The IDF will be getting competition for their satirical 'Most Moral Army In The World' crown. Will we see poppy themed t-shirts saying 'I stand with Troopers XYZ and their entirely justified shooting of unarmed, handcuffed kids'?
easygoing48 @easygoing48 54m UK Special Forces committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"They handcuffed a young boy and shot him," recalled one veteran who served with the SAS in Afghanistan. "He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age."
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 7m Strong, powerful speech from Keir Starmer. And a speech that is politically insane. None of the measures announced today can possibly match the rhetoric. Every single small boat that arrives and every new migrant that arrives will be set against these words. Madness.
Actually it isn’t, it’s very clever.
Immigration is going to fall due to the reforms of the last government and Starmer’s going to get the credit.
The public don’t do post hoc ergo proptor hoc..
The public also don't do gratitude on second order derivatives.
A fall in the rate of inflation did no favours for Sunak as prices were still high and rising, even if they were rising at a slower rate.
How many people who are concerned by the number of immigrants in the country are going to be grateful that they're still increasing, but at a slower rate?
We've often heard that people thought a fall in inflation meant a fall in prices, i.e. they interpret a second order derivative as a first order one. If that's the case, then they may interpret a fall in the rate of immigration as negative net immigration.
The public don't understand second order derivatives...
If net migration is still going up by hundreds of thousands per annum...
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 7m Strong, powerful speech from Keir Starmer. And a speech that is politically insane. None of the measures announced today can possibly match the rhetoric. Every single small boat that arrives and every new migrant that arrives will be set against these words. Madness.
Actually it isn’t, it’s very clever.
Immigration is going to fall due to the reforms of the last government and Starmer’s going to get the credit.
The public don’t do post hoc ergo proptor hoc..
The public also don't do gratitude on second order derivatives.
A fall in the rate of inflation did no favours for Sunak as prices were still high and rising, even if they were rising at a slower rate.
How many people who are concerned by the number of immigrants in the country are going to be grateful that they're still increasing, but at a slower rate?
We've often heard that people thought a fall in inflation meant a fall in prices, i.e. they interpret a second order derivative as a first order one. If that's the case, then they may interpret a fall in the rate of immigration as negative net immigration.
Precisely.
The public don't understand second order derivatives and don't care to - but then again the politicians aren't much better, see talk on deficit/debt.
If net migration is still going up by hundreds of thousands per annum then I doubt many who are bothered by migration are going to say "yay, its going up at a slower rate, well done Starmer!"
I am sure lots of people also believe that reductions in CO2 emissions mean that there will be less CO2 in the atmosphere. Even more people won't know that 2024 was the record high year for CO2 emissions, following 40 years of talk about reducing them.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 7m Strong, powerful speech from Keir Starmer. And a speech that is politically insane. None of the measures announced today can possibly match the rhetoric. Every single small boat that arrives and every new migrant that arrives will be set against these words. Madness.
Actually it isn’t, it’s very clever.
Immigration is going to fall due to the reforms of the last government and Starmer’s going to get the credit.
The public don’t do post hoc ergo proptor hoc..
The next annual immigration figures are out next month, aren't they? This is clever timing then. He talks tough this month. Next month, the numbers show a big drop.
Yeah, everywhere going to think what he said this morning stopped people coming last year. Clever
All the opposition have spent the last 9 months blaming him for things that happened, or were caused by, events from before he came to power - so why not?
Like the former PCSO in Kent being arrested by Police who misunderstood a tweet.
Quite how that’s the fault of SKS and Labour I don’t know.
Not directly of course, but overall strategic policy for everything is set by government. That's what government means. So if it isn't obvious to all police that actions X, Y and Z are out of bounds and ludicrous, it rests in the end on government to sort it, however much that is done in a delegated way.
It's in the nature of government to keep avoiding this fact. Take social care for example, now hanging fire since Dilnot in 2013. Policy on this is ultimately for government. No-one else has the power to do so. What have they done? Put it out for consultation, 12 years after Dilnot, to report in 2028 and, crucially, they stop mentioning it and hope we will do the same. That is the opposite of proper government.
Isn't Taz's point that he was arrested under the last government though?
People don't vote based on official government statistics. They vote based on their lived experience.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The vast majority of people in the country don't have any lived experience of people crossing the Channel in small boats. They don't see them crossing or landing. They don't encounter them in their day-to-day life.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
Thankfully, Starmer has learned to ignore people like you.
20 years too late, but hey ho.
People like me in what sense?
What is your lived experience of people who came over in small boats?
My lived experience is that I have to read shite like this from people like you.
Great. That demonstrates my point. Your experience is "read[ing] shite", i.e. from social media. You don't have direct experience of people who have come over in boats.
I've learned it's a waste of my time and totally pointless discussing the issue with you.
So, I now ignore you.
You are irrelevant and will be marginalised going forwards.
This is an interesting short Youtube item about a ship travelling from China to the USA, which ended up with different tariffs on different parts of its cargo as Trump played his policy hopscotch. A study in instablity.
A $564m cargo ended up with $416m of tariffs on it, much imposed whilst it was in transit.
Mr Trump is also targeting "Chinese Built" ships, to "boost the USA shipbuilding industry" - so all the global companies are juggling their Chinese built ships onto European and Asian deliveries.
By making ports collect all these tariffs, Mr Trump is outsourcing part of his tax collection system. I wonder who will be responsible for errors.
If this was just a poll of Republican voters it might be plausible. However for all voters with other polls showing Trump on just 41% approval it clearly is not
The notion that immigration can fill labour shortages is a fallacy that should have been tested to death now. It is the same "lump of labour" fallacy as claiming that immigrants "steal job" and cause unemployment.
Immigrants don't just add supply to the labour market, they add demand too. They don't have as much demand for dependencies as not typically retired (but may have/breed kids), but do increase demand for infrastructure, so its roughly balances.
All it does is ensure that firms can today fill a vacancy at a lower wage, but since demand goes up it just creates new vacancies and the circle continues. If it were possible to 'fill' vacancies with migration we'd have done it already, but its not possible.
The only thing that can make supply and demand balance is prices adjusting. If there's too many job vacancies then wages are too low - increase them, and let inefficient ones die unfilled. Productivity rises, and we reach equilibrium.
Given our low birthrate and large numbers on long term sick leave, immigration fills the gap
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 7m Strong, powerful speech from Keir Starmer. And a speech that is politically insane. None of the measures announced today can possibly match the rhetoric. Every single small boat that arrives and every new migrant that arrives will be set against these words. Madness.
Actually it isn’t, it’s very clever.
Immigration is going to fall due to the reforms of the last government and Starmer’s going to get the credit.
The public don’t do post hoc ergo proptor hoc..
The next annual immigration figures are out next month, aren't they? This is clever timing then. He talks tough this month. Next month, the numbers show a big drop.
Yeah, everywhere going to think what he said this morning stopped people coming last year. Clever
All the opposition have spent the last 9 months blaming him for things that happened, or were caused by, events from before he came to power - so why not?
Like the former PCSO in Kent being arrested by Police who misunderstood a tweet.
Quite how that’s the fault of SKS and Labour I don’t know.
Not directly of course, but overall strategic policy for everything is set by government. That's what government means. So if it isn't obvious to all police that actions X, Y and Z are out of bounds and ludicrous, it rests in the end on government to sort it, however much that is done in a delegated way.
It's in the nature of government to keep avoiding this fact. Take social care for example, now hanging fire since Dilnot in 2013. Policy on this is ultimately for government. No-one else has the power to do so. What have they done? Put it out for consultation, 12 years after Dilnot, to report in 2028 and, crucially, they stop mentioning it and hope we will do the same. That is the opposite of proper government.
The Dilnot report was a disgrace, more concerned with protecting people's inheritances with taxpayers money than dealing with social care.
It should be taken out back and shot, never to be mentioned again and a new idea replacing it.
Not a single penny of taxpayers money should go to covering someone's inheritance. If an elderly individuals equity is used on their own care, then that's what their own money is for.
Hope the site's back to normal, was very iffy earlier.
F1: not one but two pie charts in the next Undercutters podcast. Because it's a quarter of the way into the season I'm going to compare the betting odds pre-season with now. A counter-intuitive fact is that Norris is seen as very slightly more likely to win the title now than he was before the season began.
Anyway, I'll post that tomorrow morning, at the normal-ish time.
People don't vote based on official government statistics. They vote based on their lived experience.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The vast majority of people in the country don't have any lived experience of people crossing the Channel in small boats. They don't see them crossing or landing. They don't encounter them in their day-to-day life.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
Thankfully, Starmer has learned to ignore people like you.
20 years too late, but hey ho.
People like me in what sense?
What is your lived experience of people who came over in small boats?
My lived experience is that I have to read shite like this from people like you.
Great. That demonstrates my point. Your experience is "read[ing] shite", i.e. from social media. You don't have direct experience of people who have come over in boats.
I've learned it's a waste of my time and totally pointless discussing the issue with you.
So, I now ignore you.
You are irrelevant and will be marginalised going forwards.
Yes, I can see how you are ignoring me by the way you are replying to everything I post.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 7m Strong, powerful speech from Keir Starmer. And a speech that is politically insane. None of the measures announced today can possibly match the rhetoric. Every single small boat that arrives and every new migrant that arrives will be set against these words. Madness.
Actually it isn’t, it’s very clever.
Immigration is going to fall due to the reforms of the last government and Starmer’s going to get the credit.
The public don’t do post hoc ergo proptor hoc..
The public also don't do gratitude on second order derivatives.
A fall in the rate of inflation did no favours for Sunak as prices were still high and rising, even if they were rising at a slower rate.
How many people who are concerned by the number of immigrants in the country are going to be grateful that they're still increasing, but at a slower rate?
We've often heard that people thought a fall in inflation meant a fall in prices, i.e. they interpret a second order derivative as a first order one. If that's the case, then they may interpret a fall in the rate of immigration as negative net immigration.
Precisely.
The public don't understand second order derivatives and don't care to - but then again the politicians aren't much better, see talk on deficit/debt.
If net migration is still going up by hundreds of thousands per annum then I doubt many who are bothered by migration are going to say "yay, its going up at a slower rate, well done Starmer!"
Inflation is the FIRST order derivative of prices. The second order derivative is the rate of change of inflation, as any fool who has spent 14 years in compulsory state education kno
The IDF will be getting competition for their satirical 'Most Moral Army In The World' crown. Will we see poppy themed t-shirts saying 'I stand with Troopers XYZ and their entirely justified shooting of unarmed, handcuffed kids'?
easygoing48 @easygoing48 54m UK Special Forces committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"They handcuffed a young boy and shot him," recalled one veteran who served with the SAS in Afghanistan. "He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age."
