearts at the next deserving case which was over that limit. Would we do it? I’m not sure. The British public both wants to keep nasty foreigners out and then becomes gushingly sentimental when there is a picture of a dead child on a beach.
Interesting that Matthew Parris said that, as I wouldn't have thought he'd be the sort of person to make that argument.
On the point, yes, I think we would. We already have caps for several types of migration, and there will always (sadly) be plenty of tragedy in the world, and I think we are able to balance the two. There's plenty of precedent going back decades on this too.
Of course, we'll get a healthy debate about the level of the cap - which will vary year by year, and by administration - and clearly different parties will want to increase it and other decrease it.
Ultimately, the best way to control this is to stabilise conflict zones and move to replace authoritarian regimes with liberal democratic ones - which is why we need a strong soft/hard foreign policy.
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
Trump is over and good riddance
I thought he didn't stand a chance last time. Luckily I hadn't bet any money on Clinton.
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
Trump is over and good riddance
Dangerous words Big_G. There are nearly 3 weeks to go. Also look at Drutt's post last night re Wisconsin early voting trends.
To the story we can add the parties we were promised (or threatened with) that never got done. Alan Sked - the very original founder of UKIp who parted company with his baby long ago - was briefly in the news again a few years ago through some new party he was intending to launch. Arron Banks during the Brexit parliamentary saga was apparently going to pour his money into a new party. And Farage at various times has threatened us with new political entities.
Once you start with a new party it clearly becomes a habit.
First they ignore you, then laugh at you, then they fight you.. then you win.
We've gone from "win" (2016) back to ignoring and laughing, which is where we were in the late 90s/ early 00s, but we shouldn't forget what's happened next.
If you want to keep laughing (or ignoring) the populist right then centrist parties need to address the issues that mobilise voters around them or they'll be doomed to relive the same experiences all over again - or worse. Just shouting more loudly that they're wrong and you don't agree won't do it.
The reason I keep saying centrists are like the Bourbons is that I don't see much evidence they've learn anything or forgotten anything from the last five years. So I'm not overly hopeful although I pray there is at least some cognitive diversity and intelligence out there.
There is a lot to criticise in the asylum system which was written in and for another age and needs thoughtful updating, as you say.
But two points:-
1.Facts should not be ignored. Asylum claims are down this year. Wishing such facts away does not help anyone. 2.One country on its own can do relatively little. Britain could, for instance, invest in the system which determines asylum claims some that they are dealt with speedily and efficiently. But there is a resistance to that because that would involve spending money on courts and lawyers or something. The delays will therefore get worse, which is unfair and infuriating to everyone concerned.
But changing what asylum means / getting agreement with other countries re the return of those who do not qualify / sharing information and intelligence / dealing with people traffickers etc all necessarily involve working with other countries. Just shouting about controlling our borders will not get us very far but that - and attacking those doing their job under existing laws - seem to be the extent of this government’s policy.
Thanks.
(1) Asylum claims may well be down this year. But I think that misses the point. The issue is the channel crossings. Both for their sheer brazenness and the visceral images they create but also because people fear it could spiral out of control. There's nothing in law to stop 7,000 crossings a year becoming 70,000 - or even 700,000...
Is this rhetorical hyperbole, or do you really think that ?
Ireland now has lower tax and spending as a percentage of gdp than the UK, so Scotland would need to move right of the UK on that basis
The author fails to mention that, for nearly 60 years (up to 1979), Ireland was essentially an economic colony of the UK - defacto currency union, no independent stock exchange etc.
Ireland now has lower tax and spending as a percentage of gdp than the UK, so Scotland would need to move right of the UK on that basis
The "ill wind that blows nobody any good" Brexit upsides will go to Ireland, not Scotland. Even John Redwood has moved his investments there.
Whether Ireland will ultimately "win" remains to be seen, but David Henig is surely correct: the Irish government has comprehensively out-manoeuvred the UK government on EU and US relations and the Northern Ireland settlement.
This a country that England expects either to ignore or invade. And perhaps explains the hatred in some quarters towards Varadakar, as often expressed on here by Carlotta.
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
Trump is over and good riddance
When one compares the polls now with the figures, state by state, last time it looks as though Trump is down across the board, and most if not all the States that he scraped home in in 2016 will go Dem this year. HYUFD says 'now ahead'; in fact the leads as published are half or less of what they were in 2016.
(1) Asylum claims may well be down this year. But I think that misses the point. The issue is the channel crossings. Both for their sheer brazenness and the visceral images they create but also because people fear it could spiral out of control. There's nothing in law to stop 7,000 crossings a year becoming 70,000 - or even 700,000...
Is this rhetorical hyperbole, or do you really think that ?
I meant to post the exact some point earlier. Brexit was lost in a lot of places (not because of immigrant numbers) but because of fear of immigrants.
This is the exact same thing, the numbers are small but they are incredibly visible and it's the visibility that is the issue here.
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
Trump is over and good riddance
Dangerous words Big_G. There are nearly 3 weeks to go. Also look at Drutt's post last night re Wisconsin early voting trends.
On this I am confident Trump will lose in November
To the story we can add the parties we were promised (or threatened with) that never got done. Alan Sked - the very original founder of UKIp who parted company with his baby long ago - was briefly in the news again a few years ago through some new party he was intending to launch. Arron Banks during the Brexit parliamentary saga was apparently going to pour his money into a new party. And Farage at various times has threatened us with new political entities.
Once you start with a new party it clearly becomes a habit.
First they ignore you, then laugh at you, then they fight you.. then you win.
We've gone from "win" (2016) back to ignoring and laughing, which is where we were in the late 90s/ early 00s, but we shouldn't forget what's happened next.
If you want to keep laughing (or ignoring) the populist right then centrist parties need to address the issues that mobilise voters around them or they'll be doomed to relive the same experiences all over again - or worse. Just shouting more loudly that they're wrong and you don't agree won't do it.
The reason I keep saying centrists are like the Bourbons is that I don't see much evidence they've learn anything or forgotten anything from the last five years. So I'm not overly hopeful although I pray there is at least some cognitive diversity and intelligence out there.
There is a lot to criticise in the asylum system which was written in and for another age and needs thoughtful updating, as you say.
