The best places for summer holidays with children are reliably sunny and warm, but rarely too hot, with plenty to do and reasonably affordable, with some scenic variety and seasonal events to go to.
We almost never go to anywhere that ticks those boxes though we are trying Corsica this year. Usually we spend our holidays in our place in the Maconnais which is unreliably sunny, often too hot and occasionally too wet, with scenic variety but few seasonal events and nothing much for children. And, as discovered this evening, a hornet’s nest in the garden.
Having read it, his analysis seems quite peculiar. He's going out of his way imo to see half-empty glasses.
What do you think?
It is the usual appeaser nonsense. The Rouble is a potemkin currency right now. It has kept its value due to oil prices and surging central bank interest rates. Both those things are throttling the non-hydrocarbon economy. Russia cannot tolerate for 12 months plus.
It is the typical, disastrously-wrong realpolitik view of the world - that national interests are all that matter. And only those of the major players, even. It misses the point entirely that there is a Ukraine, and a Ukraine that is showing a lot of agency. Or that, without liberal democracy, the global economy - let alone the domestic economies of Western democracies - would not be anywhere near as strong and hence that abstract ideal might be something worth fighting for - indeed, might be the West's duty bound contribution to the fight - at the expense of some short- to medium-term economic pain.
Of course the other chunk of migration that needs to be addressed is family migration. After slowing under May it is ramping up again, especially arranged marriages from the subcontinent. We should limit married visas to the same basis as unmarried spouse visas. You have to have a two year relationship first. That stops it being exploited by webs of family marriage planning (often cousin marriage) to get people over here.
Having read it, his analysis seems quite peculiar. He's going out of his way imo to see half-empty glasses.
What do you think?
It is the usual appeaser nonsense. The Rouble is a potemkin currency right now. It has kept its value due to oil prices and surging central bank interest rates. Both those things are throttling the non-hydrocarbon economy. Russia cannot tolerate for 12 months plus.
It is the typical, disastrously-wrong realpolitik view of the world - that national interests are all that matter. And only those of the major players, even. It misses the point entirely that there is a Ukraine, and a Ukraine that is showing a lot of agency. Or that, without liberal democracy, the global economy - let alone the domestic economies of Western democracies - would not be anywhere near as strong and hence that abstract ideal might be something worth fighting for - indeed, might be the West's duty bound contribution to the fight - at the expense of some short- to medium-term economic pain.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson wrote a fine tribute to the lady being celebrated today:
My fellow citizens of a more pragmatic bent should be impressed by 70 years of doing a hard thing well. Elizabeth has shown the unfailing dignity, stable judgment and spiritual gravity that befit the Queen of England and Defender of the Faith. Her reign has been an admirable example of “a long obedience in the same direction.” That is worth at least one huzzah. . . . The Germans are wonderful people and staunch allies. But hearing a band strike up “Deutschland Über Alles” caused the hair to rise on the back of my neck. In contrast, hearing “God Save the Queen” during a state visit brought stirrings of ancient loyalty and the feeling of arriving home.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
We’re also getting a significant influx from Hong Kong because Xi
100,000 in the last year
They are more than welcome. I can’t think of better immigrants than smart, non-criminal, freedom loving, hardworking Hong Kongers. I hope a million move here
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
NickPalmer - I would definitely recommend "The Last Hurrah" -- but then I am a poltical junkie. The movie isn't bad, either. (I did, just recently, see "All the King's Men" and thought it was an interesting, but flawed, adaption of the novel.)
OK, I've ordered it - £4.15 from Abe Books (vs £9 from Amazon). Agree about the movie (are we talking about the 1949 one? I see there's been a remake with Sean Penn). But it's perhaps interesting that when I first saw it I was very young (12?) and thought the populist anti-hero modelled on Huey Long was immensely thrilling as he bellowed to his army of "hicks" and rather overlooked his flaws - maybe some Trump fans feel the same sort of visceral appeal.
Having read it, his analysis seems quite peculiar. He's going out of his way imo to see half-empty glasses.
What do you think?
There is a noticeable 'a deal will be done' mindset going on here. It is a bit like Brexit. Everyone keeps saying 'a deal will be done', etc etc. I am sceptical. Bit, if you look at Putin's regime, its fucked. Its a bunch of old men. There's no succession planning. He is quite happy to just grind through tens of thousands of men, indefinetly. Because ultimately that is what dictators do. At present it is impoverished military contractors, but they don't go on indefinetly, and they will need to move on to conscripts. If you look at Putins rule, things go bad when there are monumental errors, like the sinking of the Kursk. The war in Ukraine will become one such error. ... eventually people in Russia won't go along with it. Any 'deal' with Russia ultimately shores up his regime and rule; it isn't a good idea.
We need to hang in there and be patient. His regime is buggered. But I’m starting to see more and more of the “Russia is winning” crap. And more of the 19th century nonsense that believes every war is a great power proxy war.
How can a country win when it is cut off economically, politically and culturally from the rest of the world? It can’t - see Venezuela, Iran, N Korea, for that matter see a few countries that did it to themselves without the need for sanctions, like Argentina or Albania. Look even at the trade damage Britain has done to itself from a modest enough realignment of arrangements since Brexit. Doesn’t mean Russia won’t continue to be an irritation, but the goal must be to contain and suppress its destructive power for years, or decades, until someone there sees fit to enter the post-imperial world.
The best places for summer holidays with children are reliably sunny and warm, but rarely too hot, with plenty to do and reasonably affordable, with some scenic variety and seasonal events to go to.
We almost never go to anywhere that ticks those boxes though we are trying Corsica this year. Usually we spend our holidays in our place in the Maconnais which is unreliably sunny, often too hot and occasionally too wet, with scenic variety but few seasonal events and nothing much for children. And, as discovered this evening, a hornet’s nest in the garden.
Corsica can be insanely expensive tho. And the locals are outrageously rude
I’m trying to think of somewhere that ticks your boxes. I’d say northern mainland Greece or northwestern Turkey
@Jim_Miller - could you please be so kind as to not use the blockquote tag for text excerpts from elsewhere? I'm sure you've noticed in this thread that it breaks the quote function when people reply.
The best places for summer holidays with children are reliably sunny and warm, but rarely too hot, with plenty to do and reasonably affordable, with some scenic variety and seasonal events to go to.
We almost never go to anywhere that ticks those boxes though we are trying Corsica this year. Usually we spend our holidays in our place in the Maconnais which is unreliably sunny, often too hot and occasionally too wet, with scenic variety but few seasonal events and nothing much for children. And, as discovered this evening, a hornet’s nest in the garden.
Corsica can be insanely expensive tho. And the locals are outrageously rude
I’m trying to think of somewhere that ticks your boxes. I’d say northern mainland Greece or northwestern Turkey
Or perhaps northern Portugal?
Northern Portugal - according to the website “Weatherspark” has a climate “most similar to” the North Island of NZ…
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
We didn't and they mostly haven't.
Unless "we" means a few bitter Remainers who talked so much bollocks that they were eventually believed by a few of their "friends".
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
NickPalmer - The 1949 film, which happened to be on an old movie sub-channel (Movies!) that I occasionally watch.
If you want a less dramatic discussion of Huey Long, You might want to look at the Louisiana chapter of V. O. Key's classic, "Southern Politics in State and Nation".