We'll find out soon enough, but it seems fairly likely given the sheer number of stories coming out.
"The Regiment" should have been disbanded years ago but they have the best marketing operation in the armed forces so nothing will happen beyond perhaps jankers for a convenient scapegoat.
Australia started following all of these policies & the boat arrivals then rapidly stopped & never resumed.
People won't cross by boat, if they know they have zero chance of getting to stay in their destination country.
REPLY: That's not what @SandyRentool was suggesting and I was responding to Sandy's suggestion.
As we have discussed many, many times, the Australian situation is rather different to the UK's: a longer sea crossing, so you have more time to intercept boats and can do so in international waters; some nearby places willing to take people for money, or a convenient offshore island you control; lower numbers. Moreover, Australia did not do the equivalent of "tak[ing] them back to France".
Taking them "back to France" is a dumb idea, people will just try again.
Taking them elsewhere is key if you want to follow this policy. Somewhere like Rwanda or Algeria or anywhere that will take them for money.
It fails to note that U.S. generic prices (which are about 90% of prescriptions) are actually lower than European prices.
If Trump is saying that generic prices have to come down to the lowest levels available in Africa, then several things will happen.
First, African countries will lose most the special (effectively subsidised) deals they get on cheap generics; manufacturers will simply raise their cheapest prices. Coming on top of the halt in USAID, that will have devastating effects.
Secondly, it will further increase the market share of the very lowest cost producers - China and India. Who will probably be tariffed on what they ship to the US.
For drugs still in patent, it will have some of the effects described by the X poster. Manufacturers will substantially raise prices for countries like the UK in order to maintain their US margins. That's going to be a big problem for the NHS. And they will stop supplying those drugs to markets which can't pay the higher prices.
So much of their revenue comes from the UZ that they can't afford to do otherwise.
The second effect, which isn't mentioned, is that is going to open up a huge opportunity for the rapidly growing Chinese pharma industry - at precisely the time it has started to become a very serious competitor to western manufacturers.
If this policy becomes reality (the executive order is of dubious legality without Congressional backing), it's going to have some very bad, unintended consequences.
Regarding the small boats, if we can't send folk back to France (from where they are "fleeing"), then isn't the best option to just ignore them? Let people disappear into the black economy, living in "sheds with beds". Later, when they get discovered working illegally, then deport them.
Better than giving them a red carpet welcome and putting them up in hotels for months on end.
That would require us to pull out of international conventions on asylum, which were set up because of the failures in the 1930s to provide refuge to Jews fleeing Germany and because of the pressures caused by the disruption to populations after World War II.
Australia is also a party to the international conventions, but it follows the exact same policies for stopping boat arrivals, as are listed in Reform's manifesto:
Zero illegal immigrants to be resettled in the UK. Pick up illegal migrants out of boats and take them back to France. All asylum seekers that arrive illegally from safe countries will be processed rapidly, offshore if necessary. Those entering from a safe country will also be barred from claiming asylum or citizenship.
Australia started following all of these policies & the boat arrivals then rapidly stopped & never resumed.
People won't cross by boat, if they know they have zero chance of getting to stay in their destination country.
REPLY: That's not what @SandyRentool was suggesting and I was responding to Sandy's suggestion.
As we have discussed many, many times, the Australian situation is rather different to the UK's: a longer sea crossing, so you have more time to intercept boats and can do so in international waters; some nearby places willing to take people for money, or a convenient offshore island you control; lower numbers. Moreover, Australia did not do the equivalent of "tak[ing] them back to France".
Taking them "back to France" is a dumb idea, people will just try again.
Taking them elsewhere is key if you want to follow this policy. Somewhere like Rwanda or Algeria or anywhere that will take them for money.
Attack the demand. Plus, for a Labour government, going after the kind of people who employ the undocumented, is better politics.
As we have discussed many, many times, the Australian situation is rather different to the UK's: a longer sea crossing, so you have more time to intercept boats and can do so in international waters; some nearby places willing to take people for money, or a convenient offshore island you control; lower numbers. Moreover, Australia did not do the equivalent of "tak[ing] them back to France".
Taking them "back to France" is a dumb idea, people will just try again.
Taking them elsewhere is key if you want to follow this policy. Somewhere like Rwanda or Algeria or anywhere that will take them for money.
Rwanda basically invaded DRC. You are very critical (rightly) of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It seems odd that you'd be fine with sending vulnerable people to a country with a similar approach to its neighbours.
The IDF will be getting competition for their satirical 'Most Moral Army In The World' crown. Will we see poppy themed t-shirts saying 'I stand with Troopers XYZ and their entirely justified shooting of unarmed, handcuffed kids'?
easygoing48 @easygoing48 54m UK Special Forces committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"They handcuffed a young boy and shot him," recalled one veteran who served with the SAS in Afghanistan. "He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age."
We'll find out soon enough, but it seems fairly likely given the sheer number of stories coming out.
"The Regiment" should have been disbanded years ago but they have the best marketing operation in the armed forces so nothing will happen beyond perhaps jankers for a convenient scapegoat.
The Navy equivalent seems to be similarly implicated.
But I think the repercussions are likely to go some way beyond your prediction. The fact that witnesses are now speaking publicly, and the ongoing public enquiry, are going to create a momentum which a bit of formulaic scapegoating is unlikely to halt. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3j5gxgz0do
I understand Starmer is about to do his best Farage impression at a press conference at 8.30am
I agree with Sam Coates who says Starmer's problem is that while he chases Reform votes he actually is running a greater risk of Labour supporters defecting to the Lib Dems and Greens and he cannot outdo Farage on this subject
Coates also says Starmer will not confirm a cap on numbers and will be asked ad infinitum why
The next GE is not for another three or four years. Which is more than enough time for these policies to bed down and be supplemented with red meat for the traditional Labour voter.
Starmer's problem, as ever, is that he is a crummy communicator. So are most of his front bench.
Also a woke weak liberal many faced no user who is not in any way going to implement Labour type policies or anything difficult.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 7m Strong, powerful speech from Keir Starmer. And a speech that is politically insane. None of the measures announced today can possibly match the rhetoric. Every single small boat that arrives and every new migrant that arrives will be set against these words. Madness.
Actually it isn’t, it’s very clever.
Immigration is going to fall due to the reforms of the last government and Starmer’s going to get the credit.
The public don’t do post hoc ergo proptor hoc..
The public also don't do gratitude on second order derivatives.
A fall in the rate of inflation did no favours for Sunak as prices were still high and rising, even if they were rising at a slower rate.
How many people who are concerned by the number of immigrants in the country are going to be grateful that they're still increasing, but at a slower rate?
We've often heard that people thought a fall in inflation meant a fall in prices, i.e. they interpret a second order derivative as a first order one. If that's the case, then they may interpret a fall in the rate of immigration as negative net immigration.
I think this was overplayed. I'm sure some people believe that about inflation, but it mostly seemed to be a smug point made by the condescending.
Your analogy holds, though, as far as it goes.
The bigger issue is that it "feels like" prices have gone up 40-50% over the last 3 years whilst wages have only gone up about 10-15%.
I've made those numbers up, but that's what it feels like, so people are understandably frustrated when they hear the cost of living crisis is abating.
Not for them.
Agreed. I think that’s the case for the middle classes too.
Regarding the small boats, if we can't send folk back to France (from where they are "fleeing"), then isn't the best option to just ignore them? Let people disappear into the black economy, living in "sheds with beds". Later, when they get discovered working illegally, then deport them.
Better than giving them a red carpet welcome and putting them up in hotels for months on end.
That would require us to pull out of international conventions on asylum, which were set up because of the failures in the 1930s to provide refuge to Jews fleeing Germany and because of the pressures caused by the disruption to populations after World War II.
Australia is also a party to the international conventions, but it follows the exact same policies for stopping boat arrivals, as are listed in Reform's manifesto:
Zero illegal immigrants to be resettled in the UK. Pick up illegal migrants out of boats and take them back to France. All asylum seekers that arrive illegally from safe countries will be processed rapidly, offshore if necessary. Those entering from a safe country will also be barred from claiming asylum or citizenship.
Australia started following all of these policies & the boat arrivals then rapidly stopped & never resumed.
People won't cross by boat, if they know they have zero chance of getting to stay in their destination country.
REPLY: That's not what @SandyRentool was suggesting and I was responding to Sandy's suggestion.
As we have discussed many, many times, the Australian situation is rather different to the UK's: a longer sea crossing, so you have more time to intercept boats and can do so in international waters; some nearby places willing to take people for money, or a convenient offshore island you control; lower numbers. Moreover, Australia did not do the equivalent of "tak[ing] them back to France".
Taking them "back to France" is a dumb idea, people will just try again.
Taking them elsewhere is key if you want to follow this policy. Somewhere like Rwanda or Algeria or anywhere that will take them for money.
Attack the demand. Plus, for a Labour government, going after the kind of people who employ the undocumented, is better politics.
Australia does follow a similar policy of "taking them back to France".
The Australian Navy will towback boats to Indonesia (which is the usual point of departure).
I agree that people will try again if they are returned to France, but once this happens a couple of times, then they will learn that attempting a crossing is futile.
Regarding the small boats, if we can't send folk back to France (from where they are "fleeing"), then isn't the best option to just ignore them? Let people disappear into the black economy, living in "sheds with beds". Later, when they get discovered working illegally, then deport them.
Better than giving them a red carpet welcome and putting them up in hotels for months on end.
That would require us to pull out of international conventions on asylum, which were set up because of the failures in the 1930s to provide refuge to Jews fleeing Germany and because of the pressures caused by the disruption to populations after World War II.
Why are the asylum seekers living in camps in Calais prior to heading over ?
Because France is a failed state. According to various international aid organisations, conditions for the migrants there are intolerable. If they can't even give the migrants pizza*.....
So France is a failed state, with oil.
We all know how that one goes, don't we, children?
*Despite the sexualised desires of some, the UK has consistently treated the boat people well. Including huge orders of pizza when they are taken off the boats that have rescued them. That some of the pizza has a certain topping....
For some of them, the ham is likely to be the dealbreaker, not the pineapple...
Apparently, the orders a generally quite vegetarian - no pig products or beef. This is a fairly standard thing with dealing with refugees/migrants, from what people I know in the aid world say. That way you don't risk offending people/rejecting the food.
I'd be offended if I was only offered vegetarian.
You wouldn't have to worry about chlorination or hormones
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
With US/China de-escalating economically, Pakistan / India de-escalating properly, Starmer toughing up migration rules and Ukr/Russia inching towards a deal there definitely seems to be a general wave of sanity today.