But two points:-
1.Facts should not be ignored. Asylum claims are down this year. Wishing such facts away does not help anyone. 2.One country on its own can do relatively little. Britain could, for instance, invest in the system which determines asylum claims some that they are dealt with speedily and efficiently. But there is a resistance to that because that would involve spending money on courts and lawyers or something. The delays will therefore get worse, which is unfair and infuriating to everyone concerned.
But changing what asylum means / getting agreement with other countries re the return of those who do not qualify / sharing information and intelligence / dealing with people traffickers etc all necessarily involve working with other countries. Just shouting about controlling our borders will not get us very far but that - and attacking those doing their job under existing laws - seem to be the extent of this government’s policy.
Thanks.
(1) Asylum claims may well be down this year. But I think that misses the point. The issue is the channel crossings. Both for their sheer brazenness and the visceral images they create but also because people fear it could spiral out of control. There's nothing in law to stop 7,000 crossings a year becoming 70,000 - or even 700,000...
Is this rhetorical hyperbole, or do you really think that ?
There are hundreds of millions of disadvantaged and persecuted people around the world who'd move here if they could. The current asylum law provides for it if they can afford to reach our shores.
What would stop them?
Edit: in case you still think that's hyperbole don't forget that Germany had over a million in 2015-2016, which is an even higher figure than what I posted.
Actually that's exactly what its supposed to be like.
"intensifying the battles over the future of the UK" is also known as "taking back control".
The more one deploys cretinisms like "take back control", the more one outs oneself as a mindless serf who is destined to lick up crumbs from the christmas top table before being euthanised before January is out.
Wow that is a big and clever remark, I don't know how to refute it.
Other than saying roll on January and let us see if we have taken back control or I have been euthanised. Lets do a £100 bet - if I am euthanised by January I will get my wife to pay you £100 (obviously I won't be able to myself having been euthanised), if I am not then you pay me £100. What do you think?
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
Trump is over and good riddance
When one compares the polls now with the figures, state by state, last time it looks as though Trump is down across the board, and most if not all the States that he scraped home in in 2016 will go Dem this year. HYUFD says 'now ahead'; in fact the leads as published are half or less of what they were in 2016.
I think that is based on RCP which is saying that, in the battleground states, Trump is very slightly ahead of where he was in 2016.
I think it depends which set of polls you believe (or believe them at all). If you think the national polls, then he is in serious trouble, if the state ones, as HYFUD says, he has a chance. The state polls were more inaccurate in 2016 but there is an argument for saying they might be more accurate in 2020 in that the errors of 16 forced them to correct their mistakes. The national pollsters still have the view they basically got it right in 16, which leads to complacency.
The last para of Alastair's header article seems disconnected from the main article
But, Starmer's performance is worthy of more scrutiny than given so far. OGH generally posts purringly about SKS dissecting Boris Johnson forensically at PMQs. So what? Nobody cares.
I actually think Corbyn would have done a better job than SKS in opposing Boris at the present time. And Labour would be ahead in the polls now.
Corby would have articulated the social inequalities inflicted by lockdown/COVID much more eloquently & powerfully than SKS. Corby was always good at exactly this.
Hell, Marcus Rashford has articulated the social inequalities more powerfully than SKS.
This is important because we are moving on to the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. It will be a rich vein for Labour to tap.
And I can see the Corbynistas being able to do this much more powerfully than a forensically questioning millionaire with a big house in North London, who was immune from most of the consequences.
For Corbynistas, the best may still be to come. I can certainly see them roaring back in the fertile territory ahead.
I don't think the years to come are for Rehashed Blairism with another well-heeled Labour lawyer.
Absolutely, I think SKS is hopeless, Labour should be 10% clear in the polls at the moment. His call for a 2 week circuit breaker was him just trying to say something different from the Government.
Very easy to make an argument like this when you ignore leader ratings.
That's not a justification for the situation today.
If you're saying the claim is legitimate then the court should say the clam is legitimate, grant asylum, remove the individual from the purgatory of not being allowed to work and settle down and let them get on with their lives.
If the court is saying the claim is illegitimate they should be deported.
The court needs to make an actual decision and implement it. Keeping someone in purgatory for five years without any actual decision is inhumane too.
It is not the court which implements the decision. But the government. Specifically, the Home Office. We should certainly be criticising governments for their ineptitude in this regard.
Ireland now has lower tax and spending as a percentage of gdp than the UK, so Scotland would need to move right of the UK on that basis
I'd be interested to know how the Scots would react to adopting the Irish health system.
There is a general political consensus in Ireland that their health system is a mess because it's a mix of public and private and a plan to move it more to a public system (I hesitate to say like the NHS, because I don't know the details).
So, for example, this year they are introducing new contracts for doctors that would have them working exclusively for the public system, rather than being able to split their time between the pubic and private systems.
There's also a realisation that the mess of the health system in the Republic is a barrier to the end of partition, so they might even see this project through.
[..] The most interesting thing about the Scottish polling is the massively high approval rating for Nicola Sturgeon, despite the utter shambles on almost everything from the exam-grade fiasco to the Covid-19 response via the Alex Salmond brouhaha. It's obviously a tribal rallying-around the figurehead.
I am aware that Covid related outcomes in Scotland are only slightly better than those in England, mainly because Nicola Sturgeon made the same mistakes as her counterparts in England. The really big mistakes being dumping infected older people into nursing homes and reopening universities.
However I do give Ms Sturgeon credit for turning out day after day to address the grim reality of the Covid situation in Scotland, answer people's questions, plead with them to stick with the measures and largely avoid scoring partisan points. This must be exhausting and depressing but she has kept at it. The contrast with her counterparts in London is total.
Sturgeon has made bad mistakes -- such as pursuance of a zero-Covid policy of the Summer -- a policy which is surely in more tatters than any of Boris'.
She looks good compared to Boris.
But not say Angela Merkel (whose performance has been exceptionally impressive).
The asylum system is broken. It was designed for another age, is full of loopholes and is ripe for abuse - and, indeed, is being abused.
Absolute numbers this year are only part of it - we had record numbers infiltrating across the channel as well (4 times what they were the previous year) and there's nothing to stop it increasing still further next year. People are worried it'll continue to spiral out of control and the images we've seen on our TV screens this summer provide a very visceral example of our inability to adequately control our borders.