Of course the other chunk of migration that needs to be addressed is family migration. After slowing under May it is ramping up again, especially arranged marriages from the subcontinent. We should limit married visas to the same basis as unmarried spouse visas. You have to have a two year relationship first. That stops it being exploited by webs of family marriage planning (often cousin marriage) to get people over here.
Banning consanguineous marriages would be a good start.
Any plan on renewing appeal with ‘Waitrose Woman’ voters that doesn’t start with “Of course, Johnson has to go” is worthless. Think you can turn round your party’s appeal with voters who hate your leader? Jez and Ed’s advisors would like a word once they’ve finished laughing. https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1532441427149479936
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
The best places for summer holidays with children are reliably sunny and warm, but rarely too hot, with plenty to do and reasonably affordable, with some scenic variety and seasonal events to go to.
We almost never go to anywhere that ticks those boxes though we are trying Corsica this year. Usually we spend our holidays in our place in the Maconnais which is unreliably sunny, often too hot and occasionally too wet, with scenic variety but few seasonal events and nothing much for children. And, as discovered this evening, a hornet’s nest in the garden.
Corsica can be insanely expensive tho. And the locals are outrageously rude
I’m trying to think of somewhere that ticks your boxes. I’d say northern mainland Greece or northwestern Turkey
Or perhaps northern Portugal?
Yes, the challenge is guaranteed warm and sunny but not hot. Generally requires sea breezes or altitude, but with culture too - which rules out some obvious islandy choices.
The best places for summer holidays with children are reliably sunny and warm, but rarely too hot, with plenty to do and reasonably affordable, with some scenic variety and seasonal events to go to.
We almost never go to anywhere that ticks those boxes though we are trying Corsica this year. Usually we spend our holidays in our place in the Maconnais which is unreliably sunny, often too hot and occasionally too wet, with scenic variety but few seasonal events and nothing much for children. And, as discovered this evening, a hornet’s nest in the garden.
Corsica can be insanely expensive tho. And the locals are outrageously rude
I’m trying to think of somewhere that ticks your boxes. I’d say northern mainland Greece or northwestern Turkey
Or perhaps northern Portugal?
Yes, the challenge is guaranteed warm and sunny but not hot. Generally requires sea breezes or altitude, but with culture too - which rules out some obvious islandy choices.
Here’s my “home” beach. No bugger on it, comme d’habitude.
Very nice. But also inconveniently far from Manchester, which is a factor when choosing a holiday. Even in peak season, Cornwall really isn't crowded. Look at that picture I posted. Now that was when we first got there, and others arrived, but it never came close to crowded. Granted, some beaches - Polzeath, say - are always busy. But most aren't. Not as quiet as NZ, of course. But at least few other people on the beach are part of the fun. Friends to make, and so forth.
It took you EIGHT HOURS to get there.
You could be accompanying Leon on an accordion in Tbilisi in that time.
Well I'm not sure I could. Manchester Airport hasn't done well in that respect of late. But even if I could - well, I'd enjoy myself, I'm sure, but I don't think Georgia would be as successful a family holiday as Cornwall. For me - for my family - I don't think anywhere in Europe would be. And I'm sure NZ is grand - if you offered me a free family holiday to NZ right now I'd take it gladly and enthusiastically - but it takes 24 hours and thousands and thousands of pounds to get there.
Sure, but if 8 hours is your limit, pretty much all of Europe is in your compass.
Cornwall is v nice (and good to see you got to Portscatho, which is where we stay) but I just think it’s a tad overrated.
Speaking as a Cornishman, I tend to agree. I’m not sure why Brits like Cookie rave QUITE so much about Cornwall as a holiday destination. The weather is just too unreliable, and it is too busy in school hols
Cornwall is actually, to my mind, better as a place to live than to holiday
Safe, sometimes beautiful, mild, low crime, friendly, really nice food now, nice people, lots of culture and history, great pubs, pretty towns and villages, sufficiently far from London that it has a vivid life of its own, and unexpectedly varied - the difference between a north coast village like Zennor and a south coast valley like the Helford - a couple of dozen miles away - is astonishing
But if I had just two weeks precious summer holiday with my family, I would not go to often-rainy Cornwall
Well I love the place because it's where we come on holiday - or have done since we were a family of five. That tends to make you feel warmly towards a place. But emotion aside, it's a balancing act, same as anything else. Take into account how you feel about a place, but also cost, things to do, weather, stress involved, all sorts of other things. And abroad in the school holidays is expensive, and abroad with a young family is stressful. Weather ranks relatively low for us. Neither wife nor oldest daughter do at all well in the heat. Nor me, to be honest. And we're from Manchester, we can deal with rain. Take weather out of the equation and it's hard for anywhere else to compete. To me, Cornwall seems the perfect family holiday destination, though has never ranked particularly high on my list of places to live. It's a long way from anywhere of any size. Possibly this merely reflects my own life: I've always lived close to big cities so that's just how I see life working.
The best places for summer holidays with children are reliably sunny and warm, but rarely too hot, with plenty to do and reasonably affordable, with some scenic variety and seasonal events to go to.
We almost never go to anywhere that ticks those boxes though we are trying Corsica this year. Usually we spend our holidays in our place in the Maconnais which is unreliably sunny, often too hot and occasionally too wet, with scenic variety but few seasonal events and nothing much for children. And, as discovered this evening, a hornet’s nest in the garden.
Corsica can be insanely expensive tho. And the locals are outrageously rude
I’m trying to think of somewhere that ticks your boxes. I’d say northern mainland Greece or northwestern Turkey
Or perhaps northern Portugal?
Yes, the challenge is guaranteed warm and sunny but not hot. Generally requires sea breezes or altitude, but with culture too - which rules out some obvious islandy choices.
Look at Epirus, where i have just been. You’ve got sea, mountains, and TONS of culture. Also beautiful beaches and good food. Reliable sunny weather but cooled by the Med. Avoid Parga which is really really pretty but super touristy. Or if you go expect tourists everywhere
You can fly direct to Preveza (really nice) from the UK, and hire a car there
The best places for summer holidays with children are reliably sunny and warm, but rarely too hot, with plenty to do and reasonably affordable, with some scenic variety and seasonal events to go to.
We almost never go to anywhere that ticks those boxes though we are trying Corsica this year. Usually we spend our holidays in our place in the Maconnais which is unreliably sunny, often too hot and occasionally too wet, with scenic variety but few seasonal events and nothing much for children. And, as discovered this evening, a hornet’s nest in the garden.
Corsica can be insanely expensive tho. And the locals are outrageously rude
I’m trying to think of somewhere that ticks your boxes. I’d say northern mainland Greece or northwestern Turkey
Or perhaps northern Portugal?
Yes, the challenge is guaranteed warm and sunny but not hot. Generally requires sea breezes or altitude, but with culture too - which rules out some obvious islandy choices.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
The best places for summer holidays with children are reliably sunny and warm, but rarely too hot, with plenty to do and reasonably affordable, with some scenic variety and seasonal events to go to.
We almost never go to anywhere that ticks those boxes though we are trying Corsica this year. Usually we spend our holidays in our place in the Maconnais which is unreliably sunny, often too hot and occasionally too wet, with scenic variety but few seasonal events and nothing much for children. And, as discovered this evening, a hornet’s nest in the garden.