Of course tommorow could bring fresh horrors but it's not a bad Monday all things told.
As we have discussed many, many times, the Australian situation is rather different to the UK's: a longer sea crossing, so you have more time to intercept boats and can do so in international waters; some nearby places willing to take people for money, or a convenient offshore island you control; lower numbers. Moreover, Australia did not do the equivalent of "tak[ing] them back to France".
Taking them "back to France" is a dumb idea, people will just try again.
Taking them elsewhere is key if you want to follow this policy. Somewhere like Rwanda or Algeria or anywhere that will take them for money.
Rwanda basically invaded DRC. You are very critical (rightly) of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It seems odd that you'd be fine with sending vulnerable people to a country with a similar approach to its neighbours.
I'm not advocating it, I said "somewhere like" that would work if that's what you want to do. I wasn't expressing a personal view.
I've walked through hundreds of small towns and villages over the last fortnight. In all of them, there were permanently closed businesses: shops, cafés, restaurants etc..
One thing remains in every village, and on nearly every street in every town - boulangeries. And what do they offer me?
Nothing but PAIN
Fresh PAIN Speciality PAIN Artisanal PAIN Rolls and sticks of PAIN
And so many locals walking around with the PAIN sticks under their arms
Like I need more pain.. Luckily there are plenty of pharmacies and bars too for mitigation
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
I've walked through hundreds of small towns and villages over the last fortnight. In all of them, there were permanently closed businesses: shops, cafés, restaurants etc..
One thing remains in every village, and on nearly every street in every town - boulangeries. And what do they offer me?
Nothing but PAIN
Fresh PAIN Speciality PAIN Artisanal PAIN Rolls and sticks of PAIN
And so many locals walking around with the PAIN sticks under their arms
Like I need more pain.. Luckily there are plenty of pharmacies and bars too for mitigation
Boulangeries are actually satellite offices/headquarters for a MAGA style take over of France. The clue is in the name...
The IDF will be getting competition for their satirical 'Most Moral Army In The World' crown. Will we see poppy themed t-shirts saying 'I stand with Troopers XYZ and their entirely justified shooting of unarmed, handcuffed kids'?
easygoing48 @easygoing48 54m UK Special Forces committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"They handcuffed a young boy and shot him," recalled one veteran who served with the SAS in Afghanistan. "He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age."
We'll find out soon enough, but it seems fairly likely given the sheer number of stories coming out.
"The Regiment" should have been disbanded years ago but they have the best marketing operation in the armed forces so nothing will happen beyond perhaps jankers for a convenient scapegoat.
The Navy equivalent seems to be similarly implicated.
But I think the repercussions are likely to go some way beyond your prediction. The fact that witnesses are now speaking publicly, and the ongoing public enquiry, are going to create a momentum which a bit of formulaic scapegoating is unlikely to halt. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3j5gxgz0do
Sounds very much an occasional good apple in a rotting barrel of fruit. With ball aching certainty I foresee another enquiry into why the current one was a bit crap. Still, it'll give Dave a chance to clear his name. Again.
People don't vote based on official government statistics. They vote based on their lived experience.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The vast majority of people in the country don't have any lived experience of people crossing the Channel in small boats. They don't see them crossing or landing. They don't encounter them in their day-to-day life.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
Thankfully, Starmer has learned to ignore people like you.
20 years too late, but hey ho.
People like me in what sense?
What is your lived experience of people who came over in small boats?
Why are you so sympathetic to all these chancers coming over in small boats?
I've walked through hundreds of small towns and villages over the last fortnight. In all of them, there were permanently closed businesses: shops, cafés, restaurants etc..
One thing remains in every village, and on nearly every street in every town - boulangeries. And what do they offer me?
Nothing but PAIN
Fresh PAIN Speciality PAIN Artisanal PAIN Rolls and sticks of PAIN
And so many locals walking around with the PAIN sticks under their arms
Like I need more pain.. Luckily there are plenty of pharmacies and bars too for mitigation
Drink some of the local red medicine, and stick some of the odd putty like poultice substance (slightly smelly) onto the pain and you'll be fine.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Wow. Consider the hot water William Hague got into when he spoke about Britain becoming a 'foreign land', and that was to do with unwelcome EU diktats rather than immigrants.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
I think Starmer's strategy is what's known as giving your enemy possession of the battlefield.
That’s the madness of it to me. The more the focus is on immigration the more Farage can sit back and let Starmer do his marketing for him. But then I appreciate ignoring the issue is also tricky.
Labour needs to find its political strong point and get media focus on it as much as possible. Historically it’s always been the NHS. Waiting lists do seem to be creeping down. Why not blitz everyone with that. And Streeting hasn’t yet done himself major brand damage like Reeves has. (Admittedly nor has Cooper, but she risks losing Labour some more votes to the Greens and Lib Dems if she keeps upping the rhetoric)
The notion that immigration can fill labour shortages is a fallacy that should have been tested to death now. It is the same "lump of labour" fallacy as claiming that immigrants "steal job" and cause unemployment.
Immigrants don't just add supply to the labour market, they add demand too. They don't have as much demand for dependencies as not typically retired (but may have/breed kids), but do increase demand for infrastructure, so its roughly balances.
All it does is ensure that firms can today fill a vacancy at a lower wage, but since demand goes up it just creates new vacancies and the circle continues. If it were possible to 'fill' vacancies with migration we'd have done it already, but its not possible.
The only thing that can make supply and demand balance is prices adjusting. If there's too many job vacancies then wages are too low - increase them, and let inefficient ones die unfilled. Productivity rises, and we reach equilibrium.
Given our low birthrate and large numbers on long term sick leave, immigration fills the gap
Stop the long term skivers, don't allow unlimited legal and ZERO illegal immigration
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Wow. Consider the hot water William Hague got into when he spoke about Britain becoming a 'foreign land', and that was to do with unwelcome EU diktats rather than immigrants.
They’re making the same mistake Sunak made: assuming what the country really wants is to hear politicians trash talking foreigners. That didn’t stop Sunak leaking votes to Farage and nor will this.
It's often said that only a Labour government could get away with a serious reform of the NHS, because of its historic associations. Perhaps this is also the case in tackling migration (legal and illegal), given Labour's historically 'liberal' record on immigrations matters.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 7m Strong, powerful speech from Keir Starmer. And a speech that is politically insane. None of the measures announced today can possibly match the rhetoric. Every single small boat that arrives and every new migrant that arrives will be set against these words. Madness.
Actually it isn’t, it’s very clever.
Immigration is going to fall due to the reforms of the last government and Starmer’s going to get the credit.
The public don’t do post hoc ergo proptor hoc..
The public also don't do gratitude on second order derivatives.
A fall in the rate of inflation did no favours for Sunak as prices were still high and rising, even if they were rising at a slower rate.
How many people who are concerned by the number of immigrants in the country are going to be grateful that they're still increasing, but at a slower rate?
We've often heard that people thought a fall in inflation meant a fall in prices, i.e. they interpret a second order derivative as a first order one. If that's the case, then they may interpret a fall in the rate of immigration as negative net immigration.
Precisely.
The public don't understand second order derivatives and don't care to - but then again the politicians aren't much better, see talk on deficit/debt.
If net migration is still going up by hundreds of thousands per annum then I doubt many who are bothered by migration are going to say "yay, its going up at a slower rate, well done Starmer!"
Inflation is the FIRST order derivative of prices. The second order derivative is the rate of change of inflation, as any fool who has spent 14 years in compulsory state education kno
That was the point!
The public didn't give Sunak credit for a second-order change as prices didn't go down, they were still high and going up, albeit at a slower rate. Inflation was down, but prices weren't, so the public weren't happy.
For people who are concerned by lots of migrants being in the country then hundreds of thousands (net) arriving per year is not going to be likely accepted as a success just for being a lower figure than before.
People don't vote based on official government statistics. They vote based on their lived experience.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The vast majority of people in the country don't have any lived experience of people crossing the Channel in small boats. They don't see them crossing or landing. They don't encounter them in their day-to-day life.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
Thankfully, Starmer has learned to ignore people like you.
20 years too late, but hey ho.
People like me in what sense?
What is your lived experience of people who came over in small boats?
Why are you so sympathetic to all these chancers coming over in small boats?
With US/China de-escalating economically, Pakistan / India de-escalating properly, Starmer toughing up migration rules and Ukr/Russia inching towards a deal there definitely seems to be a general wave of sanity today.
Of course tommorow could bring fresh horrors but it's not a bad Monday all things told.
You are easily taken in, only ONE thing there that is even remotely factual
Starmer's comments today just reinforce the conclusion that he's *really* shit at politics.
Yes, 400 seats in parliament, blah-de-blah. I'm not knocking his ability to hit the Tories while they were down or to rebuild a Labour Party the country trusted. But that was then. It damn well doesn't trust it now.
Why? Because it's implementing policies that won't work, driven by someone else's agenda that Labour is too lacking in confidence to confront.
That will piss off Labour's own vote, fail to attract Reform's (which are driven by a lot more than immigration anyway), and alienate those who just want a competent government. Furthermore, the policies are detached from any ideological vision or even a coherent set of technical and administrative strategies for government, all of which have gone unexplained anyway.
What is Labour for? What is it in government to do? How will the country be better off in four years? What is wrong, why, and how will it be fixed?
Maybe answers to all that were in the Labour manifesto (though I'd bet that blaming immigrants for society's breakdown wasn't), but frankly I can't be bothered to check - and I'm certain that Mr Smith who only pays loose attention to politics won't. Nor will those who never go near a newspaper or the news on TV and radio, and get their information from TikTok, YouTube, active social media, and their friends and family.
There is no plan. There is no vision. There is no delivery. There is, now, no compassion. And consequently, for Labour, it's entirely possible that there is no future: it has no purpose.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
I think Starmer's strategy is what's known as giving your enemy possession of the battlefield.
That’s the madness of it to me. The more the focus is on immigration the more Farage can sit back and let Starmer do his marketing for him. But then I appreciate ignoring the issue is also tricky.
Labour needs to find its political strong point and get media focus on it as much as possible. Historically it’s always been the NHS. Waiting lists do seem to be creeping down. Why not blitz everyone with that. And Streeting hasn’t yet done himself major brand damage like Reeves has. (Admittedly nor has Cooper, but she risks losing Labour some more votes to the Greens and Lib Dems if she keeps upping the rhetoric)
Alternatively, ignoring the immigration issues destines Labour to a large defeat to Reform in 2029, an outcome I'd do pretty much anything to avoid. I think the days when Labour can win an election on the NHS are gone.