If centrists want to defeat the populist right then they need to come up with practical solutions that address this - not just put their fingers in their ears and assert ever more loudly that There Is No Problem. They tried that (and changing the subject) with the EU too and look where that got them. It's the voters that decide what's important to them and what needs addressing.
And it can be done: David Cameron got the closest I've seen for any PM with his thoughtful asylum policy. He abjectly failed with free movement (another example of centrist extremism - yes, ideologues exist there too) but he did - eventually - wake up to the issue.
Farage will pop up again if Boris doesn't own and grip this issue. Otherwise he will forever stay in the shadows.
In this case the applicant arrived here in March 2014 and his application for asylum was refused in 2015. His appeal was refused the same year. He is still here. 5 years after his appeal was refused he is still here.
This period is all too typical. The reason that the asylum is broken is that it is not implemented. No doubt in another few years there will be another appeal, once again funded by public funds. What is the point of a system that produces decisions that are not implemented? Why do we waste our time and money like this?
Because there is an agency of people in the charity and legal sector who see it as their job to maximise inward immigration and frustrate deportations on any grounds whatsoever. And, to be fair, our existing system of domestic law and international treaties and conventions allows for it.
The fact that their values marry up with what's in their business interests is entirely coincidential of course.
You have this the wrong way around. There are laws and treaties and conventions which the government happily signed up to in order to prevent the sorts of calamities that happened in the early part of the 20th century. There are people who do the work which arises under those laws. You - and many others - don’t like the results of those laws etc but government, which has the power to change them, has not done so.
Rather than attacking those who work within the system as it is, you might do better to ask yourself (1) why governments have been so bad at/unwilling to change those laws; (2) why they have been so poor at implementing those bits of the system they do have control over; and (3) how practically the laws could be changed to meet everyone’s desires.
If, for instance, we decided to place a numerical limit on asylum seekers in any one year (a proposal which Matthew Parris suggested in an article on asylum many years ago), we’d have to harden our hearts at the next deserving case which was over that limit. Would we do it? I’m not sure. The British public both wants to keep nasty foreigners out and then becomes gushingly sentimental when there is a picture of a dead child on a beach.
Interesting that Matthew Parris said that, as I wouldn't have thought he'd be the sort of person to make that argument.
On the point, yes, I think we would. We already have caps for several types of migration, and there will always (sadly) be plenty of tragedy in the world, and I think we are able to balance the two. There's plenty of precedent going back decades on this too.
Of course, we'll get a healthy debate about the level of the cap - which will vary year by year, and by administration - and clearly different parties will want to increase it and other decrease it.
Ultimately, the best way to control this is to stabilise conflict zones and move to replace authoritarian regimes with liberal democratic ones - which is why we need a strong soft/hard foreign policy.
I remember the article well. It was written four years ago on the wave of a refugee crisis. See below.
Cyclefree is right, "harden our hearts" is exactly what he said. His point was that collectivists and some others struggle generally to say no to a wave of needy people. If we say yes now, what about the next wave, then the next?
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
Trump is over and good riddance
When one compares the polls now with the figures, state by state, last time it looks as though Trump is down across the board, and most if not all the States that he scraped home in in 2016 will go Dem this year. HYUFD says 'now ahead'; in fact the leads as published are half or less of what they were in 2016.
I think that is based on RCP which is saying that, in the battleground states, Trump is very slightly ahead of where he was in 2016.
I think it depends which set of polls you believe (or believe them at all). If you think the national polls, then he is in serious trouble, if the state ones, as HYFUD says, he has a chance. The state polls were more inaccurate in 2016 but there is an argument for saying they might be more accurate in 2020 in that the errors of 16 forced them to correct their mistakes. The national pollsters still have the view they basically got it right in 16, which leads to complacency.
Also, only 1%+ of respondents actually answer.
Polls should be getting better at politics. After all, when they started they were not designed to be accurate; they were designed for situations where 'absolute' accuracy wasn't necessary.
The last para of Alastair's header article seems disconnected from the main article
But, Starmer's performance is worthy of more scrutiny than given so far. OGH generally posts purringly about SKS dissecting Boris Johnson forensically at PMQs. So what? Nobody cares.
I actually think Corbyn would have done a better job than SKS in opposing Boris at the present time. And Labour would be ahead in the polls now.
Corby would have articulated the social inequalities inflicted by lockdown/COVID much more eloquently & powerfully than SKS. Corby was always good at exactly this.
Hell, Marcus Rashford has articulated the social inequalities more powerfully than SKS.
This is important because we are moving on to the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. It will be a rich vein for Labour to tap.
And I can see the Corbynistas being able to do this much more powerfully than a forensically questioning millionaire with a big house in North London, who was immune from most of the consequences.
For Corbynistas, the best may still be to come. I can certainly see them roaring back in the fertile territory ahead.
I don't think the years to come are for Rehashed Blairism with another well-heeled Labour lawyer.
Absolutely, I think SKS is hopeless, Labour should be 10% clear in the polls at the moment. His call for a 2 week circuit breaker was him just trying to say something different from the Government.
Very easy to make an argument like this when you ignore leader ratings.
According to the most recent Ipsos MORI poll 29% Favourable for Starmer vs 27% Favourable for Johnson.
According to the most recent Redfield and Wilton 36% approve of Starmer vs 37% approving of Johnson.
The last para of Alastair's header article seems disconnected from the main article
But, Starmer's performance is worthy of more scrutiny than given so far. OGH generally posts purringly about SKS dissecting Boris Johnson forensically at PMQs. So what? Nobody cares.
I actually think Corbyn would have done a better job than SKS in opposing Boris at the present time. And Labour would be ahead in the polls now.
Corby would have articulated the social inequalities inflicted by lockdown/COVID much more eloquently & powerfully than SKS. Corby was always good at exactly this.
Hell, Marcus Rashford has articulated the social inequalities more powerfully than SKS.
This is important because we are moving on to the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. It will be a rich vein for Labour to tap.
And I can see the Corbynistas being able to do this much more powerfully than a forensically questioning millionaire with a big house in North London, who was immune from most of the consequences.
For Corbynistas, the best may still be to come. I can certainly see them roaring back in the fertile territory ahead.
I don't think the years to come are for Rehashed Blairism with another well-heeled Labour lawyer.
Absolutely, I think SKS is hopeless, Labour should be 10% clear in the polls at the moment. His call for a 2 week circuit breaker was him just trying to say something different from the Government.
