Is Sunak overstating immigration as an issue? – politicalbetting.com
Is Sunak overstating immigration as an issue? – politicalbetting.com
All we seem to hear from the PM are the efforts to curb immigration. Based on the news coverage it appears as though this is by a big margin the government’s top priority.
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'Vote for us and we'll fix the NHS which we buggered by not preparing properly for a major pandemic and bungling our response when it came.'
'Vote for us and we'll fix the economy we screwed up through managing all the wrong things for ten years.'
'Vote for us and we'll have functioning schools which we don't have at the moment because the schools minister who's been in place for all our time in government is an incompetent bellend.'
I mean, that's not a message to win votes, is it?
Although 'vote for us to stop the boats that we've failed to stop for a decade' isn't much better.
Lol I nearly spit out my drink all over my husband. Markov…(wait still laughing)…Markov says “American & British political technologists” are making an “artificial” army in Ukraine “that’s united by a homosexual brotherhood” like “the Spartans!
https://nitter.net/VladaKnowlton/status/1688026905847758848#m
It all feels very plastic. As if he has been given an MBA project, or a task on TV's popular Apprentice show. (Is it still popular? I basically gave up on it in the series with Jason, and that was a decade ago.) Your brief is to produce a right-wing populist campaign for a political party, that sort of thing.
It's really quite astonishing that with three millions to choose from Wales has ended up with 60 such inadequates that Drakeford and ARTD are considered the pick.
(Incidentally ARTD was himself for a long time in favour of 20mph speed limits until he decided it was a useful stick to beat Labour with, proving he's got poor judgment and is a flip flopper.)
It's all we talk about in Newham these days.
FPT: Interesting. And re the last point - never heard it, myself.
*looks up - refers to the shorter buses used for transporting special needs students*
Had no idea that the notion of proper school buses had taken such root in the US that to accuse someone of going around in a minibus is a term of opprobrium.
But other PBers' mileage might vary.
1) If Venison is Woke & Vegan
2) And Bacon is anti-Woke
Then what about Venison Bacon? Is it in some kind of wave/particle duality that collapses to one or ‘tother depending on the Hipster Level of the person eating it?
We need to get some answers. Send in the boffins!
https://www.mylocallarder.co.uk/shop/WILD-VENISON-SMOKED-BACON-HAMPSHIRE-GAME-p370570050
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/26/sober-stopped-enjoying-sex-husband-foreplay-rough
Incidentally, the ant in question is Pamela Stephenson. Yes, that one.
In fact, we may need you to eat the Venison Bacon while sitting inside a Large Hadron Collider*. For! Science!
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/archive/the-week-in-1960
Edit: come to think of it. I rode around in a few trans train/buses. They were called Pacers.
Or will frying it cause the woke and anti-woke particles in the quantum matrix* to oscillate to the point of collision… Starting a woke/ant-woke chain reaction that will cause the entire worlds atmosphere to explode?
*Star Trek Science
*The Doctor's science.
https://www.lwsd.org/
So they aren't short on money.
(Credit where due. When Bill Gates bought that berry farm way back when, he agreed that the family that sold it to him could stay in their house. I don't know whether this was part of the original agreement, but their house has been preserved, and is now on a busy street. I pass by it often.)
*Star Wars science
“Short Bus” is a very American insult. In fact, almost anything to do with school buses is very American in nature. In the UK, they’re almost non-existent except for private schools and very rural areas. “Busing”, with all the connotations about why it was introduced, has never been a thing elsewhere.
https://www.thetrainline.com/via/europe/uk/trainbow-pride-trains
https://twitter.com/JacquiMckenzie6/status/1688463835626094592?t=SLHVmqdvqHAT_sqk8Dynww&s=19
It starts off with a woman bewailing rising mortgage payments and then casually saying she's had the house for 22 years:
https://youtu.be/bKOFAkyuc-E?t=273
Back in 2001 house prices were about a third of what they are now and a mortgage taken out then should be down to a few thousand.
There are many millions who have lost out because of unaffordable housing but anyone who bought a house in 2001 should be a big winner.
Why Channel 4 thinks that such a person is deserving of sympathy or is entitled to blame the government, which she of course does, is curious.
Maybe because the media is full of middle aged people who have chosen not to pay off their mortgages but instead to use their homes as a cash machine and are now stuck in the same self-inflicted difficulties.
You're gonna be remembered for the things you say and do
That's it really, isn't it? That's all the advice you ever need. The philosophy of life in a couplet, from the lyrics to Bugsy Malone
I really don't get the idea behind 'the woke blob are preventing us' style arguments, which just present the government as very weak. As has been suggested its a new government argument.
1) Big drop in carbon emissions and investment in offshore wind
2) Gay marriage
3) Increases in skilled migration since Brexit
Economic migrants are different to asylum seekers for example.
Likewise Chinese students going to university towns are different to Hong Kongers moving to Warrington or third worlders moving to London or Polish construction workers moving to red wall constituencies.
The gutter press has been turning the knife in minds regarding immigration for decades. It did the same regarding EU membership.