Starmer's comments today just reinforce the conclusion that he's *really* shit at politics.
Yes, 400 seats in parliament, blah-de-blah. I'm not knocking his ability to hit the Tories while they were down or to rebuild a Labour Party the country trusted. But that was then. It damn well doesn't trust it now.
Why? Because it's implementing policies that won't work, driven by someone else's agenda that Labour is too lacking in confidence to confront.
That will piss off Labour's own vote, fail to attract Reform's (which are driven by a lot more than immigration anyway), and alienate those who just want a competent government. Furthermore, the policies are detached from any ideological vision or even a coherent set of technical and administrative strategies for government, all of which have gone unexplained anyway.
What is Labour for? What is it in government to do? How will the country be better off in four years? What is wrong, why, and how will it be fixed?
Maybe answers to all that were in the Labour manifesto (though I'd bet that blaming immigrants for society's breakdown wasn't), but frankly I can't be bothered to check - and I'm certain that Mr Smith who only pays loose attention to politics won't. Nor will those who never go near a newspaper or the news on TV and radio, and get their information from TikTok, YouTube, active social media, and their friends and family.
There is no plan. There is no vision. There is no delivery. There is, now, no compassion. And consequently, for Labour, it's entirely possible that there is no future: it has no purpose.
He seems to have been spooked by the local election results, and effective PMs don't usually do that. You can't imagine Thatcher or Blair changing course based on them.
It's often said that only a Labour government could get away with a serious reform of the NHS, because of its historic associations. Perhaps this is also the case in tackling migration (legal and illegal), given Labour's historically 'liberal' record on immigrations matters.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Wow. Consider the hot water William Hague got into when he spoke about Britain becoming a 'foreign land', and that was to do with unwelcome EU diktats rather than immigrants.
They’re making the same mistake Sunak made: assuming what the country really wants is to hear politicians trash talking foreigners. That didn’t stop Sunak leaking votes to Farage and nor will this.
Also very similar to the mistake Cameron made when he thought it would be a brilliant idea to combat Farage by having a Brexit referendum.
Starmer's comments today just reinforce the conclusion that he's *really* shit at politics.
Yes, 400 seats in parliament, blah-de-blah. I'm not knocking his ability to hit the Tories while they were down or to rebuild a Labour Party the country trusted. But that was then. It damn well doesn't trust it now.
Why? Because it's implementing policies that won't work, driven by someone else's agenda that Labour is too lacking in confidence to confront.
That will piss off Labour's own vote, fail to attract Reform's (which are driven by a lot more than immigration anyway), and alienate those who just want a competent government. Furthermore, the policies are detached from any ideological vision or even a coherent set of technical and administrative strategies for government, all of which have gone unexplained anyway.
What is Labour for? What is it in government to do? How will the country be better off in four years? What is wrong, why, and how will it be fixed?
Maybe answers to all that were in the Labour manifesto (though I'd bet that blaming immigrants for society's breakdown wasn't), but frankly I can't be bothered to check - and I'm certain that Mr Smith who only pays loose attention to politics won't. Nor will those who never go near a newspaper or the news on TV and radio, and get their information from TikTok, YouTube, active social media, and their friends and family.
There is no plan. There is no vision. There is no delivery. There is, now, no compassion. And consequently, for Labour, it's entirely possible that there is no future: it has no purpose.
He seems to have been spooked by the local election results, and effective PMs don't usually do that. You can't imagine Thatcher or Blair changing course based on them.
And/or he knows the annual immigration figures come out next month and will show a big fall, and he wants the Labour government to get the credit.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Wow. Consider the hot water William Hague got into when he spoke about Britain becoming a 'foreign land', and that was to do with unwelcome EU diktats rather than immigrants.
They’re making the same mistake Sunak made: assuming what the country really wants is to hear politicians trash talking foreigners. That didn’t stop Sunak leaking votes to Farage and nor will this.
Also very similar to the mistake Cameron made when he thought it would be a brilliant idea to combat Farage by having a Brexit referendum.
No - Cameron thought that he would have a standup fight over Brexit, and defeat Farage. Not adopt the UKIP platform.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Wow. Consider the hot water William Hague got into when he spoke about Britain becoming a 'foreign land', and that was to do with unwelcome EU diktats rather than immigrants.
They’re making the same mistake Sunak made: assuming what the country really wants is to hear politicians trash talking foreigners. That didn’t stop Sunak leaking votes to Farage and nor will this.
Also very similar to the mistake Cameron made when he thought it would be a brilliant idea to combat Farage by having a Brexit referendum.
Or when Johnson thought it would be a brilliant idea to combat Farage by talking lots about how immigration should come down, while simultaneously greatly increasing it.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Wow. Consider the hot water William Hague got into when he spoke about Britain becoming a 'foreign land', and that was to do with unwelcome EU diktats rather than immigrants.
They’re making the same mistake Sunak made: assuming what the country really wants is to hear politicians trash talking foreigners. That didn’t stop Sunak leaking votes to Farage and nor will this.
Also very similar to the mistake Cameron made when he thought it would be a brilliant idea to combat Farage by having a Brexit referendum.
No - Cameron thought that he would have a standup fight over Brexit, and defeat Farage. Not adopt the UKIP platform.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Wow. Consider the hot water William Hague got into when he spoke about Britain becoming a 'foreign land', and that was to do with unwelcome EU diktats rather than immigrants.
They’re making the same mistake Sunak made: assuming what the country really wants is to hear politicians trash talking foreigners. That didn’t stop Sunak leaking votes to Farage and nor will this.
Also very similar to the mistake Cameron made when he thought it would be a brilliant idea to combat Farage by having a Brexit referendum.
No - Cameron thought that he would have a standup fight over Brexit, and defeat Farage. Not adopt the UKIP platform.
Of course that's what he thought.
It was the plan - see the earlier indolence referendum in Scotland. Standup political fight, two sides, only one can win. Cameron wanted to do a repeat - to kill UKIPry for a generation. The failure was in the timing (Thanks Lib Dems) and the poor Remain campaign.
Good morning everyone. I'm not sure, quoting Mr Pulpstar, that it is such a good morning, in spite of the warm and very pleasant sunshine.
Why, one asks do so many people want to come here? Several reasons, I suggest. First of all, we speak English and those trying to come here regard it as a lingua franca, even if they don't speak it too well themselves. Some knowledge of English is much more widespread than German or Spanish, or even French. Secondly, this country has for many, many years had the reputation of being a safe haven for the oppressed. Not as much as the US, of course, your huddled masses yearning to be free, but the Atlantic is wide and not easily crossed. Thirdly, many of those have relatives here. Fourth, because we are a once upon a time Imperial Power we have for a long time given the impression that we always do the right thing. I know that's not true, but that's the impression we have given.
Now we're saying sorry and all that but none of the above are a good enough reason to come here, no matter how much you're suffering in your home, and whether or not our imperial power once upon a time extended control over your home country.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Wow. Consider the hot water William Hague got into when he spoke about Britain becoming a 'foreign land', and that was to do with unwelcome EU diktats rather than immigrants.
They’re making the same mistake Sunak made: assuming what the country really wants is to hear politicians trash talking foreigners. That didn’t stop Sunak leaking votes to Farage and nor will this.
Also very similar to the mistake Cameron made when he thought it would be a brilliant idea to combat Farage by having a Brexit referendum.
No - Cameron thought that he would have a standup fight over Brexit, and defeat Farage. Not adopt the UKIP platform.
Of course that's what he thought.
It was the plan - see the earlier indolence referendum in Scotland. Standup political fight, two sides, only one can win. Cameron wanted to do a repeat - to kill UKIPry for a generation. The failure was in the timing (Thanks Lib Dems) and the poor Remain campaign.
Was the earlier indolence referendum in Scotland about whether the Scots are allowed to be indolent or not?
With US/China de-escalating economically, Pakistan / India de-escalating properly, Starmer toughing up migration rules and Ukr/Russia inching towards a deal there definitely seems to be a general wave of sanity today.
Of course tommorow could bring fresh horrors but it's not a bad Monday all things told.
Sometimes economic booms and busts come when nobody’s expecting them. In fact I’d venture that most economic booms and busts come when nobody’s expecting them.
I wonder. I wonder. I’ve been saying for a while that on the basic numbers the UK and some European countries’ economies (though not Germany’s or Ireland’s) seem perfectly poised for a period of expansion.
Private debt has been falling since 2009 and it way lower than at any time since the mid 90s. That’s both corporate private debt, and household debt.
Corporates know they need to spend hundreds of millions on digital and AI, and green transformation. They’ve been putting it off but can’t put it off forever. Households have been putting off buying new cars while they wait to see what happens with ICE and EVs. They may well also have put off home improvements while building material inflation was galloping and interest rates were high.
Now we have falling interest rates, lower inflation and a very low oil price, the prospect of a bit of Chinese dumping thanks to US tariffs, and a recovering stock market. The sun is shining. Reeves’ miserabilist tone is priced in.
We could all do with a bit of good luck, none more so than this timid government. Starmer’s generalship has been conspicuously less lucky since the election.
Starmer's comments today just reinforce the conclusion that he's *really* shit at politics.
Yes, 400 seats in parliament, blah-de-blah. I'm not knocking his ability to hit the Tories while they were down or to rebuild a Labour Party the country trusted. But that was then. It damn well doesn't trust it now.
Why? Because it's implementing policies that won't work, driven by someone else's agenda that Labour is too lacking in confidence to confront.
That will piss off Labour's own vote, fail to attract Reform's (which are driven by a lot more than immigration anyway), and alienate those who just want a competent government. Furthermore, the policies are detached from any ideological vision or even a coherent set of technical and administrative strategies for government, all of which have gone unexplained anyway.
What is Labour for? What is it in government to do? How will the country be better off in four years? What is wrong, why, and how will it be fixed?
Maybe answers to all that were in the Labour manifesto (though I'd bet that blaming immigrants for society's breakdown wasn't), but frankly I can't be bothered to check - and I'm certain that Mr Smith who only pays loose attention to politics won't. Nor will those who never go near a newspaper or the news on TV and radio, and get their information from TikTok, YouTube, active social media, and their friends and family.
There is no plan. There is no vision. There is no delivery. There is, now, no compassion. And consequently, for Labour, it's entirely possible that there is no future: it has no purpose.
He seems to have been spooked by the local election results, and effective PMs don't usually do that. You can't imagine Thatcher or Blair changing course based on them.
Thatcher and Blair had plans for government, that they explained in advance. You could add Cameron to that too, from 2008-15 anyway.