Very easy to make an argument like this when you ignore leader ratings.
According to the most recent Ipsos MORI poll 29% Favourable for Starmer vs 27% Favourable for Johnson.
According to the most recent Redfield and Wilton 36% approve of Starmer vs 37% approving of Johnson.
How worried are you about the rise of Starmer, Mike? (From a LibDem perspective, I mean.)
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
Trump is over and good riddance
When one compares the polls now with the figures, state by state, last time it looks as though Trump is down across the board, and most if not all the States that he scraped home in in 2016 will go Dem this year. HYUFD says 'now ahead'; in fact the leads as published are half or less of what they were in 2016.
I think that is based on RCP which is saying that, in the battleground states, Trump is very slightly ahead of where he was in 2016.
I think it depends which set of polls you believe (or believe them at all). If you think the national polls, then he is in serious trouble, if the state ones, as HYFUD says, he has a chance. The state polls were more inaccurate in 2016 but there is an argument for saying they might be more accurate in 2020 in that the errors of 16 forced them to correct their mistakes. The national pollsters still have the view they basically got it right in 16, which leads to complacency.
That's not a justification for the situation today.
If you're saying the claim is legitimate then the court should say the clam is legitimate, grant asylum, remove the individual from the purgatory of not being allowed to work and settle down and let them get on with their lives.
If the court is saying the claim is illegitimate they should be deported.
The court needs to make an actual decision and implement it. Keeping someone in purgatory for five years without any actual decision is inhumane too.
It is not the court which implements the decision. But the government. Specifically, the Home Office. We should certainly be criticising governments for their ineptitude in this regard.
So you're saying there is no reason the individual hasn't been deported other than the Home Office?
Wow that is a big and clever remark, I don't know how to refute it.
Other than saying roll on January and let us see if we have taken back control or I have been euthanised. Lets do a £100 bet - if I am euthanised by January I will get my wife to pay you £100 (obviously I won't be able to myself having been euthanised), if I am not then you pay me £100. What do you think?
Idiot. Oh PS take back control.
You've been played. By people who don't give a rat's arse about you.
Imagine how you'd feel about Labour supporters vomiting out "education, education, education" at every opportunity. Equally cretinous, although I suppose one could at least say that education has a chance of being a net social good.
You also need to work on spotting an analogy. Quick, you have until January, when I expect you to be taken to the vet for the final tummy rub.
That's not a justification for the situation today.
If you're saying the claim is legitimate then the court should say the clam is legitimate, grant asylum, remove the individual from the purgatory of not being allowed to work and settle down and let them get on with their lives.
If the court is saying the claim is illegitimate they should be deported.
The court needs to make an actual decision and implement it. Keeping someone in purgatory for five years without any actual decision is inhumane too.
It is not the court which implements the decision. But the government. Specifically, the Home Office. We should certainly be criticising governments for their ineptitude in this regard.
So you're saying there is no reason the individual hasn't been deported other than the Home Office?
I find that very, very hard to believe.
I am saying that once a court has made its decision it is not the court which is responsible for implementing it, which is what you said (“the court needs to make an actual decision and implement it”). It is the Home Office. Their slowness in doing so should certainly be criticised.
I've noticed the word "popular" is replaced by "populist" among the chattering classes when it is about things that they disapprove of.
If the things you are trying to sell aren't popular, maybe it's because they are a bit shit.
Thats original!
Well then you should have come up with a better counter argument by now then.
Pretending you don't know the difference between populist and popular because they sound similar does not warrant a better response I am afraid.
lol so no difference then.
Just as I suspected.
Nothing gets past you. Can we do "sexist" vs "sexy" next?
I think for you "tedious" and "tedium" might be better.
Do we assume that is a concession re the argument then?
I've seen no counter argument to the suggestion that "populist" is just another way of shouting down arguments without engaging with them. It's only views they disagree with that are branded populist. If not then list some thing you agree with that are populist.
I've noticed its use a lot more since as calling everyone under the sun racist is no longer working.
Ireland now has lower tax and spending as a percentage of gdp than the UK, so Scotland would need to move right of the UK on that basis
I'd be interested to know how the Scots would react to adopting the Irish health system.
There is a general political consensus in Ireland that their health system is a mess because it's a mix of public and private and a plan to move it more to a public system (I hesitate to say like the NHS, because I don't know the details).
So, for example, this year they are introducing new contracts for doctors that would have them working exclusively for the public system, rather than being able to split their time between the pubic and private systems.
There's also a realisation that the mess of the health system in the Republic is a barrier to the end of partition, so they might even see this project through.
It is going to cost them a lot of money if they ever achieve it.
On the excellent header. I think the issue for the populist right at the moment is not just that it's fragmented into different sections, but that it can't decide on a unifying, overarching theme on which to fight the establishment. Brexit was exactly such a theme.
But now, they're all over the place. Various attack lines are circulating, as follows. Defund the BBC. All Lives Matter (and BLM are marxists). Asylum seekers/immigrants (including lefty lawyers). Woke comedians, and wokeness in general. The Civil Service. Lazy public sector workers (and their fat pensions). The EU in general, still, particularly Barnier (evil incarnate). The evils of Extinction Rebellion and green vegans in general. Anti-lockdown, for most. I'm sure there's lots more.
But none of these have a unifying narrative like Brexit did, so the populist right are rather scrabbling around for their next meta-narrative. Let's hope they don't find it.
The last para of Alastair's header article seems disconnected from the main article
But, Starmer's performance is worthy of more scrutiny than given so far. OGH generally posts purringly about SKS dissecting Boris Johnson forensically at PMQs. So what? Nobody cares.
I actually think Corbyn would have done a better job than SKS in opposing Boris at the present time. And Labour would be ahead in the polls now.
Corby would have articulated the social inequalities inflicted by lockdown/COVID much more eloquently & powerfully than SKS. Corby was always good at exactly this.
Hell, Marcus Rashford has articulated the social inequalities more powerfully than SKS.
This is important because we are moving on to the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. It will be a rich vein for Labour to tap.
And I can see the Corbynistas being able to do this much more powerfully than a forensically questioning millionaire with a big house in North London, who was immune from most of the consequences.
For Corbynistas, the best may still be to come. I can certainly see them roaring back in the fertile territory ahead.