Corsica can be insanely expensive tho. And the locals are outrageously rude
I’m trying to think of somewhere that ticks your boxes. I’d say northern mainland Greece or northwestern Turkey
Or perhaps northern Portugal?
Yes, the challenge is guaranteed warm and sunny but not hot. Generally requires sea breezes or altitude, but with culture too - which rules out some obvious islandy choices.
On travel options, the last time I was in Turkey I hired one of the £2.50 a day Brompton folding bikes from a railway station here and took it on the plane to use whilst in Istanbul.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
Arguing the toss over which migrants are preferable does rather miss a more fundamental point, which is that the UK is overpopulated; that immigration (given the age profile of immigrants) is a key driver of population growth; and, consequently, the country is eventually going to have to learn how to cope without large numbers of immigrants.
Instead of just importing more and more people (and, therefore, having continually to worry about where we're going to find food, water, energy, housing, jobs and public services for more and more people,) the country should be aiming for a managed decline of the total number of people living in it in the long term. Many essential benefits - notably reduced pressure on housing, water and other key resources, and the opportunity to become less dependent on imported food and to carry out rewilding - can be derived from this.
Ultimately, too many people = too much pressure on the natural world. Just as with global heating, the effects of too many people can be mitigated by technology, but mitigation is only enough to slow down the rate of damage, not to stop it in its tracks. The ultimate solution to global heating is to decarbonise, and the ultimate solution to too many people is to depopulate. If humanity can stop digging up and burning fossil fuels, and can learn to pump out offspring at below replacement rate for one or two hundred years, then our species will probably be fine.
London is buzzing tonight. Just left a party at Hackney Wick. London in June at the Jubilee weekend is a special place to be. Nowhere quite like it. We’re lucky to have London.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
I know emotions ran high over that period but some of the things you've posted there are simply not true. Priti Patel never said anything that even remotely approximated to “starving Ireland” and the fact that people continue to repeat that she did just shows that it was a far more successful piece of fake news than anything the Leave campaign ever came up with.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Nothing’s one sided, though.
What was - and remains - shocking was the latent nastiness that was unleashed in Britain.
Previously the general assumption was that the British were too sensible and stolidly good-mannered to descend to such levels, indeed that was much of the attraction.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
We’re also getting a significant influx from Hong Kong because Xi
100,000 in the last year
They are more than welcome. I can’t think of better immigrants than smart, non-criminal, freedom loving, hardworking Hong Kongers. I hope a million move here
Check out Pakistani and Bangladeshi migration. Fell 40% under May, stayed low for years, now has taken off again.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Nothing’s one sided, though.
What was - and remains - shocking was the latent nastiness that was unleashed in Britain.
Previously the general assumption was that the British were too sensible and stolidly good-mannered to descend to such levels, indeed that was much of the attraction.
Most of this seemed to be a handful of idiots, accentuated and spread broadly by left wing outlets looking to get outraged. It's like the racism against Sancho and Rashford. It was a small number online but the narrative around it obscured the fact that the vast majority of England fans were appalled at the racism.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
I know emotions ran high over that period but some of the things you've posted there are simply not true. Priti Patel never said anything that even remotely approximated to “starving Ireland” and the fact that people continue to repeat that she did just shows that it was a far more successful piece of fake news than anything the Leave campaign ever came up with.
The misquoting and mythology on the Remain side is astonishing. Raab said he "hadn't appreciated the full extent" of how much trade went through Dover-Calais and this is still repeated everywhere as he didn't know it was our made export route.
Having read it, his analysis seems quite peculiar. He's going out of his way imo to see half-empty glasses.
What do you think?
It is the usual appeaser nonsense. The Rouble is a potemkin currency right now. It has kept its value due to oil prices and surging central bank interest rates. Both those things are throttling the non-hydrocarbon economy. Russia cannot tolerate for 12 months plus.
It is the typical, disastrously-wrong realpolitik view of the world - that national interests are all that matter. And only those of the major players, even. It misses the point entirely that there is a Ukraine, and a Ukraine that is showing a lot of agency. Or that, without liberal democracy, the global economy - let alone the domestic economies of Western democracies - would not be anywhere near as strong and hence that abstract ideal might be something worth fighting for - indeed, might be the West's duty bound contribution to the fight - at the expense of some short- to medium-term economic pain.
I'd call that sort of thing misplaced attempts at realpolitik at best, given the longer term practical issues that might arise (and indeed already have) from taking a 'end this as soon as possible' approach, rather than genuine realpolitik.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Nothing’s one sided, though.
What was - and remains - shocking was the latent nastiness that was unleashed in Britain.
Previously the general assumption was that the British were too sensible and stolidly good-mannered to descend to such levels, indeed that was much of the attraction.
Most of this seemed to be a handful of idiots, accentuated and spread broadly by left wing outlets looking to get outraged. It's like the racism against Sancho and Rashford. It was a small number online but the narrative around it obscured the fact that the vast majority of England fans were appalled at the racism.
The Prime Minister spoke of “citizens of nowhere”, words written for her by Nick Timothy and presumably meant as criticism of irresponsible non-dons or something.
It was grossly irresponsible at a time of heightened tension and it was received as two fingers up by me and all the migrants I know.
I get that a lot of people on here don’t get it, it’s because you are not migrants. You’ve got no idea, I’m afraid.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Come back from my Jubilee Party as a non-committed. Got pissed. So did everyone else. The Monarchists sang Rule Brittania and the National Anthem. We didn't. Was a good laugh. Fun was had. No one got political at all. No one was forced to wave a flag. Some moaned you weren't in the War. Greeted with knowing laughter. Really glad I went. Not everything's.a Culture.War.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Nothing’s one sided, though.
What was - and remains - shocking was the latent nastiness that was unleashed in Britain.
Previously the general assumption was that the British were too sensible and stolidly good-mannered to descend to such levels, indeed that was much of the attraction.
Most of this seemed to be a handful of idiots, accentuated and spread broadly by left wing outlets looking to get outraged. It's like the racism against Sancho and Rashford. It was a small number online but the narrative around it obscured the fact that the vast majority of England fans were appalled at the racism.
The Prime Minister spoke of “citizens of nowhere”, words written for her by Nick Timothy and presumably meant as criticism of irresponsible non-dons or something.
It was grossly irresponsible at a time of heightened tension and it was received as two fingers up by me and all the migrants I know.
I get that a lot of people on here don’t get it, it’s because you are not migrants. You’ve got no idea, I’m afraid.
I'm married to one. I know exactly how she feels about it. And if you're going to presume to tell me otherwise, you can fuck off.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
We’re also getting a significant influx from Hong Kong because Xi
100,000 in the last year
They are more than welcome. I can’t think of better immigrants than smart, non-criminal, freedom loving, hardworking Hong Kongers. I hope a million move here
Check out Pakistani and Bangladeshi migration. Fell 40% under May, stayed low for years, now has taken off again.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Nothing’s one sided, though.
What was - and remains - shocking was the latent nastiness that was unleashed in Britain.
Previously the general assumption was that the British were too sensible and stolidly good-mannered to descend to such levels, indeed that was much of the attraction.
Most of this seemed to be a handful of idiots, accentuated and spread broadly by left wing outlets looking to get outraged. It's like the racism against Sancho and Rashford. It was a small number online but the narrative around it obscured the fact that the vast majority of England fans were appalled at the racism.