They laid out what was wrong, why it was wrong, how they would fix it, and why those fixes would work. That involved strategic political thinking integrated with a consistently-reinforced political narrative - which then, as you say, didn't get (much) blown off course by daily events. They did make some tactical retreats but they also ensured that they were consistent to the big picture. And, by the next election, they then had a story of success to tell, partly on their own terms but also, crucially, partly on the public's terms.
Labour is right to be spooked by the local election results. However, they're very much taking the wrong lessons from them.
Starmer's comments today just reinforce the conclusion that he's *really* shit at politics.
Yes, 400 seats in parliament, blah-de-blah. I'm not knocking his ability to hit the Tories while they were down or to rebuild a Labour Party the country trusted. But that was then. It damn well doesn't trust it now.
Why? Because it's implementing policies that won't work, driven by someone else's agenda that Labour is too lacking in confidence to confront.
That will piss off Labour's own vote, fail to attract Reform's (which are driven by a lot more than immigration anyway), and alienate those who just want a competent government. Furthermore, the policies are detached from any ideological vision or even a coherent set of technical and administrative strategies for government, all of which have gone unexplained anyway.
What is Labour for? What is it in government to do? How will the country be better off in four years? What is wrong, why, and how will it be fixed?
Maybe answers to all that were in the Labour manifesto (though I'd bet that blaming immigrants for society's breakdown wasn't), but frankly I can't be bothered to check - and I'm certain that Mr Smith who only pays loose attention to politics won't. Nor will those who never go near a newspaper or the news on TV and radio, and get their information from TikTok, YouTube, active social media, and their friends and family.
There is no plan. There is no vision. There is no delivery. There is, now, no compassion. And consequently, for Labour, it's entirely possible that there is no future: it has no purpose.
He seems to have been spooked by the local election results, and effective PMs don't usually do that. You can't imagine Thatcher or Blair changing course based on them.
I disagree. Blair rapidly bopped asylum seeker numbers on the head back in 2002 when they spiked.
Thatcher, of course, did address immigration and crushed the NF. Things like the 1982 British Nationality Act helped.
People don't vote based on official government statistics. They vote based on their lived experience.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The vast majority of people in the country don't have any lived experience of people crossing the Channel in small boats. They don't see them crossing or landing. They don't encounter them in their day-to-day life.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
Thankfully, Starmer has learned to ignore people like you.
20 years too late, but hey ho.
I actually have some sympathy for the people in the boats. They are taking a significant risk to enhance their life chances which is a human instinct. What I don't agree with is making it easy and therefore encouraging it.
The first simple solution should be changing international agreements to state that any asylum seeker has an obligation to seek asylum in the first safe country he/she lands in. If he/she seeks to move to another country they are automatically classed as an economic migrant. Obviously this will cause challenges for "frontline" states such as Italy, but international agreements could be made to share the burden across European countries. If "asylum seekers" knew they could not choose which country they go to it might focus the minds of those that are using it as cover for economic motivations.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Farage saying Starmer is making promises he can’t keep . But unfortunately for Farage in terms of legal migration it will work .
Yep, it will discourage the people we actually need, whilst doing nothing to dissuade the people that we don't. Typical of this version of Labour - they just don't understand business.
People don't vote based on official government statistics. They vote based on their lived experience.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The vast majority of people in the country don't have any lived experience of people crossing the Channel in small boats. They don't see them crossing or landing. They don't encounter them in their day-to-day life.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
Thankfully, Starmer has learned to ignore people like you.
20 years too late, but hey ho.
I actually have some sympathy for the people in the boats. They are taking a significant risk to enhance their life chances which is a human instinct. What I don't agree with is making it easy and therefore encouraging it.
The first simple solution should be changing international agreements to state that any asylum seeker has an obligation to seek asylum in the first safe country he/she lands in. If he/she seeks to move to another country they are automatically classed as an economic migrant. Obviously this will cause challenges for "frontline" states such as Italy, but international agreements could be made to share the burden across European countries. If "asylum seekers" knew they could not choose which country they go to it might focus the minds of those that are using it as cover for economic motivations.
We had an international agreement to share the burden across European countries, but then we left the EU.
By and large, any equitable system of sharing the load is not going to cut UK numbers as we already get lower numbers than the likes of France, Germany, Italy etc.
It will surprise nobody that I find that it's also quite self-defeating to highlight perceived Tory errors.
It seems pretty clear to me how the Tories should sum up the Truss years, and that is 'Overambitious, miss-timed, politically gauche, but well-intentioned and prescient in the fact that we now have moribund growth and it's become key target for any modern Government'. This seems patently obvious to me, and I'm not sure why Philp has chosen to re-open old wounds in this rather stupid way.
He's not a great performer (few are in the Shadow Cabinet) though a tad more visible than some.
This morning has shown both the strengths and weaknesses of Keir Starmer.
It has once again shown up he has no political conviction that he is scared of breaking if he thinks it will make him more successful. This is similar to the exceptionally ruthless way he dealt with the political positioning of the Labour Party once he became leader. It would have been unthinkable of the Keir Starmer of 2019 to be talking about Islands of Strangers and Taking Back Control in the manner he has done this morning. The man is fundamentally unprincipled - but he has achieved success in the past in having been so. Immigration will come down, so there is the chance that he will reap some reward from doing so.
But his weakness is, once again, that sense that his government is directionless and purposeless - there to react as best it can to events and keep things ticking over. There is no big idea or message, and the public don’t believe in his sincerity of belief or vision on anything, because we have heard his sincerely held beliefs many times before, and they have changed each time it has become inconvenient for him to espouse them.
People don't vote based on official government statistics. They vote based on their lived experience.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The vast majority of people in the country don't have any lived experience of people crossing the Channel in small boats. They don't see them crossing or landing. They don't encounter them in their day-to-day life.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
Thankfully, Starmer has learned to ignore people like you.
20 years too late, but hey ho.
I actually have some sympathy for the people in the boats. They are taking a significant risk to enhance their life chances which is a human instinct. What I don't agree with is making it easy and therefore encouraging it.
The first simple solution should be changing international agreements to state that any asylum seeker has an obligation to seek asylum in the first safe country he/she lands in. If he/she seeks to move to another country they are automatically classed as an economic migrant. Obviously this will cause challenges for "frontline" states such as Italy, but international agreements could be made to share the burden across European countries. If "asylum seekers" knew they could not choose which country they go to it might focus the minds of those that are using it as cover for economic motivations.
We had an international agreement to share the burden across European countries, but then we left the EU.
By and large, any equitable system of sharing the load is not going to cut UK numbers as we already get lower numbers than the likes of France, Germany, Italy etc.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Farage saying Starmer is making promises he can’t keep . But unfortunately for Farage in terms of legal migration it will work .
Farage won't care. Legal migration will still be in the hundreds of thousands, people will still be objecting to the migrants *who are already here*, and Labour's policies will destroy universities and be deeply damaging to the care sector - and, relatedly, local government and the NHS. All of which contain vocal Labour bases.
So no: it won't work, either politically or practically.
People don't vote based on official government statistics. They vote based on their lived experience.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The vast majority of people in the country don't have any lived experience of people crossing the Channel in small boats. They don't see them crossing or landing. They don't encounter them in their day-to-day life.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
Thankfully, Starmer has learned to ignore people like you.
20 years too late, but hey ho.
I actually have some sympathy for the people in the boats. They are taking a significant risk to enhance their life chances which is a human instinct. What I don't agree with is making it easy and therefore encouraging it.
The first simple solution should be changing international agreements to state that any asylum seeker has an obligation to seek asylum in the first safe country he/she lands in. If he/she seeks to move to another country they are automatically classed as an economic migrant. Obviously this will cause challenges for "frontline" states such as Italy, but international agreements could be made to share the burden across European countries. If "asylum seekers" knew they could not choose which country they go to it might focus the minds of those that are using it as cover for economic motivations.
We had an international agreement to share the burden across European countries, but then we left the EU.
By and large, any equitable system of sharing the load is not going to cut UK numbers as we already get lower numbers than the likes of France, Germany, Italy etc.
Yes I guess that is a challenge.
Maybe the really interesting challenge might be to address the root causes: Give people an economic reason to stay in their own countries, but I can't imagine Vladimir Farage liking that too much!
Good morning everyone. I'm not sure, quoting Mr Pulpstar, that it is such a good morning, in spite of the warm and very pleasant sunshine.
Why, one asks do so many people want to come here? Several reasons, I suggest. First of all, we speak English and those trying to come here regard it as a lingua franca, even if they don't speak it too well themselves. Some knowledge of English is much more widespread than German or Spanish, or even French. Secondly, this country has for many, many years had the reputation of being a safe haven for the oppressed. Not as much as the US, of course, your huddled masses yearning to be free, but the Atlantic is wide and not easily crossed. Thirdly, many of those have relatives here. Fourth, because we are a once upon a time Imperial Power we have for a long time given the impression that we always do the right thing. I know that's not true, but that's the impression we have given.
Now we're saying sorry and all that but none of the above are a good enough reason to come here, no matter how much you're suffering in your home, and whether or not our imperial power once upon a time extended control over your home country.
I was perhaps being a smidgen tongue in cheek about SKS' announcement, and Ukr/Russia is far from over but the US/China and India/Pakistan coming to acquiescence certainly IS good news. How long does the whole "imperial" argument last ? It's 78 years since India achieved independence as an example !
Both drugs led to substantial weight loss, but Mounjaro's 20% weight reduction, after 72 weeks of treatment, exceeded the 14% from Wegovy, according to the trial's findings.
Researchers who led the trial said both drugs had a role, but Mounjaro may help those with the most weight to lose.
Both drugs trick the brain into making you feel full so you eat less and instead burn fat stored in the body - but subtle differences in how they work to explain the difference in effectiveness.
Wegovy, also known as semaglutide, mimics a hormone released by the body after a meal to flip one appetite switch in the brain. Mounjaro, or tirzepatide, flips two.
The trial, which was paid for by Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Mounjaro, involved 750 obese people, with an average weight of 113kg (nearly 18 stone).
I, of course, am just off for my walk, and can't use EITHER of them - medical reasons.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Wow. Consider the hot water William Hague got into when he spoke about Britain becoming a 'foreign land', and that was to do with unwelcome EU diktats rather than immigrants.
They’re making the same mistake Sunak made: assuming what the country really wants is to hear politicians trash talking foreigners. That didn’t stop Sunak leaking votes to Farage and nor will this.
Also very similar to the mistake Cameron made when he thought it would be a brilliant idea to combat Farage by having a Brexit referendum.
No - Cameron thought that he would have a standup fight over Brexit, and defeat Farage. Not adopt the UKIP platform.