Brexit is often an idiotic reference, but with regard to immigration it isn't. Many voters feel they haven't yet been thrown the red meat they wanted when they voted Leave.
Polls such as the one cited are absurd and almost worthless.
Most people couldn't give a great definition of the meaning of the word "economy". In any case, those who wish to reduce immigration always have economic considerations in mind as well as others, often including health. What a stupid question those pollsters asked.
It is not what issues people tell pollsters they're most concerned about that decide elections. Go two-dimensional and consider the intensity of emotion. Electoral politics is ALL about emotion. It is not about intellect.
Last, many who wish to restrict immigration are as racist as f*ck. I'm talking about the kind of people who when they hear someone has been mugged can't stop themselves wondering whether the assailant was black or not. Why? Because if the mugger was black, this confirms their prejudice that there are too many black people in the country, that's why. People who get furious that so many of the nurses who were working in the hospital they went to were black. Such people will of course say yeeesss they are so in favour of a "points system", because that makes their attitude sound reasonable and less knuckledraggingly f*ckwitted. Many racists know they're dirty and they don't want to give themselves away when they tick boxes on forms given to them by pollsters who ostensibly boost their self-conception as equal-righted citizens keen on pondering all the issues as if they were rational grownups.
Besides, immigration is seen as an easier problem to solve than issues to do with health. So you want immigration to be reduced? How are you going to do that? "Well, make it tougher for anyone who slips through. Make it very tough indeed. Don't pussyfoot about. Didn't you hear all the liberals whine when cartoons got ripped down that had been put up to make 'asylum seeker' children feel cheerful? Well, don't listen to the whining. Enough's enough. Start going in the other direction, the right direction, after all these years of the country dropping down the sewer. Britain's still got a navy too. Use it."
Now let's ask the same question about health. Do you want services provided by the NHS to be improved, waiting lists cut, etc.? Well of course you do. OK, how are you going to do it? "Er, dunno. Spend more? Is that the right answer?" Spend more on what? Buy more drugs? Train more nurses? Recruit more nurses abroad, maybe? Watch the issue kind of fade into fudge.
Immigration is stronger emotionally than health. It shouldn't be, but it is.
I suppose they can try and claim partial success and needing more time to 'finish the job', but that is not a very convincing variation, probably because governments also usually claim the fix will be quick and easy for them to accomplish.
They would reply "They work very well, thank you".
Obviously not the coalition, and Dave was a wuss after that. If he hadn't been, we wouldn't have needed to vote for Brexit. Then there way May, and she just let everyone down. As for Boris... he was obviously a winner, but totally unsound. And under the thumb of his latest bit of totty. Then there was that crazy lady. So in fact, we've only had a Proper Conservative Government since October 2022. And we're not totally convinced he's a proper Tory either.
Vote Conservative in 2024. We'll get it right eventually.
So I can only presume he knows what people expected of it and either a) hoped the attempt would be enough (it has in the past), b) hoped the inevitable problems would not be as disruptive as they could be, or c) was just desperate to make a positive announcement and figurued he'd have to sort it out later.
However I heard this weird rumour at the weekend, that I am about to be beatified. It's like one step down from being made a living saint
Obvs I'd prefer to be a living saint, but given my lifestyle, that is a reach. I don;t want to get my hopes up, to a stupid extent. But beatification makes kinda sense
The guys that told me were Irish catholics (old friends from Uni), so I'm wondering if there is some sort of left-footer grapevine where these whispers gets passed on?
I'd look a right twat if I boasted about it online and then it turned out to be a prank
1. seasonal farm workers
2. low-skilled job seekers
3. middle-skilled job seekers
4. high-skilled job seekers
5. investors and other job creators
6. family members wanted to reunite with members of their families
7. foreign-born spouses
8. refugees fleeing persecution and even death.
9. criminals
10. terrorists
As you almost certainly noticed, would-be immigrants can belong to more than one of those categories, and sometimes do. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamerlan_Tsarnaev
If your objective is to make the US wealthier, you will favor categories 4 and 5. If you want to make the world more equal, you might favor 1 and 2. If you don't like seeing others persecuted, you might favor 8. If you value strong families, 6 and 7. And there are organizations in the US that are looking for those in 9 and 10.
I am not telling you anything you don't know when I say that politicians will emphasize different categories when discussing immigration.
But for good policy discussions, we need to distinguish. (It may be too much to hope that many politicians will get beyond the legal/illegal discussion.)
(hat-tip GB News)
NYT ($) - Are G.O.P. Voters Tiring of the War on ‘Wokeness’?
New polling shows national Republicans and Iowa Republican caucusgoers were more interested in “law and order” than battling “woke” schools, media and corporations.
When it comes to the Republican primaries, attacks on “wokeness” may be losing their punch
. . . . Though conservative voters might be irked at modern liberalism, successive New York Times/Siena College polls of Republican voters nationally and then in Iowa found that candidates were unlikely to win votes by narrowly focusing on rooting out left-wing ideology in schools, media, culture and business. . . . .