I don't think the years to come are for Rehashed Blairism with another well-heeled Labour lawyer.
Absolutely, I think SKS is hopeless, Labour should be 10% clear in the polls at the moment. His call for a 2 week circuit breaker was him just trying to say something different from the Government.
Very easy to make an argument like this when you ignore leader ratings.
According to the most recent Ipsos MORI poll 29% Favourable for Starmer vs 27% Favourable for Johnson.
According to the most recent Redfield and Wilton 36% approve of Starmer vs 37% approving of Johnson.
...and as people who answer opinion polls/"the public" have got to know Starmer, they find him duller then they first thought, and the neutrals are turning into negatives.
TL;DR no big change anywhere, everyone has already made up their mind.
National GE Biden 52% (-) Trump 46% (-)
Texas Trump 51% (+1) Biden 47% (-)
Ohio Trump 51% (-) Biden 47% (-)
Florida Trump 49% (-) Biden 49% (-)
Iowa Trump 49% (-) Biden 49% (-)
Colorado Biden 57% (-) Trump 41% (-)
Virginia Biden 56% (+1) Trump 42% (-1)
Maine Biden 56% (-) Trump 42% (-1)
Minnesota Biden 56% (+1) Trump 42% (-1)
New Hampshire Biden 55% (+1) Trump 44% (-)
Wisconsin Biden 54% (-) Trump 44% (-)
New Mexico Biden 53% (-) Trump 45% (-1)
Michigan Biden 52% (+1) Trump 46% (-)
Pennsylvania Biden 52% (-) Trump 46% (-1)
North Carolina Biden 52% (-) Trump 47% (+1)
Nevada Biden 52% (+1) Trump 47% (-)
Arizona Biden 51% (-) Trump 48% (+1)
Georgia Biden 50% (+1) Trump 49% (-)
How does that lot work out in EC votes? Which after all is what matters.
On those polls, it works out as Biden on around 321. 350 if he wins Florida.
So Biden wins. And either Trump accepts or goes to the Courts.
Incidentally, he talks about the military supporting him, but, reading the General's remarks here are there I doubt whether any arm of the military would move to keep him in office. Personally I suspect that, like all bullies, he'll yell and scream but ultimately give up.
On the excellent header. I think the issue for the populist right at the moment is not just that it's fragmented into different sections, but that it can't decide on a unifying, overarching theme on which to fight the establishment. Brexit was exactly such a theme.
But now, they're all over the place. Various attack lines are circulating, as follows. Defund the BBC. All Lives Matter (and BLM are marxists). Asylum seekers/immigrants (including lefty lawyers). Woke comedians, and wokeness in general. The Civil Service. Lazy public sector workers (and their fat pensions). The EU in general, still, particularly Barnier (evil incarnate). The evils of Extinction Rebellion and green vegans in general. Anti-lockdown, for most. I'm sure there's lots more.
But none of these have a unifying narrative like Brexit did, so the populist right are rather scrabbling around for their next meta-narrative. Let's hope they don't find it.
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
Trump is over and good riddance
When one compares the polls now with the figures, state by state, last time it looks as though Trump is down across the board, and most if not all the States that he scraped home in in 2016 will go Dem this year. HYUFD says 'now ahead'; in fact the leads as published are half or less of what they were in 2016.
I think that is based on RCP which is saying that, in the battleground states, Trump is very slightly ahead of where he was in 2016.
I think it depends which set of polls you believe (or believe them at all). If you think the national polls, then he is in serious trouble, if the state ones, as HYFUD says, he has a chance. The state polls were more inaccurate in 2016 but there is an argument for saying they might be more accurate in 2020 in that the errors of 16 forced them to correct their mistakes. The national pollsters still have the view they basically got it right in 16, which leads to complacency.
Also, only 1%+ of respondents actually answer.
But if state polls have become more accurate as you say then comparing 2020 (when we think they might be broadly right) with 2016 (when we know they were biased against Trump) is a false comparison. A 3% lead for Clinton in 2016 was actually a 1% lead for Trump, whereas a 3% lead for Biden is most likely actually a 3% lead for Biden. So saying that Biden is in the same position as Clinton was is incorrect. If you look at Biden's projected winning margin on 538 in the key 6 swing states, and apply the same polling misses from 2016 (actual winning margin vs eve of poll projections from 538) then he still wins all of them except NC. So even in the unlikely scenario where the state pollsters have learned nothing and make the same errors as 4 years ago, Biden still wins handsomely. For Trump to win you'd have to see either the polls narrowing by a couple of %-pts or more or even bigger polling misses in Trump's favour than in 2016 or more likely a combination of the two. As things stand now he is a real longshot.
That's not a justification for the situation today.
If you're saying the claim is legitimate then the court should say the clam is legitimate, grant asylum, remove the individual from the purgatory of not being allowed to work and settle down and let them get on with their lives.
If the court is saying the claim is illegitimate they should be deported.
The court needs to make an actual decision and implement it. Keeping someone in purgatory for five years without any actual decision is inhumane too.
It is not the court which implements the decision. But the government. Specifically, the Home Office. We should certainly be criticising governments for their ineptitude in this regard.
So you're saying there is no reason the individual hasn't been deported other than the Home Office?
I find that very, very hard to believe.
I am saying that once a court has made its decision it is not the court which is responsible for implementing it, which is what you said (“the court needs to make an actual decision and implement it”). It is the Home Office. Their slowness in doing so should certainly be criticised.
Unless the courts are putting an injunction or similar into preventing implementation.
On the excellent header. I think the issue for the populist right at the moment is not just that it's fragmented into different sections, but that it can't decide on a unifying, overarching theme on which to fight the establishment. Brexit was exactly such a theme.
But now, they're all over the place. Various attack lines are circulating, as follows. Defund the BBC. All Lives Matter (and BLM are marxists). Asylum seekers/immigrants (including lefty lawyers). Woke comedians, and wokeness in general. The Civil Service. Lazy public sector workers (and their fat pensions). The EU in general, still, particularly Barnier (evil incarnate). The evils of Extinction Rebellion and green vegans in general. Anti-lockdown, for most. I'm sure there's lots more.
But none of these have a unifying narrative like Brexit did, so the populist right are rather scrabbling around for their next meta-narrative. Let's hope they don't find it.