Of course that's what he thought.
It was the plan - see the earlier indolence referendum in Scotland. Standup political fight, two sides, only one can win. Cameron wanted to do a repeat - to kill UKIPry for a generation. The failure was in the timing (Thanks Lib Dems) and the poor Remain campaign.
And considerable social media manipulation, which was absolutely not done by any Russians whatsoever.
Starmer's comments today just reinforce the conclusion that he's *really* shit at politics.
Yes, 400 seats in parliament, blah-de-blah. I'm not knocking his ability to hit the Tories while they were down or to rebuild a Labour Party the country trusted. But that was then. It damn well doesn't trust it now.
Why? Because it's implementing policies that won't work, driven by someone else's agenda that Labour is too lacking in confidence to confront.
That will piss off Labour's own vote, fail to attract Reform's (which are driven by a lot more than immigration anyway), and alienate those who just want a competent government. Furthermore, the policies are detached from any ideological vision or even a coherent set of technical and administrative strategies for government, all of which have gone unexplained anyway.
What is Labour for? What is it in government to do? How will the country be better off in four years? What is wrong, why, and how will it be fixed?
Maybe answers to all that were in the Labour manifesto (though I'd bet that blaming immigrants for society's breakdown wasn't), but frankly I can't be bothered to check - and I'm certain that Mr Smith who only pays loose attention to politics won't. Nor will those who never go near a newspaper or the news on TV and radio, and get their information from TikTok, YouTube, active social media, and their friends and family.
There is no plan. There is no vision. There is no delivery. There is, now, no compassion. And consequently, for Labour, it's entirely possible that there is no future: it has no purpose.
He seems to have been spooked by the local election results, and effective PMs don't usually do that. You can't imagine Thatcher or Blair changing course based on them.
Thatcher and Blair had plans for government, that they explained in advance. You could add Cameron to that too, from 2008-15 anyway.
They laid out what was wrong, why it was wrong, how they would fix it, and why those fixes would work. That involved strategic political thinking integrated with a consistently-reinforced political narrative - which then, as you say, didn't get (much) blown off course by daily events. They did make some tactical retreats but they also ensured that they were consistent to the big picture. And, by the next election, they then had a story of success to tell, partly on their own terms but also, crucially, partly on the public's terms.
Labour is right to be spooked by the local election results. However, they're very much taking the wrong lessons from them.
Yes. Here is an outlier possibility. Recent events have shown that the Tories becoming marginal to UK politics is at least a realistic possibility. An impossible thing has become possible. In today's statement SKS has shown both followership in place of leadership and evasion. The followership is obvious. The evasion is tacking away from 'tackling the gangs' to Reformlite in legal migration. The moral crusade aspect of this is totally hollow. Moral crusades don't wait 10 months and then spring into action following electoral disaster.
So, is there a possible trajectory in which the LDs continue to flourish and over the next couple of years become the principal opposition to Reform? Not impossible.
People don't vote based on official government statistics. They vote based on their lived experience.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The vast majority of people in the country don't have any lived experience of people crossing the Channel in small boats. They don't see them crossing or landing. They don't encounter them in their day-to-day life.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
Thankfully, Starmer has learned to ignore people like you.
20 years too late, but hey ho.
I actually have some sympathy for the people in the boats. They are taking a significant risk to enhance their life chances which is a human instinct. What I don't agree with is making it easy and therefore encouraging it.
The first simple solution should be changing international agreements to state that any asylum seeker has an obligation to seek asylum in the first safe country he/she lands in. If he/she seeks to move to another country they are automatically classed as an economic migrant. Obviously this will cause challenges for "frontline" states such as Italy, but international agreements could be made to share the burden across European countries. If "asylum seekers" knew they could not choose which country they go to it might focus the minds of those that are using it as cover for economic motivations.
We had an international agreement to share the burden across European countries, but then we left the EU.
By and large, any equitable system of sharing the load is not going to cut UK numbers as we already get lower numbers than the likes of France, Germany, Italy etc.
No we didn't.
Cameron opted out of a sharing agreement, choosing instead to take refugees directly from frontline nations, which is the right thing to do.
Starmer's comments today just reinforce the conclusion that he's *really* shit at politics.
Yes, 400 seats in parliament, blah-de-blah. I'm not knocking his ability to hit the Tories while they were down or to rebuild a Labour Party the country trusted. But that was then. It damn well doesn't trust it now.
Why? Because it's implementing policies that won't work, driven by someone else's agenda that Labour is too lacking in confidence to confront.
That will piss off Labour's own vote, fail to attract Reform's (which are driven by a lot more than immigration anyway), and alienate those who just want a competent government. Furthermore, the policies are detached from any ideological vision or even a coherent set of technical and administrative strategies for government, all of which have gone unexplained anyway.
What is Labour for? What is it in government to do? How will the country be better off in four years? What is wrong, why, and how will it be fixed?
Maybe answers to all that were in the Labour manifesto (though I'd bet that blaming immigrants for society's breakdown wasn't), but frankly I can't be bothered to check - and I'm certain that Mr Smith who only pays loose attention to politics won't. Nor will those who never go near a newspaper or the news on TV and radio, and get their information from TikTok, YouTube, active social media, and their friends and family.
There is no plan. There is no vision. There is no delivery. There is, now, no compassion. And consequently, for Labour, it's entirely possible that there is no future: it has no purpose.
He seems to have been spooked by the local election results, and effective PMs don't usually do that. You can't imagine Thatcher or Blair changing course based on them.
Thatcher and Blair had plans for government, that they explained in advance. You could add Cameron to that too, from 2008-15 anyway.
They laid out what was wrong, why it was wrong, how they would fix it, and why those fixes would work. That involved strategic political thinking integrated with a consistently-reinforced political narrative - which then, as you say, didn't get (much) blown off course by daily events. They did make some tactical retreats but they also ensured that they were consistent to the big picture. And, by the next election, they then had a story of success to tell, partly on their own terms but also, crucially, partly on the public's terms.
Labour is right to be spooked by the local election results. However, they're very much taking the wrong lessons from them.
Yes. Here is an outlier possibility. Recent events have shown that the Tories becoming marginal to UK politics is at least a realistic possibility. An impossible thing has become possible. In today's statement SKS has shown both followership in place of leadership and evasion. The followership is obvious. The evasion is tacking away from 'tackling the gangs' to Reformlite in legal migration. The moral crusade aspect of this is totally hollow. Moral crusades don't wait 10 months and then spring into action following electoral disaster.
So, is there a possible trajectory in which the LDs continue to flourish and over the next couple of years become the principal opposition to Reform? Not impossible.
As I said earlier Sam Coates at Sky said this morning that labours problem was that in appearing to be 'Reform lite' their supporters will not be impressed and are likely to turn to the Lib Dems and Greens whilst not one gain from Reform supporters
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
Wow. Consider the hot water William Hague got into when he spoke about Britain becoming a 'foreign land', and that was to do with unwelcome EU diktats rather than immigrants.
They’re making the same mistake Sunak made: assuming what the country really wants is to hear politicians trash talking foreigners. That didn’t stop Sunak leaking votes to Farage and nor will this.
Also very similar to the mistake Cameron made when he thought it would be a brilliant idea to combat Farage by having a Brexit referendum.
No - Cameron thought that he would have a standup fight over Brexit, and defeat Farage. Not adopt the UKIP platform.
Of course that's what he thought.
It was the plan - see the earlier indolence referendum in Scotland. Standup political fight, two sides, only one can win. Cameron wanted to do a repeat - to kill UKIPry for a generation. The failure was in the timing (Thanks Lib Dems) and the poor Remain campaign.
And considerable social media manipulation, which was absolutely not done by any Russians whatsoever.
The Remain campaign was a dismal failure on all fronts.
Blaming it on social media interference was bollocks.
When the late Queen asked people, socially, to state the case for Remain, she was asking the question that many were waiting for an answer to.
"Keir Starmer admitted mass immigration risks making Britain an 'island of strangers' today as he scrambles to blunt the threat from Reform.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
I think Starmer's strategy is what's known as giving your enemy possession of the battlefield.
The enemy has already taken possession of the battlefield. The local election results were seismic.
It's remarkable how so many liberal centrists are missing this, or perhaps just wanting to miss it.
Certainly something pretty unpleasant has taken possession of this forum.
That's because you don't want to see what's right in front of your nose.
You're far more comfortable condemning it all as racism, fascism or bigotry, as you have been for the last 20 years, because for you to do anything else would require you to engage with an issue you'd far rather not and ask some questions that are deeply uncomfortable for you.
Farage saying Starmer is making promises he can’t keep . But unfortunately for Farage in terms of legal migration it will work .
Farage won't care. Legal migration will still be in the hundreds of thousands, people will still be objecting to the migrants *who are already here*, and Labour's policies will destroy universities and be deeply damaging to the care sector - and, relatedly, local government and the NHS. All of which contain vocal Labour bases.
So no: it won't work, either politically or practically.
With US/China de-escalating economically, Pakistan / India de-escalating properly, Starmer toughing up migration rules and Ukr/Russia inching towards a deal there definitely seems to be a general wave of sanity today.
Of course tommorow could bring fresh horrors but it's not a bad Monday all things told.
Time for a Black Swan event. We haven't had one for weeks.
Farage saying Starmer is making promises he can’t keep . But unfortunately for Farage in terms of legal migration it will work .
Its all in the eyes of the beholder
This is a white paper so has some way to go to be legislated upon and Starmer needs results
Also Starmer has not addressed the boat crisis in this white paper
And finally why vote Starmer when you can get the real deal in one Nigel Farage
(Note - I will not vote for Farage or Reform but polls indicate many will)
Because Reform is a one trick pony.
Reform is not a one trick pony. It is far deeper than that. It is now the main opposition. It's polling over 30% and, currently, in poll position to form the next majority government.
Starmer is very well advised to turn his guns directly on it and cut the legs from under it so, in four years time, he can present himself as the moderate credible government that gets things done.
Regarding the small boats, if we can't send folk back to France (from where they are "fleeing"), then isn't the best option to just ignore them? Let people disappear into the black economy, living in "sheds with beds". Later, when they get discovered working illegally, then deport them.
Better than giving them a red carpet welcome and putting them up in hotels for months on end.
That would require us to pull out of international conventions on asylum, which were set up because of the failures in the 1930s to provide refuge to Jews fleeing Germany and because of the pressures caused by the disruption to populations after World War II.
And that’s exactly what we need to do, as I have argued here many times.
Immigration is not immune to supply and demand. The supply of people who come from war torn or violent and dangerous countries is almost infinite. The demand is created by the rights we give them. No government can end this without removing the demand.