[In] choice between two hypothetical Republican candidates, only 24 percent of national Republican voters opted for “a candidate who focuses on defeating radical ‘woke’ ideology in our schools, media and culture” over “a candidate who focuses on restoring law and order in our streets and at the border.”
Around 65 percent said they would choose the law and order candidate.
Among those 65 and older, often the most likely age bracket to vote, only 17 percent signed on to the “anti-woke” crusade. Those numbers were nearly identical in Iowa, where the first ballots for the Republican nominee will be cast on Jan. 15.
. . . . About 38 percent of Republican voters said they would back a candidate who promised to fight corporations that promote “woke” left ideology, versus the 52 percent who preferred “a candidate who says that the government should stay out of deciding what corporations should support.” . . .
As it turns out, social issues like gender, race and sexuality are politically complicated and may be less dominant than Mr. Trump’s rivals thought. The fact that Mr. Trump has been indicted three times and found legally liable for sexual abuse has not hurt him. Only 37 percent of Republican voters nationally described Mr. Trump as more moral than Mr. DeSantis (45 percent sided with Mr. DeSantis on the personality trait), yet in a head-to-head matchup between the two candidates, national Republican voters backed Mr. Trump by 31 percentage points, 62 percent to 31 percent.
The Times/Siena poll did find real reluctance among Republican voters to accept transgender people. Only 30 percent said society should accept transgender people as the gender they identify with, compared with 58 percent who said society should not accept such identities.
But half of Republican voters still support the right of gay and lesbian people to marry, against the 41 percent who oppose same-sex marriage. Fifty-one percent of Republican voters said they would choose a candidate promising to protect individual freedom over one guarding “traditional values.” The “traditional values” candidate would be the choice of 40 percent of Republicans. . . .
But you know that, right?
Edit to add: as far as I know the only living person the Catholic Church has considered making into a Saint is Tony Blair. You're not Tony Blair are you?
No, improved survival rates do not make it a no-brainer to make it 20mph. Survival isn't the be all and end all.
Thousands of children die annually from flu. Lockdown prevented the spread of flu, as well as Covid19. So is it a no-brainer we need to go back into lockdown to prevent children from dying from flu?
The fact that life has an element of risk does not make it worth shutting down life, or going to ridiculous extremes to eliminate all risk. It is about getting the balance right.
Dropping to 20 and ensuring people pay extra attention around high risk areas like school zones is a far more sensible balance of risk than the moronic idea of having a blanket 20.
Not a Catholic but my wife is and I’m currently writing a dissertation about Reformation and Counter-Reformation hagiography which involves a lot of reading about saints and how to become one. Any further questions fire away.
So good news and bad news.
Here you go...
In the process of beatification, the life, writings, and virtues of the candidate are closely examined. If the person is found to have lived a life of heroic virtue, the Church may declare them to be venerable. The next step, beatification, requires evidence of one miracle attributed to the candidate's intercession. (In the case of martyrs, the miracle is not necessary for beatification.)
Once beatified, the person is referred to as "Blessed" and can be venerated in certain contexts within the Catholic Church, usually within specific locales or communities connected with the individual. Beatification does not make the person a saint in the full sense; canonization, the final step, does, and it requires evidence of a second miracle.
Are you *sure* your writings would bear close inspection by the Church?
I, literally, literally, laughed out loud when I read that.
Still clearly British design and operating as a normal British school bus stopping at the normal service bus stops. But yellow and distinct from all the other buses.
As per pic in this article:
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/fury-huddersfield-yellow-primary-school-26058554#ICID=Android_HuddersfieldExaminerNewsApp_AppShare
Can't see the Red Wall voting for a party who not only can't get either legal or illegal migration (and have no credible plan of doing so), but have no answers when it comes to the cost of living crisis or anything else.
The polls show the Tories are trusted less on immigration on Labour, so the idea it's going to give them a bigger majority than they won against the Absolute Boy is a fantasy.
Habib is CEO of a commercial property investment company that operates in Britain, Poland, and Romania.
1979: the economy
1983: a weak and divided opposition
1987: the economy
1992: taxation policy
1997: the economy plus a tired government
2001: the economy + a weak opposition
2005: the economy
2010: the economy
2015: implosion of the Lib Dems and fear of the SNP
2017: Brexit
2019: Brexit plus an opposition leader who'd proposed to send Novichok samples to Russia to be tested
The last 3 elections have been highly unusual. I'd argue even in 2015 the economy was a factor: Cameron made a big deal of "there is no money" and managed to pin the blame for austerity on Brown.
I don't think immigration has ever won a British election. Not in 2015 at the height of UKIP's power, nor in either of the post-Brexit elections. 2019 was about closure of the Brexit chapter, and keeping Corbyn out.
It was very different from the idea I had of confession from TVs and film, with the confession box, but it seems that the ratio of sinners to priests is such that they have to make the process more efficient. And the public aspect of it seems to be a plus for the clergy.
The idea "cars can have accidents, would you ban cars" is supposed to be a reductio ad absurdum rhetorical device, designed to get you to say "no of course not" but some people here seem to have taken the argument at face value and decided yes.
Should we go back into lockdown to prevent children from dying from the flu?