The Prime Minister spoke of “citizens of nowhere”, words written for her by Nick Timothy and presumably meant as criticism of irresponsible non-dons or something.
It was grossly irresponsible at a time of heightened tension and it was received as two fingers up by me and all the migrants I know.
I get that a lot of people on here don’t get it, it’s because you are not migrants. You’ve got no idea, I’m afraid.
I'm married to one. I know exactly how she feels about it. And if you're going to presume to tell me otherwise, you can fuck off.
You are quite a nasty piece of work. It was your spirit of hatred that infused Brexit, I’m afraid.
More prosaically than other travellers, I've been asked if I'd like to go to Ludlow for a few days. I don't know it. Is that an invitation I should a) accept, or b) decline? Thanks.
Oh god, definitely ACCEPT
The countryside is truly glorious and pretty little Ludlow is like this mini gastronomic heaven. You can have brilliant walks (with brilliant churches and castles and villages if that’s your thing) then brilliant dinners that you’ve earned
Honestly, it’s excellent. Go
What he said. It's well worth a visit.
If you like hill walking the Clee Hills are outstanding walking country with stunning views.
If you like heritage, Stokesay, Ludlow Castle, Berrington Hall are all easy to get to.
Plenty of places to eat.
And if you just like sitting around admiring the view, there's plenty of good ones to choose.
Make sure it’s Stokesay Court not Stokesay Castle you go to. Otherwise your partner will make you atone for your error
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Nothing’s one sided, though.
What was - and remains - shocking was the latent nastiness that was unleashed in Britain.
Previously the general assumption was that the British were too sensible and stolidly good-mannered to descend to such levels, indeed that was much of the attraction.
Mate, you now live in America and you are intending to retire to New Zealand. It no longer has anything to do with you, so you can shut the fuck up
The best places for summer holidays with children are reliably sunny and warm, but rarely too hot, with plenty to do and reasonably affordable, with some scenic variety and seasonal events to go to.
We almost never go to anywhere that ticks those boxes though we are trying Corsica this year. Usually we spend our holidays in our place in the Maconnais which is unreliably sunny, often too hot and occasionally too wet, with scenic variety but few seasonal events and nothing much for children. And, as discovered this evening, a hornet’s nest in the garden.
Corsica can be insanely expensive tho. And the locals are outrageously rude
I’m trying to think of somewhere that ticks your boxes. I’d say northern mainland Greece or northwestern Turkey
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
It wasn't. The 7 million haven't fucked off.
There's shitloads of Albanians living here (and in EU countries) and they're not in the EU.
Immigration happens. You don't have to be in the EU for it to happen.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Nothing’s one sided, though.
What was - and remains - shocking was the latent nastiness that was unleashed in Britain.
Previously the general assumption was that the British were too sensible and stolidly good-mannered to descend to such levels, indeed that was much of the attraction.
Most of this seemed to be a handful of idiots, accentuated and spread broadly by left wing outlets looking to get outraged. It's like the racism against Sancho and Rashford. It was a small number online but the narrative around it obscured the fact that the vast majority of England fans were appalled at the racism.
The Prime Minister spoke of “citizens of nowhere”, words written for her by Nick Timothy and presumably meant as criticism of irresponsible non-dons or something.
It was grossly irresponsible at a time of heightened tension and it was received as two fingers up by me and all the migrants I know.
I get that a lot of people on here don’t get it, it’s because you are not migrants. You’ve got no idea, I’m afraid.
I'm married to one. I know exactly how she feels about it. And if you're going to presume to tell me otherwise, you can fuck off.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
Arguing the toss over which migrants are preferable does rather miss a more fundamental point, which is that the UK is overpopulated; that immigration (given the age profile of immigrants) is a key driver of population growth; and, consequently, the country is eventually going to have to learn how to cope without large numbers of immigrants.
Instead of just importing more and more people (and, therefore, having continually to worry about where we're going to find food, water, energy, housing, jobs and public services for more and more people,) the country should be aiming for a managed decline of the total number of people living in it in the long term. Many essential benefits - notably reduced pressure on housing, water and other key resources, and the opportunity to become less dependent on imported food and to carry out rewilding - can be derived from this.
Ultimately, too many people = too much pressure on the natural world. Just as with global heating, the effects of too many people can be mitigated by technology, but mitigation is only enough to slow down the rate of damage, not to stop it in its tracks. The ultimate solution to global heating is to decarbonise, and the ultimate solution to too many people is to depopulate. If humanity can stop digging up and burning fossil fuels, and can learn to pump out offspring at below replacement rate for one or two hundred years, then our species will probably be fine.
The Guardian comments are always hilarious on this one. The same ones who are always doing their holier than thou “we must save the planet” stuff are also the ones who then say, when it comes to immigration into the U.K., “look at all the space we have, we can easily afford to allow in x million people, we can just build on our spare land”
Which just goes to show they’re actually not interested in green issues, it’s just another right-on political cause for them, and one which is trumped by allowing immigrants into the country.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
Don't let facts get in the way of his small-minded bitter rants.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
A net 50,000 EU citizens came to the UK in 2019.
Indeed. Net migration from the EU remained positive from the referendum until the Covid restrictions of 2020 came into play. My expectation is that it will now be positive again. There are estimated to be 3.5 m EU residents in this country atm. That is about 5% of our population. The idea that they went home en masse because they were hated or unwelcome is frankly ridiculous.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Nothing’s one sided, though.
What was - and remains - shocking was the latent nastiness that was unleashed in Britain.
Previously the general assumption was that the British were too sensible and stolidly good-mannered to descend to such levels, indeed that was much of the attraction.
Mate, you now live in America and you are attending to retire to New Zealand. It no longer has anything to do with you, so you can shut the fuck up
Not at all, I’m a British citizen with two British kids.
The worlds a lot more complicated that Brexiters realise. Well, apart from decimal currency; that’s a lot easier.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
They have a large Somali population and Ilhan Omar as one of their Congresspeople. Enough said.
PS a has she ever managed to come up with a credible refutation that her supposed marriage was a sham, given it was her brother she allegedly named as her husband?
Come back from my Jubilee Party as a non-committed. Got pissed. So did everyone else. The Monarchists sang Rule Brittania and the National Anthem. We didn't. Was a good laugh. Fun was had. No one got political at all. No one was forced to wave a flag. Some moaned you weren't in the War. Greeted with knowing laughter. Really glad I went. Not everything's.a Culture.War.
Yes, good turn out on our park, with bar, field games, beacon and fireworks. Lots of kids enjoying themselves.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
Balanced out - according to your own figures - by those leaving.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
We’re also getting a significant influx from Hong Kong because Xi
100,000 in the last year
They are more than welcome. I can’t think of better immigrants than smart, non-criminal, freedom loving, hardworking Hong Kongers. I hope a million move here
Check out Pakistani and Bangladeshi migration. Fell 40% under May, stayed low for years, now has taken off again.
Quite right, they will often have family members in the UK.
Come back from my Jubilee Party as a non-committed. Got pissed. So did everyone else. The Monarchists sang Rule Brittania and the National Anthem. We didn't. Was a good laugh. Fun was had. No one got political at all. No one was forced to wave a flag. Some moaned you weren't in the War. Greeted with knowing laughter. Really glad I went. Not everything's.a Culture.War.
Yet. I come on here and it's all Green hypocrisy and immigration. Well. It wasn't in Ashington tonight. Maybe it was in North London. But. Chattering classes eh?