Everything else, including the changes Starmer was proposing this morning, is both doomed to failure and purely presentation politics.
People don't vote based on official government statistics. They vote based on their lived experience.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The vast majority of people in the country don't have any lived experience of people crossing the Channel in small boats. They don't see them crossing or landing. They don't encounter them in their day-to-day life.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
Especially not in Durham lol
The small boats are an economic positive for East Kent. Lots of well-paid jobs in Border Force that wouldn't otherwise exist.
Starmer's comments today just reinforce the conclusion that he's *really* shit at politics.
Yes, 400 seats in parliament, blah-de-blah. I'm not knocking his ability to hit the Tories while they were down or to rebuild a Labour Party the country trusted. But that was then. It damn well doesn't trust it now.
Why? Because it's implementing policies that won't work, driven by someone else's agenda that Labour is too lacking in confidence to confront.
That will piss off Labour's own vote, fail to attract Reform's (which are driven by a lot more than immigration anyway), and alienate those who just want a competent government. Furthermore, the policies are detached from any ideological vision or even a coherent set of technical and administrative strategies for government, all of which have gone unexplained anyway.
What is Labour for? What is it in government to do? How will the country be better off in four years? What is wrong, why, and how will it be fixed?
Maybe answers to all that were in the Labour manifesto (though I'd bet that blaming immigrants for society's breakdown wasn't), but frankly I can't be bothered to check - and I'm certain that Mr Smith who only pays loose attention to politics won't. Nor will those who never go near a newspaper or the news on TV and radio, and get their information from TikTok, YouTube, active social media, and their friends and family.
There is no plan. There is no vision. There is no delivery. There is, now, no compassion. And consequently, for Labour, it's entirely possible that there is no future: it has no purpose.
He seems to have been spooked by the local election results, and effective PMs don't usually do that. You can't imagine Thatcher or Blair changing course based on them.
Thatcher and Blair had plans for government, that they explained in advance. You could add Cameron to that too, from 2008-15 anyway.
They laid out what was wrong, why it was wrong, how they would fix it, and why those fixes would work. That involved strategic political thinking integrated with a consistently-reinforced political narrative - which then, as you say, didn't get (much) blown off course by daily events. They did make some tactical retreats but they also ensured that they were consistent to the big picture. And, by the next election, they then had a story of success to tell, partly on their own terms but also, crucially, partly on the public's terms.
Labour is right to be spooked by the local election results. However, they're very much taking the wrong lessons from them.
Yes. Here is an outlier possibility. Recent events have shown that the Tories becoming marginal to UK politics is at least a realistic possibility. An impossible thing has become possible. In today's statement SKS has shown both followership in place of leadership and evasion. The followership is obvious. The evasion is tacking away from 'tackling the gangs' to Reformlite in legal migration. The moral crusade aspect of this is totally hollow. Moral crusades don't wait 10 months and then spring into action following electoral disaster.
So, is there a possible trajectory in which the LDs continue to flourish and over the next couple of years become the principal opposition to Reform? Not impossible.
It seems that almost anything is possible. It does seem very odd that in this time of de facto cold war with Russia we have the possibility of an apologist/Quisling as a PM!
Farage saying Starmer is making promises he can’t keep . But unfortunately for Farage in terms of legal migration it will work .
Its all in the eyes of the beholder
This is a white paper so has some way to go to be legislated upon and Starmer needs results
Also Starmer has not addressed the boat crisis in this white paper
And finally why vote Starmer when you can get the real deal in one Nigel Farage
(Note - I will not vote for Farage or Reform but polls indicate many will)
Because Reform is a one trick pony.
Reform is not a one trick pony. It is far deeper than that. It is now the main opposition. It's polling over 30% and, currently, in poll position to form the next majority government.
Starmer is very well advised to turn his guns directly on it and cut the legs from under it so, in four years time, he can present himself as the moderate credible government that gets things done.
A one trick pony can still poll well but there’s a lot of baggage with Farage that will have a much bigger airing at the next election .
Labours gamble is that more progressive voters will come back to them at the next election to stop Reform.
Canada suggests that that is a pretty safe gamble. If it's close between Reform and Labour, the Green Party will be polling closer to 3% than the current 9%. It's unlikely too, that Gaza will be a big issue in 2029. The Lib Dem vote is irrelevant to labour's chances, as that is concentrated in Con v Lab battlegrounds, and the Lib Dems would side with Labour, if there were a hung Parliament.
Starmer's comments today just reinforce the conclusion that he's *really* shit at politics.
Yes, 400 seats in parliament, blah-de-blah. I'm not knocking his ability to hit the Tories while they were down or to rebuild a Labour Party the country trusted. But that was then. It damn well doesn't trust it now.
Why? Because it's implementing policies that won't work, driven by someone else's agenda that Labour is too lacking in confidence to confront.
That will piss off Labour's own vote, fail to attract Reform's (which are driven by a lot more than immigration anyway), and alienate those who just want a competent government. Furthermore, the policies are detached from any ideological vision or even a coherent set of technical and administrative strategies for government, all of which have gone unexplained anyway.
What is Labour for? What is it in government to do? How will the country be better off in four years? What is wrong, why, and how will it be fixed?
Maybe answers to all that were in the Labour manifesto (though I'd bet that blaming immigrants for society's breakdown wasn't), but frankly I can't be bothered to check - and I'm certain that Mr Smith who only pays loose attention to politics won't. Nor will those who never go near a newspaper or the news on TV and radio, and get their information from TikTok, YouTube, active social media, and their friends and family.
There is no plan. There is no vision. There is no delivery. There is, now, no compassion. And consequently, for Labour, it's entirely possible that there is no future: it has no purpose.
It is not impossible that Labour has significantly further to fall. About the only reason to vote for them is "They are not Reform. I hate Reform. So I will vote for them to stop Farage and Reform."
Farage saying Starmer is making promises he can’t keep . But unfortunately for Farage in terms of legal migration it will work .
Its all in the eyes of the beholder
This is a white paper so has some way to go to be legislated upon and Starmer needs results
Also Starmer has not addressed the boat crisis in this white paper
And finally why vote Starmer when you can get the real deal in one Nigel Farage
(Note - I will not vote for Farage or Reform but polls indicate many will)
Because Reform is a one trick pony.
Reform is not a one trick pony. It is far deeper than that. It is now the main opposition. It's polling over 30% and, currently, in poll position to form the next majority government.
Starmer is very well advised to turn his guns directly on it and cut the legs from under it so, in four years time, he can present himself as the moderate credible government that gets things done.
If he’s going to focus policy and attention on immigration then he also needs to attack Farage and Reform relentlessly.
When Miliband was leading Cameron midway through the 2010-2015 parliament, by significantly more than Farage now leads Starmer, the Tories never let up in a campaign of attacking him, and they generally didn’t attempt to out-Miliband Miliband in their policy positions.
Farage saying Starmer is making promises he can’t keep . But unfortunately for Farage in terms of legal migration it will work .
Its all in the eyes of the beholder
This is a white paper so has some way to go to be legislated upon and Starmer needs results
Also Starmer has not addressed the boat crisis in this white paper
And finally why vote Starmer when you can get the real deal in one Nigel Farage
(Note - I will not vote for Farage or Reform but polls indicate many will)
Because Reform is a one trick pony.
Reform is not a one trick pony. It is far deeper than that. It is now the main opposition. It's polling over 30% and, currently, in poll position to form the next majority government.
Starmer is very well advised to turn his guns directly on it and cut the legs from under it so, in four years time, he can present himself as the moderate credible government that gets things done.
A one trick pony can still poll well but there’s a lot of baggage with Farage that will have a much bigger airing at the next election .
Labours gamble is that more progressive voters will come back to them at the next election to stop Reform.
To an extent under FPTP where progressive voters go is less of a worry for Labour, as Blair proved in 2005 he could still win with a reduced majority as long as he won the marginals despite significant leaks to Kennedy's LDs after Iraq.
Most 'progressive' voters live in inner cities and university towns where Labour has massive majorities or Independents or the Greens or LDs are second who would still make Starmer PM over Farage or Badenoch on a forced choice even if their candidate won the seat and became MP.
It is Labour voters who have gone direct to Reform since 2024 who are most damaging to Starmer as they are the ones who could make Farage PM and who he needs to win back to have most seats again let alone any chance of another Labour majority
Labours gamble is that more progressive voters will come back to them at the next election to stop Reform.
or, we are going to have Dearborn all over again where the progressives wont vote for Starmer (Biden) 'cos of X and Y and then can't believe it when they wake up under a Farage government.
Comments
So, I now ignore you.
You are irrelevant and will be marginalised going forwards.
Mr Trump is also targeting "Chinese Built" ships, to "boost the USA shipbuilding industry" - so all the global companies are juggling their Chinese built ships onto European and Asian deliveries.
By making ports collect all these tariffs, Mr Trump is outsourcing part of his tax collection system. I wonder who will be responsible for errors.
Have a good day, all.
It should be taken out back and shot, never to be mentioned again and a new idea replacing it.
Not a single penny of taxpayers money should go to covering someone's inheritance. If an elderly individuals equity is used on their own care, then that's what their own money is for.
Hope the site's back to normal, was very iffy earlier.
F1: not one but two pie charts in the next Undercutters podcast. Because it's a quarter of the way into the season I'm going to compare the betting odds pre-season with now. A counter-intuitive fact is that Norris is seen as very slightly more likely to win the title now than he was before the season began.
Anyway, I'll post that tomorrow morning, at the normal-ish time.
Taking them elsewhere is key if you want to follow this policy. Somewhere like Rwanda or Algeria or anywhere that will take them for money.
Manufacturers will substantially raise prices for countries like the UK in order to maintain their US margins. That's going to be a big problem for the NHS.
And they will stop supplying those drugs to markets which can't pay the higher prices.
So much of their revenue comes from the UZ that they can't afford to do otherwise.
The second effect, which isn't mentioned, is that is going to open up a huge opportunity for the rapidly growing Chinese pharma industry - at precisely the time it has started to become a very serious competitor to western manufacturers.
If this policy becomes reality (the executive order is of dubious legality without Congressional backing), it's going to have some very bad, unintended consequences.
Will be interesting to watch.
Taking them elsewhere is key if you want to follow this policy. Somewhere like Rwanda or Algeria or anywhere that will take them for money.
Attack the demand. Plus, for a Labour government, going after the kind of people who employ the undocumented, is better politics.
But I think the repercussions are likely to go some way beyond your prediction.