It will be anti lockdown
No it won't since lockdowns will be long since over by the next election.
At the moment Biden will likely win the popular vote with about 50/51% but if Trump gets his vote up to 47/48% it could still be close yes.
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
Trump is over and good riddance
When one compares the polls now with the figures, state by state, last time it looks as though Trump is down across the board, and most if not all the States that he scraped home in in 2016 will go Dem this year. HYUFD says 'now ahead'; in fact the leads as published are half or less of what they were in 2016.
I think that is based on RCP which is saying that, in the battleground states, Trump is very slightly ahead of where he was in 2016.
I think it depends which set of polls you believe (or believe them at all). If you think the national polls, then he is in serious trouble, if the state ones, as HYFUD says, he has a chance. The state polls were more inaccurate in 2016 but there is an argument for saying they might be more accurate in 2020 in that the errors of 16 forced them to correct their mistakes. The national pollsters still have the view they basically got it right in 16, which leads to complacency.
Also, only 1%+ of respondents actually answer.
But the RCP battleground poll comparison is comparing stte polls in 2016 which we now know to have been biased against Trump.
So if you think 2020 state polling is more accurate than the national polling this time out then Trump is still fucked.
On the excellent header. I think the issue for the populist right at the moment is not just that it's fragmented into different sections, but that it can't decide on a unifying, overarching theme on which to fight the establishment. Brexit was exactly such a theme.
But now, they're all over the place. Various attack lines are circulating, as follows. Defund the BBC. All Lives Matter (and BLM are marxists). Asylum seekers/immigrants (including lefty lawyers). Woke comedians, and wokeness in general. The Civil Service. Lazy public sector workers (and their fat pensions). The EU in general, still, particularly Barnier (evil incarnate). The evils of Extinction Rebellion and green vegans in general. Anti-lockdown, for most. I'm sure there's lots more.
But none of these have a unifying narrative like Brexit did, so the populist right are rather scrabbling around for their next meta-narrative. Let's hope they don't find it.
It will be anti lockdown
No it won't since lockdowns will be long since over by the next election.
On the excellent header. I think the issue for the populist right at the moment is not just that it's fragmented into different sections, but that it can't decide on a unifying, overarching theme on which to fight the establishment. Brexit was exactly such a theme.
But now, they're all over the place. Various attack lines are circulating, as follows. Defund the BBC. All Lives Matter (and BLM are marxists). Asylum seekers/immigrants (including lefty lawyers). Woke comedians, and wokeness in general. The Civil Service. Lazy public sector workers (and their fat pensions). The EU in general, still, particularly Barnier (evil incarnate). The evils of Extinction Rebellion and green vegans in general. Anti-lockdown, for most. I'm sure there's lots more.
But none of these have a unifying narrative like Brexit did, so the populist right are rather scrabbling around for their next meta-narrative. Let's hope they don't find it.
It will be anti lockdown
No it won't since lockdowns will be long since over by the next election.
I sincerely hope you're right! But, and yes I know it's got a big majority, the Government collapses. Conservatives split from Tories, with bad temper on both sides.
When I last posted here I don't think 'likes' existed. An entertaining game is reading a post and guessing who has given it a 'like'. After two days I think i've got its measure. The more batty the post the more likely Felix is to 'like' it.
When I last posted here I don't think 'likes' existed. An entertaining game is reading a post and guessing who has given it a 'like'. After two days I think i've got its measure. The more batty the post the more likely Felix is to 'like' it.
The number of 'likes' on has received can be seen if one clicks on one's avatar at the top of the page. Seems to have a ceiling though.
I hope that London hospitality takes the government to court. The rate of infection in London is not that high. Sadiq is a c*** and he's putting Londoners out of work and put of business for a political stunt.
On the excellent header. I think the issue for the populist right at the moment is not just that it's fragmented into different sections, but that it can't decide on a unifying, overarching theme on which to fight the establishment. Brexit was exactly such a theme.
But now, they're all over the place. Various attack lines are circulating, as follows. Defund the BBC. All Lives Matter (and BLM are marxists). Asylum seekers/immigrants (including lefty lawyers). Woke comedians, and wokeness in general. The Civil Service. Lazy public sector workers (and their fat pensions). The EU in general, still, particularly Barnier (evil incarnate). The evils of Extinction Rebellion and green vegans in general. Anti-lockdown, for most. I'm sure there's lots more.
But none of these have a unifying narrative like Brexit did, so the populist right are rather scrabbling around for their next meta-narrative. Let's hope they don't find it.
The neat thing about Brexit was that allowed everyone to project their own personal concerns onto it, so lots of people could support Brexit, even if what they wanted from it was contradictory. None of the other post-Brexit populisms have that magic property, which makes things harder.
I hope that London hospitality takes the government to court. The rate of infection in London is not that high. Sadiq is a c*** and he's putting Londoners out of work and put of business for a political stunt.
They should certainly not use the courts to push their anti-lockdown political agenda. That would be disgraceful!
When I last posted here I don't think 'likes' existed. An entertaining game is reading a post and guessing who has given it a 'like'. After two days I think i've got its measure. The more batty the post the more likely Felix is to 'like' it.
Welcome back Roger.
I noticed yesterday you had liked one of my posts and then noticed you had removed the like. I then read my post and noted it was badly written (what a surprise!) and could be interpreted in two completely different and opposite ways. It was too late to edit. Without the added and removal of the like I would have been unaware that I had made a post that gave a potentially different view to which I intended. Bugger!
Comments
I think about the impossible obstacles my grandmother would have had to face, even above the difficulties in 1939 - I doubt she would have been able to prove her case to today's Home Office.
I think of the hypocrites like Theresa May who would laud those who helped my grandmother then, in the face of official obstruction, claim their mantle for the country as a whole, and then criticise the people who seek to help refugees today. We have some of those hypocrites on this board too.
I'm not saying you're saying this but a lot of centrist PR advocates seem to want it because they think it'd be an effective way of benefiting centrists and structurally locking out everyone else.
I'm baffled as to why they think this. It hasn't been the case in Europe and, had we had it here, we'd have had a Tory-UKIP coalition in 2015 and probably Farage as Deputy PM or foreign secretary.
Would you still favour it accepting all of that?