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
We’re also getting a significant influx from Hong Kong because Xi
100,000 in the last year
They are more than welcome. I can’t think of better immigrants than smart, non-criminal, freedom loving, hardworking Hong Kongers. I hope a million move here
Check out Pakistani and Bangladeshi migration. Fell 40% under May, stayed low for years, now has taken off again.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
A net 50,000 EU citizens came to the UK in 2019.
Indeed. Net migration from the EU remained positive from the referendum until the Covid restrictions of 2020 came into play. My expectation is that it will now be positive again. There are estimated to be 3.5 m EU residents in this country atm. That is about 5% of our population. The idea that they went home en masse because they were hated or unwelcome is frankly ridiculous.
Most of my EU colleagues have moved back. Not all, but most.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
Unnecessary, though. The call to prayer made sense in a world before watches, phones etc. In a secular society/community where Islam is a minority belief, broadcasting a call to prayer ain’t on, imo.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
They have a large Somali population and Ilhan Omar as one of their Congresspeople. Enough said.
PS a has she ever managed to come up with a credible refutation that her supposed marriage was a sham, given it was her brother she allegedly named as her husband?
If you want to create a radical Islamic ghetto, where all the locals move out and Muslims constitute 100% of the neighbourhood population - and, generally speaking, you really DO NOT want to do this - then the one guaranteed way to do it quickly is to allow the call to prayer to be loudly broadcast
It happened to a friend of mine in a hitherto mixed and agreeable Bangkok suburb. For some reason no one could understand (my guess is money and corruption, this is Thailand) the authorities in his suburb allowed the call to prayer. At ear splitting volume. He moved out, lots of Muslims moved in. Result: exclusively Muslim ghetto
i’m in Italy and today is Republic Day. And you know what? Despite the attempts of the state to big it up, have flypasts, military units etc, nobody really gives a fuck. Most of the shops and restaurants in Rome are open as normal. yup, it’s a holiday but nobody really cares.
Now compare with what’s happening in the U.K. General enthusiasm and much more genuine joy.
The republicans really are a bunch of joyless fuckers.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
Balanced out - according to your own figures - by those leaving.
Mission accomplished.
Your assertion was that EU migrants weren't coming, because a post-Brexit wave of demented xenophobic cruelty had driven them away.
1. They are still coming. 2. Why would the aforementioned 462,000 people have chosen to immerse themselves in an environment where they were unwanted and abused? Are they all pig-ignorant of the supposed facts on the ground here, or are they all masochists?
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
Unnecessary, though. The call to prayer made sense in a world before watches, phones etc. In a secular society/community where Islam is a minority belief, broadcasting a call to prayer ain’t on, imo.
Should we ban church bells too, for the same reason?
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
i’m in Italy and today is Republic Day. And you know what? Despite the attempts of the state to big it up, have flypasts, military units etc, nobody really gives a fuck. Most of the shops and restaurants in Rome are open as normal. yup, it’s a holiday but nobody really cares.
Now compare with what’s happening in the U.K. General enthusiasm and much more genuine joy.
The republicans really are a bunch of joyless fuckers.
Albeit the Jubilee happens every decade or so, and President's Day or Republic Day or whatever happens every year.
It's a hell of a lot easier to drum up enthusiasm for something infrequent.
London is buzzing tonight. Just left a party at Hackney Wick. London in June at the Jubilee weekend is a special place to be. Nowhere quite like it. We’re lucky to have London.
It's the world in a city. Some parts are great, some are eminently missable.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
Unnecessary, though. The call to prayer made sense in a world before watches, phones etc. In a secular society/community where Islam is a minority belief, broadcasting a call to prayer ain’t on, imo.
Should we ban church bells too, for the same reason?
Are church bells rung multiple times a day, every day, throughout the year, and then electronically amplified so you can hear them in every home?
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
Why is that? If the city finds it intrusive they can always disallow it again.
haha, it’s Minneapolis. You really think any council member concerned about their position is going to complain about this? They would be drummed out of office quicker than you can say Islamophobia
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
Balanced out - according to your own figures - by those leaving.
Mission accomplished.
Your assertion was that EU migrants weren't coming, because a post-Brexit wave of demented xenophobic cruelty had driven them away.
1. They are still coming. 2. Why would the aforementioned 462,000 people have chosen to immerse themselves in an environment where they were unwanted and abused? Are they all pig-ignorant of the supposed facts on the ground here, or are they all masochists?
No, that’s not my assertion.
I described the spirit of narrow-minded xenophobia that infused “long Brexit”, and explained how offensive it was to migrants (including myself). “Fuck off” was the message.
I then noted that EU migration was now essentially zero, ie “they have fucked off”.
Some choose to be pedantic with their responses, but I assume that’s because they don’t want the above on their conscience.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
Don't let facts get in the way of his small-minded bitter rants.
It's a bit dickless to say "Don't let facts get in the way of..." and very dickless indeed to chip in to someone else's argument like that because you haven't the balls to get into a fight directly. Yellow card.
In other news, I have emulated the Duke of York (hill-climbing-wise, not paedophilia) and admired the beacon close up. I hope Her Maj will be pleased.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
i’m in Italy and today is Republic Day. And you know what? Despite the attempts of the state to big it up, have flypasts, military units etc, nobody really gives a fuck. Most of the shops and restaurants in Rome are open as normal. yup, it’s a holiday but nobody really cares.
Now compare with what’s happening in the U.K. General enthusiasm and much more genuine joy.
The republicans really are a bunch of joyless fuckers.
Albeit the Jubilee happens every decade or so, and President's Day or Republic Day or whatever happens every year.
It's a hell of a lot easier to drum up enthusiasm for something infrequent.
Fox jr was in Amsterdam for kings day earlier in the year, it was a great party, and they do it every year.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
A net 50,000 EU citizens came to the UK in 2019.
Indeed. Net migration from the EU remained positive from the referendum until the Covid restrictions of 2020 came into play. My expectation is that it will now be positive again. There are estimated to be 3.5 m EU residents in this country atm. That is about 5% of our population. The idea that they went home en masse because they were hated or unwelcome is frankly ridiculous.
Most of my EU colleagues have moved back. Not all, but most.
I don’t doubt your personal experience and it is not surprising that this is patchy but the overall figures are plain. The EU continues to be a net source of labour and skills to the UK. It may be a smaller percentage of our net immigration than it was before but it’s still net in.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
i’m in Italy and today is Republic Day. And you know what? Despite the attempts of the state to big it up, have flypasts, military units etc, nobody really gives a fuck. Most of the shops and restaurants in Rome are open as normal. yup, it’s a holiday but nobody really cares.
Now compare with what’s happening in the U.K. General enthusiasm and much more genuine joy.
The republicans really are a bunch of joyless fuckers.
Albeit the Jubilee happens every decade or so, and President's Day or Republic Day or whatever happens every year.
It's a hell of a lot easier to drum up enthusiasm for something infrequent.
There really is no enthusiasm for the republic in Italy. Let’s not forget the referendum on the Monarchy in Italy was almost certainly rigged to ensure the establishment of the Republic (which republicans don’t really want to talk about).
