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tim said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Breaking News - Paywall - Patrick Mercer resigns the Tory whip

Defence cuts?

Outrider for Hammond?

TGOHF said:

Perdix - it's quite simple really - The Telegraph wants more houses built - but not anywhere near its readers.

tim said:

Charles said:

tim said:

Charles said:

tim said:

Grandiose said:

tim said:

Good to see Boris going after Dave's idiot pledge again

@MayorofLondon on immigration: "You cannot regard it as an unalloyed blessing that you have reduced the number of foreign students" @LBC973

I don't think the PM or anyone else thinks that the reduction is an "unalloyed" blessing. The need to stem net migration really comes from public services (mostly about having them in the right place) and integration. It's always a case abotu whether the positives outwigh the negatives.

Again you are conflating students with migrants.
Some will stay because employers want them, good.
Some will stay illegally, deal with that don't kill the economic benefit.

You may as well argue that tourism numbers should be cut because that avenue gets abused.
But you aren't are you, you'd argue that overstayers get treated in a different category to tourists.


And which group in society do you think are least likely to use hospitals and schools?
Young foreign students obviously.

You and I both know why students are targeted, an easy way for Dave to get closer to his idiot pledge.

tim, as people have said again and again, you need to differentiate between university students (that add value) and english language college attendees (that rarely add substantial value).

Moreover, in addition to the limited direct economic contribution, they put significant strain on limited infrastructure and other services - freeing up capacity has its own value (e.g. reduced congestion) which I doubt you are considering fully.

The UK needs to be a high-value added, premium focused economy. We can't compete on the volume game: we're a small country with a relatively high fixed cost base.

At least that's honest.
We will shut down colleges Charles sees as unworthy and those people will then go to other countries and spend their money elsewhere.

Any tourist attractions you don't like while you're at it?

As for being a small country well New Zealand has four times as many overseas students as wee do in relative terms.
Australia has many more too, and both these are countries with high cost bases.

In addition our university sector is not growing as fast as the market anyway, your arguments about "freeing up capacity" are obviously specious.

Don't be silly. It's not a question of "unworthy" or not. It's a question of focusing on those colleges with appropriate proceedures in place to prevent abuse of the application process by individuals/organisations that plan to use them to facilitate illegal immigration (the "bogus colleges").

Additionally, it is entirely reasonable for the UK government to establish a policy saying (a) we only want to accept a limited number of immigrants, either permanent or temporary, and want to ensure those places are allocated to the individuals who add the greatest value to the country. This would tend to focus attention towards universities (both under and post graduate) at the cost of language colleges. Fundamentally there is fixed capacity in much of our infrastructure and we need to decide how best to use it.

Can you tell me how you fact capacity implications (say for public transport) into your calculations? Over-crowding on the tube, for example, is significantly unpleasant and delays can have an economic cost.

As for New Zealand and the number of overseas students, it depends on the population, spare infrastructure capacity, the focus of the country's economic strategy and the probability of temporary migrants looking for a long-term residency. Just to point to the headline number is entirely specious.

Then you want limits on the number of tourists as well don't you.

tim said:

Mercer on the PM in 2011: "I’ve never, ever come across anyone less suited to the job in my life. I loathe him."

Mercer on Cameron: "He’s a most despicable creature without any real redeeming features. If I can think of one..he’s very rich, how’s that?"

Just saying what everyone else is thinking I guess.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Bah, Re Mercer, I had just started writing the thread "Are we seeing the first moves to unseat Dave?"

and then I get this tweet

Chris Ship ‏@chrisshipitv 1m

Understand decision by Patrick Mercer to resign Tory whip not to do with party direction/Cameron(altho he is no fan) Instead newspaper sting

tim said:

Looks like a premptive strike to avoid losing the whip

Chris Ship ‏@chrisshipitv
Understand decision by Patrick Mercer to resign Tory whip not to do with party direction/Cameron(altho he is no fan) Instead newspaper sting

DavidL said:

Starting to wonder if it is too late to edit my confident prediction about England...

DavidL said:

TGOHF said:

Perdix - it's quite simple really - The Telegraph wants more houses built - but not anywhere near its readers.

The UKIPgraph becomes ever more incoherent. Here is a story from last September from, ehh, their own newspaper, revealing that housebuilders are sitting on over 400,000 active planning consents for housing: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/9522902/House-builders-sitting-on-400000-undeveloped-plots-o

The idea that planning has anything to do with the dearth of housebuilding right now is completely absurd. It may do in the future but we have many years of record breaking housebuilding to go before the consents already in place are exhausted. Years.

DavidL said:

Starting to wonder if it is too late to edit my confident prediction about England...

TheScreamingEagles said:

DavidL said:

Starting to wonder if it is too late to edit my confident prediction about England...

Fret not, The Bradman of the 21st century, Joe Root is batting.

Plato said:

Mercer was stung by a fake lobbying company who paid him to lobby for regime in Fiji

tim said:

Charles said:

tim said:

Charles said:

tim said:

Charles said:

tim said:

Charles said:

tim said:

Grandiose said:

tim said:

Good to see Boris going after Dave's idiot pledge again

@MayorofLondon on immigration: "You cannot regard it as an unalloyed blessing that you have reduced the number of foreign students" @LBC973

I don't think the PM or anyone else thinks that the reduction is an "unalloyed" blessing. The need to stem net migration really comes from public services (mostly about having them in the right place) and integration. It's always a case abotu whether the positives outwigh the negatives.