The fact that witnesses are now speaking publicly, and the ongoing public enquiry, are going to create a momentum which a bit of formulaic scapegoating is unlikely to halt.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3j5gxgz0do
The Australian Navy will towback boats to Indonesia (which is the usual point of departure).
I agree that people will try again if they are returned to France, but once this happens a couple of times, then they will learn that attempting a crossing is futile.
The PM deployed the 'take back control' Brexit slogan at a press conference in Downing Street as he pledged to end the 'betrayal' of reliance on cheap foreign labour.
Sir Keir accused the Tories of overseeing an explosion in numbers while in power, saying the system seemed 'designed to permit abuse' and was 'contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart'."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14701957/Will-REALLY-immigration-control-Labours-plan-says-arrivals-degree-educated-fluent-English-wait-10-years-citizenship-NO-cap-numbers.html
With US/China de-escalating economically, Pakistan / India de-escalating properly, Starmer toughing up migration rules and Ukr/Russia inching towards a deal there definitely seems to be a general wave of sanity today.
Of course tommorow could bring fresh horrors but it's not a bad Monday all things told.
One thing remains in every village, and on nearly every street in every town - boulangeries. And what do they offer me?
Nothing but PAIN
Fresh PAIN
Speciality PAIN
Artisanal PAIN
Rolls and sticks of PAIN
And so many locals walking around with the PAIN sticks under their arms
Like I need more pain.. Luckily there are plenty of pharmacies and bars too for mitigation
With ball aching certainty I foresee another enquiry into why the current one was a bit crap. Still, it'll give Dave a chance to clear his name. Again.
Labour needs to find its political strong point and get media focus on it as much as possible. Historically it’s always been the NHS. Waiting lists do seem to be creeping down. Why not blitz everyone with that. And Streeting hasn’t yet done himself major brand damage like Reeves has. (Admittedly nor has Cooper, but she risks losing Labour some more votes to the Greens and Lib Dems if she keeps upping the rhetoric)
https://x.com/nigel_farage/status/1921847002712637905?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
The public didn't give Sunak credit for a second-order change as prices didn't go down, they were still high and going up, albeit at a slower rate. Inflation was down, but prices weren't, so the public weren't happy.
For people who are concerned by lots of migrants being in the country then hundreds of thousands (net) arriving per year is not going to be likely accepted as a success just for being a lower figure than before.
Yes, 400 seats in parliament, blah-de-blah. I'm not knocking his ability to hit the Tories while they were down or to rebuild a Labour Party the country trusted. But that was then. It damn well doesn't trust it now.
Why? Because it's implementing policies that won't work, driven by someone else's agenda that Labour is too lacking in confidence to confront.
That will piss off Labour's own vote, fail to attract Reform's (which are driven by a lot more than immigration anyway), and alienate those who just want a competent government. Furthermore, the policies are detached from any ideological vision or even a coherent set of technical and administrative strategies for government, all of which have gone unexplained anyway.
What is Labour for? What is it in government to do? How will the country be better off in four years? What is wrong, why, and how will it be fixed?
Maybe answers to all that were in the Labour manifesto (though I'd bet that blaming immigrants for society's breakdown wasn't), but frankly I can't be bothered to check - and I'm certain that Mr Smith who only pays loose attention to politics won't. Nor will those who never go near a newspaper or the news on TV and radio, and get their information from TikTok, YouTube, active social media, and their friends and family.
There is no plan. There is no vision. There is no delivery. There is, now, no compassion. And consequently, for Labour, it's entirely possible that there is no future: it has no purpose.
I think the days when Labour can win an election on the NHS are gone.
I'm not sure, quoting Mr Pulpstar, that it is such a good morning, in spite of the warm and very pleasant sunshine.
Why, one asks do so many people want to come here? Several reasons, I suggest. First of all, we speak English and those trying to come here regard it as a lingua franca, even if they don't speak it too well themselves. Some knowledge of English is much more widespread than German or Spanish, or even French.
Secondly, this country has for many, many years had the reputation of being a safe haven for the oppressed. Not as much as the US, of course, your huddled masses yearning to be free, but the Atlantic is wide and not easily crossed.
Thirdly, many of those have relatives here.
Fourth, because we are a once upon a time Imperial Power we have for a long time given the impression that we always do the right thing. I know that's not true, but that's the impression we have given.
Now we're saying sorry and all that but none of the above are a good enough reason to come here, no matter how much you're suffering in your home, and whether or not our imperial power once upon a time extended control over your home country.
I wonder. I wonder. I’ve been saying for a while that on the basic numbers the UK and some European countries’ economies (though not Germany’s or Ireland’s) seem perfectly poised for a period of expansion.
Private debt has been falling since 2009 and it way lower than at any time since the mid 90s. That’s both corporate private debt, and household debt.
Corporates know they need to spend hundreds of millions on digital and AI, and green transformation. They’ve been putting it off but can’t put it off forever. Households have been putting off buying new cars while they wait to see what happens with ICE and EVs. They may well also have put off home improvements while building material inflation was galloping and interest rates were high.
Now we have falling interest rates, lower inflation and a very low oil price, the prospect of a bit of Chinese dumping thanks to US tariffs, and a recovering stock market. The sun is shining. Reeves’ miserabilist tone is priced in.
We could all do with a bit of good luck, none more so than this timid government. Starmer’s generalship has been conspicuously less lucky since the election.
They laid out what was wrong, why it was wrong, how they would fix it, and why those fixes would work. That involved strategic political thinking integrated with a consistently-reinforced political narrative - which then, as you say, didn't get (much) blown off course by daily events. They did make some tactical retreats but they also ensured that they were consistent to the big picture. And, by the next election, they then had a story of success to tell, partly on their own terms but also, crucially, partly on the public's terms.
Labour is right to be spooked by the local election results. However, they're very much taking the wrong lessons from them.
Thatcher, of course, did address immigration and crushed the NF. Things like the 1982 British Nationality Act helped.
The first simple solution should be changing international agreements to state that any asylum seeker has an obligation to seek asylum in the first safe country he/she lands in. If he/she seeks to move to another country they are automatically classed as an economic migrant. Obviously this will cause challenges for "frontline" states such as Italy, but international agreements could be made to share the burden across European countries. If "asylum seekers" knew they could not choose which country they go to it might focus the minds of those that are using it as cover for economic motivations.
This is a white paper so has some way to go to be legislated upon and Starmer needs results
Also Starmer has not addressed the boat crisis in this white paper
And finally why vote Starmer when you can get the real deal in one Nigel Farage
(Note - I will not vote for Farage or Reform but polls indicate many will)
It's remarkable how so many liberal centrists are missing this, or perhaps just wanting to miss it.
By and large, any equitable system of sharing the load is not going to cut UK numbers as we already get lower numbers than the likes of France, Germany, Italy etc.
It seems pretty clear to me how the Tories should sum up the Truss years, and that is 'Overambitious, miss-timed, politically gauche, but well-intentioned and prescient in the fact that we now have moribund growth and it's become key target for any modern Government'. This seems patently obvious to me, and I'm not sure why Philp has chosen to re-open old wounds in this rather stupid way.
He's not a great performer (few are in the Shadow Cabinet) though a tad more visible than some.
It has once again shown up he has no political conviction that he is scared of breaking if he thinks it will make him more successful. This is similar to the exceptionally ruthless way he dealt with the political positioning of the Labour Party once he became leader. It would have been unthinkable of the Keir Starmer of 2019 to be talking about Islands of Strangers and Taking Back Control in the manner he has done this morning. The man is fundamentally unprincipled - but he has achieved success in the past in having been so. Immigration will come down, so there is the chance that he will reap some reward from doing so.
But his weakness is, once again, that sense that his government is directionless and purposeless - there to react as best it can to events and keep things ticking over. There is no big idea or message, and the public don’t believe in his sincerity of belief or vision on anything, because we have heard his sincerely held beliefs many times before, and they have changed each time it has become inconvenient for him to espouse them.
So no: it won't work, either politically or practically.
Maybe the really interesting challenge might be to address the root causes: Give people an economic reason to stay in their own countries, but I can't imagine Vladimir Farage liking that too much!
How long does the whole "imperial" argument last ? It's 78 years since India achieved independence as an example !
Mounjaro 2, Wegovy 1 . (As claimed)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy75dk8kjr1o
Both drugs led to substantial weight loss, but Mounjaro's 20% weight reduction, after 72 weeks of treatment, exceeded the 14% from Wegovy, according to the trial's findings.
Researchers who led the trial said both drugs had a role, but Mounjaro may help those with the most weight to lose.
Both drugs trick the brain into making you feel full so you eat less and instead burn fat stored in the body - but subtle differences in how they work to explain the difference in effectiveness.
Wegovy, also known as semaglutide, mimics a hormone released by the body after a meal to flip one appetite switch in the brain. Mounjaro, or tirzepatide, flips two.
The trial, which was paid for by Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Mounjaro, involved 750 obese people, with an average weight of 113kg (nearly 18 stone).
I, of course, am just off for my walk, and can't use EITHER of them - medical reasons.
So, is there a possible trajectory in which the LDs continue to flourish and over the next couple of years become the principal opposition to Reform? Not impossible.
Cameron opted out of a sharing agreement, choosing instead to take refugees directly from frontline nations, which is the right thing to do.
Blaming it on social media interference was bollocks.
When the late Queen asked people, socially, to state the case for Remain, she was asking the question that many were waiting for an answer to.
You're far more comfortable condemning it all as racism, fascism or bigotry, as you have been for the last 20 years, because for you to do anything else would require you to engage with an issue you'd far rather not and ask some questions that are deeply uncomfortable for you.
Starmer is very well advised to turn his guns directly on it and cut the legs from under it so, in four years time, he can present himself as the moderate credible government that gets things done.
Immigration is not immune to supply and demand. The supply of people who come from war torn or violent and dangerous countries is almost infinite. The demand is created by the rights we give them. No government can end this without removing
the demand.
Everything else, including the changes Starmer was proposing this morning, is both doomed to failure and purely presentation politics.
And then Labour chases after Reform.
They are utterly hollowed out.
When Miliband was leading Cameron midway through the 2010-2015 parliament, by significantly more than Farage now leads Starmer, the Tories never let up in a campaign of attacking him, and they generally didn’t attempt to out-Miliband Miliband in their policy positions.
Most 'progressive' voters live in inner cities and university towns where Labour has massive majorities or Independents or the Greens or LDs are second who would still make Starmer PM over Farage or Badenoch on a forced choice even if their candidate won the seat and became MP.
It is Labour voters who have gone direct to Reform since 2024 who are most damaging to Starmer as they are the ones who could make Farage PM and who he needs to win back to have most seats again let alone any chance of another Labour majority