A republic is a bland political entity. At best it is what they call in marketing “premium mediocre”.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
There's always going to be a lot back-and-forth between the UK and the EU because there are 450 million people in the bloc, and we're the major financial center for the continent, we have massive numbers of people with family in the EU, we have Universities that actively market to people in the EU (and vice-versa), and lots of firms have both UK and EU offices and will want to shuffle people around.
Even in a situation where - net - 100,000 people were leaving a year, we'd still see lots of people arriving from the EU, because that is what happens when you're on the doorstep of a large bloc, and you do a lot of business with them.
So, I'm not really sure what your point is. Is it that we shouldn't have any arrivals from the EU? Or that we should have net migration of negative 100,000 per year for the next few years?
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
Balanced out - according to your own figures - by those leaving.
Mission accomplished.
Your assertion was that EU migrants weren't coming, because a post-Brexit wave of demented xenophobic cruelty had driven them away.
1. They are still coming. 2. Why would the aforementioned 462,000 people have chosen to immerse themselves in an environment where they were unwanted and abused? Are they all pig-ignorant of the supposed facts on the ground here, or are they all masochists?
No, that’s not my assertion.
I described the spirit of narrow-minded xenophobia that infused “long Brexit”, and explained how offensive it was to migrants (including myself). “Fuck off” was the message.
I then noted that EU migration was now essentially zero, ie “they have fucked off”.
Some choose to be pedantic with their responses, but I assume that’s because they don’t want the above on their conscience.
Pointing out that the facts show that you're spouting bullshit is not really "pedantic".
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
Unnecessary, though. The call to prayer made sense in a world before watches, phones etc. In a secular society/community where Islam is a minority belief, broadcasting a call to prayer ain’t on, imo.
Should we ban church bells too, for the same reason?
Are church bells rung multiple times a day, every day, throughout the year, and then electronically amplified so you can hear them in every home?
No
Them darkies are nothing but trouble aren't they with their horrible foreign habits?
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
Don't let facts get in the way of his small-minded bitter rants.
It's a bit dickless to say "Don't let facts get in the way of..." and very dickless indeed to chip in to someone else's argument like that because you haven't the balls to get into a fight directly. Yellow card.
In other news, I have emulated the Duke of York (hill-climbing-wise, not paedophilia) and admired the beacon close up. I hope Her Maj will be pleased.
What on earth are you dribbling on about? Read the thread!
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
A net 50,000 EU citizens came to the UK in 2019.
Indeed. Net migration from the EU remained positive from the referendum until the Covid restrictions of 2020 came into play. My expectation is that it will now be positive again. There are estimated to be 3.5 m EU residents in this country atm. That is about 5% of our population. The idea that they went home en masse because they were hated or unwelcome is frankly ridiculous.
Most of my EU colleagues have moved back. Not all, but most.
I don’t doubt your personal experience and it is not surprising that this is patchy but the overall figures are plain. The EU continues to be a net source of labour and skills to the UK. It may be a smaller percentage of our net immigration than it was before but it’s still net in.
The figures are plain in that EU migration is now essentially zero, whereas non-EU is now delivering the same volume we saw before from the EU.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
Really. Go to Albania and find that being woken up by the muezzin at silly o'clock is just part of life. It's no big deal.
Why would it not be as irritating as fuck? Having X happen when you want X not to happen is by definition annoying, including being woken up, and I don't see what a bit of seasoned-traveller, rub-along-with-all-sorts, lifes-rich-tapestry bollocks about Albania adds to the mix. What the fuck is special about the poxy muezzins of Albania? Is it the world's only muslim country?
i’m in Italy and today is Republic Day. And you know what? Despite the attempts of the state to big it up, have flypasts, military units etc, nobody really gives a fuck. Most of the shops and restaurants in Rome are open as normal. yup, it’s a holiday but nobody really cares.
Now compare with what’s happening in the U.K. General enthusiasm and much more genuine joy.
The republicans really are a bunch of joyless fuckers.
Albeit the Jubilee happens every decade or so, and President's Day or Republic Day or whatever happens every year.
It's a hell of a lot easier to drum up enthusiasm for something infrequent.
There really is no enthusiasm for the republic in Italy. Let’s not forget the referendum on the Monarchy in Italy was almost certainly rigged to ensure the establishment of the Republic (which republicans don’t really want to talk about).
A republic is a bland political entity. At best it is what they call in marketing “premium mediocre”.
The US manages OK.
I don't see much enthusiasm among my friends here for reinstatement of the Royal family. But, hey, if it was one of the Kardashians taking over the role, then it might be a bit different.
My view is that monarchies are great when you have great monarchs, as we do.
The problem is what happens when an Andrew ascends to the throne, as happens from time-to-time.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
Don't let facts get in the way of his small-minded bitter rants.
It's a bit dickless to say "Don't let facts get in the way of..." and very dickless indeed to chip in to someone else's argument like that because you haven't the balls to get into a fight directly. Yellow card.
In other news, I have emulated the Duke of York (hill-climbing-wise, not paedophilia) and admired the beacon close up. I hope Her Maj will be pleased.
What on earth are you dribbling on about? Read the thread!
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
I think that isn't quite true, because the flower arrangers need to earn 26k a year. That's way too low, but it is still a long way above Romanian beggars and Bulgarian strawberry pickers.
I don’t think that’s the right comparison though. Agricultural workers, and beggars, were not representative migrants.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
No, we didn't.
We did. So they have.
I missed the part of the Brexit legislation about telling EU nationals to fuck off. There were a few reported incidents of abuse, and at least one murder that subsequently proved not to be about Brexit, but I really don’t think we told people to fuck off.
I think you are being woefully naive here.
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”. Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
It wasn't just one sided though. I seem to remember the Taoiseach making some comments about cutting the UK off from any flights.
Looking at the numbers, we have somewhere north of 7m EU citizens.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
It was, and they don’t come anymore. Mission accomplished.
Except that's demonstrably untrue. Recently published ONS stats for EU migration merely suggest that the numbers of people arriving from and returning to the EU were roughly in balance during the years ending mid-2020 and mid-2021 (24k net immigration to the UK in 2020, 12k net emigration from the UK in 2021.)
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
Balanced out - according to your own figures - by those leaving.
Mission accomplished.
Your assertion was that EU migrants weren't coming, because a post-Brexit wave of demented xenophobic cruelty had driven them away.
1. They are still coming. 2. Why would the aforementioned 462,000 people have chosen to immerse themselves in an environment where they were unwanted and abused? Are they all pig-ignorant of the supposed facts on the ground here, or are they all masochists?
No, that’s not my assertion.
I described the spirit of narrow-minded xenophobia that infused “long Brexit”, and explained how offensive it was to migrants (including myself). “Fuck off” was the message.
I then noted that EU migration was now essentially zero, ie “they have fucked off”.
Some choose to be pedantic with their responses, but I assume that’s because they don’t want the above on their conscience.
Pointing out that the facts show that you're spouting bullshit is not really "pedantic".
No, that was referring to some other posters. You just spew hate.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
Unnecessary, though. The call to prayer made sense in a world before watches, phones etc. In a secular society/community where Islam is a minority belief, broadcasting a call to prayer ain’t on, imo.
Should we ban church bells too, for the same reason?
Are church bells rung multiple times a day, every day, throughout the year, and then electronically amplified so you can hear them in every home?
No
Them darkies are nothing but trouble aren't they with their horrible foreign habits?
Try ringing some church bells in Somalia or other similar countries.