Quite possibly and at various times we have had various countries to which we do not, as a matter of policy, return people for their own safety. The result is that many are left in limbo for many years, not eligible to be here, not a part of our society, subject to much of May's hostile environment and yet still here. Its cruel but we fear the alternatives are worse.
My daughter has got very involved in helping refugees in Calais. She is empathetic to their plight and the pretty awful way that the French treat them. She is a part of that Charity world you mention but gets no pay for her work although others in the charity do. I admire her humanity and her determination to see the individual, not the system. I find it hard to say she is wrong.
I agree with MrEd that understanding the attraction of militant populism (which appears on the left too, e.g. Melanchon) is interesting and important - Ed Balls' tour of rural America was illmuniating and we need more like that. Most of us know a few people in that camp, and they are by no means necessarily unpleasant, but the ones I know share a high level of impatience with traditional politics and a lack of interest in detail. In that they differ from thoughtful right-wingers (or left-wingers), but that doesn't make them unimportant or altogether mpervious to persuasion.
Your proposal would be wonderful if everyone approached it like that but self defeating if the winners just circumvent all the boring detail and effective policies with proposals that are pie in the sky but sunny and optimistic.
If you're saying the claim is legitimate then the court should say the clam is legitimate, grant asylum, remove the individual from the purgatory of not being allowed to work and settle down and let them get on with their lives.
If the court is saying the claim is illegitimate they should be deported.
The court needs to make an actual decision and implement it. Keeping someone in purgatory for five years without any actual decision is inhumane too.
He said that Bangor is really bad with the students and of course Bangor has just joined us with heightened restrictions
It does seem that students and young adults are at the centre of this outbreak and indeed Macron has said as much this morning
Still too close to call HYUFD?
How shocking to the Right Wing Populists, and how reassuring to patriotic Britons.
The lawyers don't control the law, but they do control how the law is practiced. Some need to look to their own ethics and behaviour too.
If the things you are trying to sell aren't popular, maybe it's because they are a bit shit.
Otherwise say the claim is legitimate, grant the asylum and let the individual start to rebuild their lives properly.
Rather than attacking those who work within the system as it is, you might do better to ask yourself (1) why governments have been so bad at/unwilling to change those laws; (2) why they have been so poor at implementing those bits of the system they do have control over; and (3) how practically the laws could be changed to meet everyone’s desires.
If, for instance, we decided to place a numerical limit on asylum seekers in any one year (a proposal which Matthew Parris suggested in an article on asylum many years ago), we’d have to harden our hearts at the next deserving case which was over that limit. Would we do it? I’m not sure. The British public both wants to keep nasty foreigners out and then becomes gushingly sentimental when there is a picture of a dead child on a beach.
But, Starmer's performance is worthy of more scrutiny than given so far. OGH generally posts purringly about SKS dissecting Boris Johnson forensically at PMQs. So what? Nobody cares.
I actually think Corbyn would have done a better job than SKS in opposing Boris at the present time. And Labour would be ahead in the polls now.
Corby would have articulated the social inequalities inflicted by lockdown/COVID much more eloquently & powerfully than SKS. Corby was always good at exactly this.
Hell, Marcus Rashford has articulated the social inequalities more powerfully than SKS.
This is important because we are moving on to the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. It will be a rich vein for Labour to tap.
And I can see the Corbynistas being able to do this much more powerfully than a forensically questioning millionaire with a big house in North London, who was immune from most of the consequences.
For Corbynistas, the best may still be to come. I can certainly see them roaring back in the fertile territory ahead.
I don't think the years to come are for Rehashed Blairism with another well-heeled Labour lawyer.
I can't imagine that was high on Macron's priority list so seems an odd thing for Hancock to have said?
https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1316455895434498055
The state polling also suggests Trump is now ahead in Ohio and Iowa and near tied in Florida and North Carolina and Arizona but Biden is ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, if Trump holds all the former he would then just need one of the latter to win and we know most of the state polls in the latter in 2016 were wrong except Trafalgar
but would the pro-AV side have done better in the referendum if they had accepted UKIP into their camp?
However I do give Ms Sturgeon credit for turning out day after day to address the grim reality of the Covid situation in Scotland, answer people's questions, plead with them to stick with the measures and largely avoid scoring partisan points. This must be exhausting and depressing but she has kept at it. The contrast with her counterparts in London is total.
(1) Asylum claims may well be down this year. But I think that misses the point. The issue is the channel crossings. Both for their sheer brazenness and the visceral images they create but also because people fear it could spiral out of control. There's nothing in law to stop 7,000 crossings a year becoming 70,000 - or even 700,000 - and this needs to be addressed. I think pointing to total numbers being down is deflection. And, I've said this before, I think Britons would accept *higher* total numbers of asylum claimants (say, 80k a year rather than 30-40k a year) provided they were all fairly assessed and total migration was kept <200k pa.
(2) I agree, the solution must be international. In particular, we need an immediate repatriation deal with France (which would benefit them too by making the Pas de Calais far less attractive rather than a transitory holding camp) but we can also do quite a lot by ourselves too through international aid, funding high-quality refugee camps overseas (where people can both work and live and go to school) near zones of conflict, and amending our domestic laws to stop the worst excesses of legal frustration. This would include making it ineligible to apply for conversion from asylum to a work/resident permit without leaving the UK first for at least 6 months and then re-applying through formal migration routes. I'd also agree a rough cap over 4-5 years of total claimants (USA and Canada do this) and seek political consent for it through our domestic elections. I'd do an annual lottery for 10-15k of those in camps worldwide, each year, because everyone deserves some hope.
Fair, balanced solutions.
The courts, of course, are bound by the law, and it's asylum law which creates such a strong documentary burden of proof on the part of the refugee.
This is why we often have the absurdity of refugees having to ask charities for money to travel from Glasgow to the London embassies of the country they have fled from, so that they can try to obtain the documentary evidence to satisfy asylum law.
That's a Kafkaesque system designed to deny people asylum for as long as possible, not because they aren't refugees, but because the overriding priority is to keep the numbers down regardless of the people who suffer as a result.
For me - Nigel Farage, the Brexit Party, UKIP, the Daily Mail (often but not all the time) - part of the populist right. I don't seem them as shadowy irrelevant figures - I see them as central to understanding the current political situation.
Just as I suspected.