Again you are conflating students with migrants.
Some will stay because employers want them, good.
Some will stay illegally, deal with that don't kill the economic benefit.

You may as well argue that tourism numbers should be cut because that avenue gets abused.
But you aren't are you, you'd argue that overstayers get treated in a different category to tourists.


And which group in society do you think are least likely to use hospitals and schools?
Young foreign students obviously.

You and I both know why students are targeted, an easy way for Dave to get closer to his idiot pledge.

tim, as people have said again and again, you need to differentiate between university students (that add value) and english language college attendees (that rarely add substantial value).

Moreover, in addition to the limited direct economic contribution, they put significant strain on limited infrastructure and other services - freeing up capacity has its own value (e.g. reduced congestion) which I doubt you are considering fully.

The UK needs to be a high-value added, premium focused economy. We can't compete on the volume game: we're a small country with a relatively high fixed cost base.

At least that's honest.
We will shut down colleges Charles sees as unworthy and those people will then go to other countries and spend their money elsewhere.

Any tourist attractions you don't like while you're at it?

As for being a small country well New Zealand has four times as many overseas students as wee do in relative terms.
Australia has many more too, and both these are countries with high cost bases.

In addition our university sector is not growing as fast as the market anyway, your arguments about "freeing up capacity" are obviously specious.

Don't be silly. It's not a question of "unworthy" or not. It's a question of focusing on those colleges with appropriate proceedures in place to prevent abuse of the application process by individuals/organisations that plan to use them to facilitate illegal immigration (the "bogus colleges").

Additionally, it is entirely reasonable for the UK government to establish a policy saying (a) we only want to accept a limited number of immigrants, either permanent or temporary, and want to ensure those places are allocated to the individuals who add the greatest value to the country. This would tend to focus attention towards universities (both under and post graduate) at the cost of language colleges. Fundamentally there is fixed capacity in much of our infrastructure and we need to decide how best to use it.

Can you tell me how you fact capacity implications (say for public transport) into your calculations? Over-crowding on the tube, for example, is significantly unpleasant and delays can have an economic cost.

As for New Zealand and the number of overseas students, it depends on the population, spare infrastructure capacity, the focus of the country's economic strategy and the probability of temporary migrants looking for a long-term residency. Just to point to the headline number is entirely specious.

Then you want limits on the number of tourists as well don't you.

No, I don't. There is a difference between someone going for a few weeks and someone coming for 3 years.

Obviously, but 72 tourists coming for a fortnight each put the same "strain on infrastructure" as one student disturbing you on the tube, what's the difference?

Tourists are unlikely to be taking the same route at the same time each day. It's all about capacity management.

Yes tourists are all renowned for taking more unpredictable routes than a student travelling between home and college thus making planning so much easier
Jesus Charles please tell me you're not left alone with electrical equipment or sharp objects

TheScreamingEagles said:

Here's the story

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10091179/Tory-MP-Patrick-Mercer-resigns-over-lobbying-scandal.html

antifrank said:

@TheScreamingEagles It should be a safe Conservative hold even if there's a by-election in these circumstances, especially since Labour and UKIP would be fighting it out for the protest vote. Anything else would be a shockingly poor result for the Conservatives.

antifrank said:

@TheScreamingEagles Not obviously that much: in 2010 the Conservatives polled only slightly ahead of where they polled in 1992.

The Lib Dems were only just behind Labour in 2010, so there's an interesting question where the Lib Dem vote might go, I suppose.

TheScreamingEagles said:

antifrank said:

@TheScreamingEagles It should be a safe Conservative hold even if there's a by-election in these circumstances, especially since Labour and UKIP would be fighting it out for the protest vote. Anything else would be a shockingly poor result for the Conservatives.

I'm trying to work how much of a personal vote Mercer had.

Richard_Tyndall said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

antifrank said:

@TheScreamingEagles It should be a safe Conservative hold even if there's a by-election in these circumstances, especially since Labour and UKIP would be fighting it out for the protest vote. Anything else would be a shockingly poor result for the Conservatives.

I'm trying to work how much of a personal vote Mercer had.

Large. He won against a very disliked MP in 2001, increased his majority in 2005 and had a massive increase in 2010 (more than doubled his majority). His clear dislike of Cameron and distancing himself from the government seems to have helped him a great deal locally.

That said he found himself on the wrong side of local opinion over things like the massive expansion of building around the town as part of an unwelcome Growth Point plan by the local Tory council. Still he was seen as a local representative rather than a Tory party mouthpiece.

In the current climate I would hate to try and predict what would happen if he resigned his seat.

Richard_Tyndall said:

Large. He won against a very disliked MP in 2001, increased his majority in 2005 and had a massive increase in 2010 (more than doubled his majority). His clear dislike of Cameron and distancing himself from the government seems to have helped him a great deal locally.

slade said:

Interesting that Joe Root is getting all the attention but he is not even top of the Yorkshire batting averages. That honour goes to Adil Rashid who has over 504 runs at an average of 252!