I have just joined the party so I can vote for the next leader. (I also voted in the last Labour election). I will be voting for whoever clamps down on low skill migrants. Theresa May did a great job on non-EU migration but they are opening up the floodgates again to replace lost EU migration. They need to seriously up the earnings thresholds for both work and family.
Obviously I think you are wrong, dead wrong about immigration.
But it is indeed bat-shit that flower arrangers et al are now allowed in under our “new improved” immigration measures.
I’m willing to bet anyone that there is no quantifiable difference in skill between our former European influx, and the new crowd who tend to come from Nigeria, the Philippines, and the Indian sub-continent.
We’re also getting a significant influx from Hong Kong because Xi
100,000 in the last year
They are more than welcome. I can’t think of better immigrants than smart, non-criminal, freedom loving, hardworking Hong Kongers. I hope a million move here
Check out Pakistani and Bangladeshi migration. Fell 40% under May, stayed low for years, now has taken off again.
Completely agree. Disaster. This govt is shit
Why is it going up again?
The government has responded to the cuts in EU migration by opening up the definition of "skilled migration", so people like fencers, flower arrangers and shopkeepers count, as long as they earn 26k a year.
In addition, May put in an earnings threshold for family migration that the sponsor had to earn. However they buckled under pressure and set it pretty low (18k a year). This stopped a lot of the arranged marriage visas, but applicants have now figured out how to arrange their affairs to meet the earnings threshold for the necessary time period.
Both thresholds should really be in the mid-30ks as that is the point where you don't become a net cost to the taxpayer.
@Foxy I looked it up, and according to the commons library, it’s a mixed picture:
Has the number of EU staff in the NHS changed since the referendum?
Because data coverage of NHS nationality data has improved over time, comparisons of the number of EU staff in the NHS over time should be made only with caution. In June 2016 there were 89,546 staff with unknown nationality. That has now decreased to 40,166 (a fall of over half) while the total number of staff employed by the NHS has increased.
This means that some apparent increases in staff numbers for nationalities and nationality groups are likely to be due to improved data coverage rather than genuine increases.
In other words: because a greater proportion of NHS staff now have a nationality recorded, we would expect to see increases in the recorded number of staff with a given nationality, even if there were no genuine changes in the actual number of staff with that nationality. In June 2016 there were 58,698 staff with recorded EU nationality, and in January there were over 70,660. But to present this as the full story would be misleading, because we know that there are almost 50,000 more staff for whom nationality is known now than in 2016.
It is very likely that there has been an overall increase in the number of NHS staff with EU nationality since 2016, but we can’t be sure about the scale of the change, and it would be misleading to calculate an increase just based on the two numbers above.
Claims about changes in the number of EU staff which don’t mention the importance of staff with unknown nationality should be treated sceptically.
Nurses and health visitors are the only staff group to record a fall in the number of recorded EU nationals since the EU referendum. EU nurses as a percentage of those with a known nationality have fallen from 7.4% of the total to 5.6%.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
Unnecessary, though. The call to prayer made sense in a world before watches, phones etc. In a secular society/community where Islam is a minority belief, broadcasting a call to prayer ain’t on, imo.
Should we ban church bells too, for the same reason?
My local united reformed church got sold to a group of Muslims who have turned it into a mosque. They post their prayer times on twitter. That’s a perfectly sensible way of achieving what the call to prayer is intended to achieve, without disturbing the neighbours in, what is an almost exclusively non-Muslim area.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
Unnecessary, though. The call to prayer made sense in a world before watches, phones etc. In a secular society/community where Islam is a minority belief, broadcasting a call to prayer ain’t on, imo.
Should we ban church bells too, for the same reason?
Are church bells rung multiple times a day, every day, throughout the year, and then electronically amplified so you can hear them in every home?
No
Them darkies are nothing but trouble aren't they with their horrible foreign habits?
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
Unnecessary, though. The call to prayer made sense in a world before watches, phones etc. In a secular society/community where Islam is a minority belief, broadcasting a call to prayer ain’t on, imo.
Should we ban church bells too, for the same reason?
Are church bells rung multiple times a day, every day, throughout the year, and then electronically amplified so you can hear them in every home?
No
Them darkies are nothing but trouble aren't they with their horrible foreign habits?
Comments
We almost never go to anywhere that ticks those boxes though we are trying Corsica this year. Usually we spend our holidays in our place in the Maconnais which is unreliably sunny, often too hot and occasionally too wet, with scenic variety but few seasonal events and nothing much for children. And, as discovered this evening, a hornet’s nest in the garden.
In practice, a lot of EU migrants were university graduates from places like Italy, Spain etc who couldn’t get a job in their home countries.
They then picked up casual jobs - coffee shop or care work - but worked up the ladder from there with a mixture of hard work and smarts.
But we told them to fuck off, so that’s that.
source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/02/queen-elizabeth-jubilee-american-british-historical-connection/
Gerson is an evangelical, and a former speechwriter for George W. Bush.
100,000 in the last year
They are more than welcome. I can’t think of better immigrants than smart, non-criminal, freedom loving, hardworking Hong Kongers. I hope a million move here
How can a country win when it is cut off economically, politically and culturally from the rest of the world? It can’t - see Venezuela, Iran, N Korea, for that matter see a few countries that did it to themselves without the need for sanctions, like Argentina or Albania. Look even at the trade damage Britain has done to itself from a modest enough realignment of arrangements since Brexit. Doesn’t mean Russia won’t continue to be an irritation, but the goal must be to contain and suppress its destructive power for years, or decades, until someone there sees fit to enter the post-imperial world.
I’m trying to think of somewhere that ticks your boxes. I’d say northern mainland Greece or northwestern Turkey
Or perhaps northern Portugal?
Unless "we" means a few bitter Remainers who talked so much bollocks that they were eventually believed by a few of their "friends".
Anyone have any particularly pressing questions they think I should ask?
If you want a less dramatic discussion of Huey Long, You might want to look at the Louisiana chapter of V. O. Key's classic, "Southern Politics in State and Nation".
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1532441427149479936
Brexit took place in a cantankerous spirit of narrow-mindedness which started with Farage’s posters and culminated in tabloid campaigns against the judiciary. Hitherto serious politicos made comments about “starving Ireland” or “going to war with Spain”.
Jeremy Hunt likened the EU to a Soviet gulag.
Perhaps there is some polling on how EU, and indeed even non-EU migrants experienced the ensuing culture war.
But emotion aside, it's a balancing act, same as anything else. Take into account how you feel about a place, but also cost, things to do, weather, stress involved, all sorts of other things. And abroad in the school holidays is expensive, and abroad with a young family is stressful.
Weather ranks relatively low for us. Neither wife nor oldest daughter do at all well in the heat. Nor me, to be honest. And we're from Manchester, we can deal with rain. Take weather out of the equation and it's hard for anywhere else to compete.
To me, Cornwall seems the perfect family holiday destination, though has never ranked particularly high on my list of places to live. It's a long way from anywhere of any size. Possibly this merely reflects my own life: I've always lived close to big cities so that's just how I see life working.
You can fly direct to Preveza (really nice) from the UK, and hire a car there
-------------
Having done some diligent study, the new pronounciation is "Turkier" or "Turkia" rather than "Turk-E-I".
So no confusion. Maybe.