The problem is with those that start with a goal in mind and use every loophole or piece of legal chicanery possible to block things that they don't like. It's not just people trying to do everything by the book.
We've seen it with Brexit as well as with immigration.
On the point, yes, I think we would. We already have caps for several types of migration, and there will always (sadly) be plenty of tragedy in the world, and I think we are able to balance the two. There's plenty of precedent going back decades on this too.
Of course, we'll get a healthy debate about the level of the cap - which will vary year by year, and by administration - and clearly different parties will want to increase it and other decrease it.
Ultimately, the best way to control this is to stabilise conflict zones and move to replace authoritarian regimes with liberal democratic ones - which is why we need a strong soft/hard foreign policy.
Whether Ireland will ultimately "win" remains to be seen, but David Henig is surely correct: the Irish government has comprehensively out-manoeuvred the UK government on EU and US relations and the Northern Ireland settlement.
This a country that England expects either to ignore or invade. And perhaps explains the hatred in some quarters towards Varadakar, as often expressed on here by Carlotta.
This is the exact same thing, the numbers are small but they are incredibly visible and it's the visibility that is the issue here.
What would stop them?
Edit: in case you still think that's hyperbole don't forget that Germany had over a million in 2015-2016, which is an even higher figure than what I posted.
Other than saying roll on January and let us see if we have taken back control or I have been euthanised. Lets do a £100 bet - if I am euthanised by January I will get my wife to pay you £100 (obviously I won't be able to myself having been euthanised), if I am not then you pay me £100. What do you think?
Idiot. Oh PS take back control.
I think it depends which set of polls you believe (or believe them at all). If you think the national polls, then he is in serious trouble, if the state ones, as HYFUD says, he has a chance. The state polls were more inaccurate in 2016 but there is an argument for saying they might be more accurate in 2020 in that the errors of 16 forced them to correct their mistakes. The national pollsters still have the view they basically got it right in 16, which leads to complacency.
Also, only 1%+ of respondents actually answer.
Place nicely all.
So, for example, this year they are introducing new contracts for doctors that would have them working exclusively for the public system, rather than being able to split their time between the pubic and private systems.
There's also a realisation that the mess of the health system in the Republic is a barrier to the end of partition, so they might even see this project through.
She looks good compared to Boris.
But not say Angela Merkel (whose performance has been exceptionally impressive).
National GE
Biden 52% (-)
Trump 46% (-)
Texas
Trump 51% (+1)
Biden 47% (-)
Ohio
Trump 51% (-)
Biden 47% (-)
Florida
Trump 49% (-)
Biden 49% (-)
Iowa
Trump 49% (-)
Biden 49% (-)
Colorado
Biden 57% (-)
Trump 41% (-)
Virginia
Biden 56% (+1)
Trump 42% (-1)
Maine
Biden 56% (-)
Trump 42% (-1)
Minnesota
Biden 56% (+1)
Trump 42% (-1)
New Hampshire
Biden 55% (+1)
Trump 44% (-)
Wisconsin
Biden 54% (-)
Trump 44% (-)
New Mexico
Biden 53% (-)
Trump 45% (-1)
Michigan
Biden 52% (+1)
Trump 46% (-)
Pennsylvania
Biden 52% (-)
Trump 46% (-1)
North Carolina
Biden 52% (-)
Trump 47% (+1)
Nevada
Biden 52% (+1)
Trump 47% (-)
Arizona
Biden 51% (-)
Trump 48% (+1)
Georgia
Biden 50% (+1)
Trump 49% (-)
Cyclefree is right, "harden our hearts" is exactly what he said. His point was that collectivists and some others struggle generally to say no to a wave of needy people. If we say yes now, what about the next wave, then the next?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/west-must-harden-its-heart-against-refugees-f8p7wn76d
According to the most recent Redfield and Wilton 36% approve of Starmer vs 37% approving of Johnson.
I find that very, very hard to believe.
Which after all is what matters.
https://twitter.com/nickgutteridge/status/1316664781202485248
Imagine how you'd feel about Labour supporters vomiting out "education, education, education" at every opportunity. Equally cretinous, although I suppose one could at least say that education has a chance of being a net social good.
You also need to work on spotting an analogy. Quick, you have until January, when I expect you to be taken to the vet for the final tummy rub.
I've noticed its use a lot more since as calling everyone under the sun racist is no longer working.
But now, they're all over the place. Various attack lines are circulating, as follows. Defund the BBC. All Lives Matter (and BLM are marxists). Asylum seekers/immigrants (including lefty lawyers). Woke comedians, and wokeness in general. The Civil Service. Lazy public sector workers (and their fat pensions). The EU in general, still, particularly Barnier (evil incarnate). The evils of Extinction Rebellion and green vegans in general. Anti-lockdown, for most. I'm sure there's lots more.
But none of these have a unifying narrative like Brexit did, so the populist right are rather scrabbling around for their next meta-narrative. Let's hope they don't find it.
Incidentally, he talks about the military supporting him, but, reading the General's remarks here are there I doubt whether any arm of the military would move to keep him in office. Personally I suspect that, like all bullies, he'll yell and scream but ultimately give up.
If you look at Biden's projected winning margin on 538 in the key 6 swing states, and apply the same polling misses from 2016 (actual winning margin vs eve of poll projections from 538) then he still wins all of them except NC. So even in the unlikely scenario where the state pollsters have learned nothing and make the same errors as 4 years ago, Biden still wins handsomely.
For Trump to win you'd have to see either the polls narrowing by a couple of %-pts or more or even bigger polling misses in Trump's favour than in 2016 or more likely a combination of the two. As things stand now he is a real longshot.
https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1316668817334992897
So if you think 2020 state polling is more accurate than the national polling this time out then Trump is still fucked.
Taking Deerhunter + NC + Arizona + Rainy Night.
The heartbreaking thing is I can do this without looking. I have about a dozen EC "maps" in my head and this is one of them.
How much harder is it going to be for BoZo when he announces "Nationwide measures intended to interrupt the flow of contagion"...
Bloody activist lawyers.
I noticed yesterday you had liked one of my posts and then noticed you had removed the like. I then read my post and noted it was badly written (what a surprise!) and could be interpreted in two completely different and opposite ways. It was too late to edit. Without the added and removal of the like I would have been unaware that I had made a post that gave a potentially different view to which I intended. Bugger!