Video here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61671913
On travel options, the last time I was in Turkey I hired one of the £2.50 a day Brompton folding bikes from a railway station here and took it on the plane to use whilst in Istanbul.
Instead of just importing more and more people (and, therefore, having continually to worry about where we're going to find food, water, energy, housing, jobs and public services for more and more people,) the country should be aiming for a managed decline of the total number of people living in it in the long term. Many essential benefits - notably reduced pressure on housing, water and other key resources, and the opportunity to become less dependent on imported food and to carry out rewilding - can be derived from this.
Ultimately, too many people = too much pressure on the natural world. Just as with global heating, the effects of too many people can be mitigated by technology, but mitigation is only enough to slow down the rate of damage, not to stop it in its tracks. The ultimate solution to global heating is to decarbonise, and the ultimate solution to too many people is to depopulate. If humanity can stop digging up and burning fossil fuels, and can learn to pump out offspring at below replacement rate for one or two hundred years, then our species will probably be fine.
What was - and remains - shocking was the latent nastiness that was unleashed in Britain.
Previously the general assumption was that the British were too sensible and stolidly good-mannered to descend to such levels, indeed that was much of the attraction.
If it was "fuck off" (it wasn't) it seems they ignored it.
Mission accomplished.
It was grossly irresponsible at a time of heightened tension and it was received as two fingers up by me and all the migrants I know.
I get that a lot of people on here don’t get it, it’s because you are not migrants. You’ve got no idea, I’m afraid.
Got pissed. So did everyone else. The Monarchists sang Rule Brittania and the National Anthem. We didn't. Was a good laugh. Fun was had. No one got political at all. No one was forced to wave a flag. Some moaned you weren't in the War. Greeted with knowing laughter.
Really glad I went.
Not everything's.a Culture.War.
“Mosques in Minneapolis are preparing to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers after the community became the first large U.S city to allow it. apne.ws/7D26SCY”
https://twitter.com/ap/status/1532376744300142592?s=21&t=SuSnr2WRzw28sQ_FtHoVUA
It was your spirit of hatred that infused Brexit, I’m afraid.
462,000 people, approximately equivalent to the entire population of Bristol, are estimated to have arrived from the EU over that two year period. Therefore, they're still coming.
There's shitloads of Albanians living here (and in EU countries) and they're not in the EU.
Immigration happens. You don't have to be in the EU for it to happen.
Which just goes to show they’re actually not interested in green issues, it’s just another right-on political cause for them, and one which is trumped by allowing immigrants into the country.
There are estimated to be 3.5 m EU residents in this country atm. That is about 5% of our population. The idea that they went home en masse because they were hated or unwelcome is frankly ridiculous.
The worlds a lot more complicated that Brexiters realise. Well, apart from decimal currency; that’s a lot easier.
They have a large Somali population and Ilhan Omar as one of their Congresspeople. Enough said.
PS a has she ever managed to come up with a credible refutation that her supposed marriage was a sham, given it was her brother she allegedly named as her husband?
Mission accomplished.
Or should we prioritise White EU cits instead?
Well. It wasn't in Ashington tonight. Maybe it was in North London. But. Chattering classes eh?
Unnecessary, though. The call to prayer made sense in a world before watches, phones etc. In a secular society/community where Islam is a minority belief, broadcasting a call to prayer ain’t on, imo.
It happened to a friend of mine in a hitherto mixed and agreeable Bangkok suburb. For some reason no one could understand (my guess is money and corruption, this is Thailand) the authorities in his suburb allowed the call to prayer. At ear splitting volume. He moved out, lots of Muslims moved in. Result: exclusively Muslim ghetto
i’m in Italy and today is Republic Day. And you know what? Despite the attempts of the state to big it up, have flypasts, military units etc, nobody really gives a fuck. Most of the shops and restaurants in Rome are open as normal. yup, it’s a holiday but nobody really cares.
Now compare with what’s happening in the U.K. General enthusiasm and much more genuine joy.
The republicans really are a bunch of joyless fuckers.
1. They are still coming.
2. Why would the aforementioned 462,000 people have chosen to immerse themselves in an environment where they were unwanted and abused? Are they all pig-ignorant of the supposed facts on the ground here, or are they all masochists?
It's a hell of a lot easier to drum up enthusiasm for something infrequent.
No
I described the spirit of narrow-minded xenophobia that infused “long Brexit”, and explained how offensive it was to migrants (including myself). “Fuck off” was the message.
I then noted that EU migration was now essentially zero, ie “they have fucked off”.
Some choose to be pedantic with their responses, but I assume that’s because they don’t want the above on their conscience.
In other news, I have emulated the Duke of York (hill-climbing-wise, not paedophilia) and admired the beacon close up. I hope Her Maj will be pleased.
https://www.holland.com/global/tourism/activities/events/kings-day-in-holland.htm
Several times a year.
A republic is a bland political entity. At best it is what they call in marketing “premium mediocre”.
Even in a situation where - net - 100,000 people were leaving a year, we'd still see lots of people arriving from the EU, because that is what happens when you're on the doorstep of a large bloc, and you do a lot of business with them.
So, I'm not really sure what your point is. Is it that we shouldn't have any arrivals from the EU? Or that we should have net migration of negative 100,000 per year for the next few years?
I don't see much enthusiasm among my friends here for reinstatement of the Royal family. But, hey, if it was one of the Kardashians taking over the role, then it might be a bit different.
My view is that monarchies are great when you have great monarchs, as we do.
The problem is what happens when an Andrew ascends to the throne, as happens from time-to-time.
You just spew hate.
In addition, May put in an earnings threshold for family migration that the sponsor had to earn. However they buckled under pressure and set it pretty low (18k a year). This stopped a lot of the arranged marriage visas, but applicants have now figured out how to arrange their affairs to meet the earnings threshold for the necessary time period.
Both thresholds should really be in the mid-30ks as that is the point where you don't become a net cost to the taxpayer.
Has the number of EU staff in the NHS changed since the referendum?
Because data coverage of NHS nationality data has improved over time, comparisons of the number of EU staff in the NHS over time should be made only with caution. In June 2016 there were 89,546 staff with unknown nationality. That has now decreased to 40,166 (a fall of over half) while the total number of staff employed by the NHS has increased.
This means that some apparent increases in staff numbers for nationalities and nationality groups are likely to be due to improved data coverage rather than genuine increases.
In other words: because a greater proportion of NHS staff now have a nationality recorded, we would expect to see increases in the recorded number of staff with a given nationality, even if there were no genuine changes in the actual number of staff with that nationality.
In June 2016 there were 58,698 staff with recorded EU nationality, and in January there were over 70,660. But to present this as the full story would be misleading, because we know that there are almost 50,000 more staff for whom nationality is known now than in 2016.
It is very likely that there has been an overall increase in the number of NHS staff with EU nationality since 2016, but we can’t be sure about the scale of the change, and it would be misleading to calculate an increase just based on the two numbers above.
Claims about changes in the number of EU staff which don’t mention the importance of staff with unknown nationality should be treated sceptically.
Nurses and health visitors are the only staff group to record a fall in the number of recorded EU nationals since the EU referendum. EU nurses as a percentage of those with a known nationality have fallen from 7.4% of the total to 5.6%.
(emphasis mine)
It also didn't affect house prices, as I see my old place is valued at (chokes on his Zoopla) 12x what it was when I was there.
Harder than it looks.