Do they demolish housing and return it to farmland, such as it is in Japan?
Saw this in action in April. You go through rural communities which have been closed/moved as the local authority don't want to spend any more money e.g. roads on diminishing numbers. It's backed by legislation and probably agreement. But I have to say that in the rural communities I did walk through, the roads were pothole free and the buses worked.
I'll see if I can find a pic of the sign explaining it in English.
Hasn't Japan always done this, building new homes instead of moving into old ones as we do, or am I mixing them up with somewhere else?
In a place with valuable land you would normally knock down the old house and build a new one on the site. In a place with cheap land you sometimes leave the old house there and build a new one next to it. But what's happening in the depopulating areas is that people are dying without kids or their kids don't want to go back there anyhow, and the land isn't worth much so they just leave it there and nature gradually eats the house.
My town is quite a popular location where there are incoming people looking for land but even here there are two dead houses down my road.
Quick question. Of all the politicians in the UK, which one would you pick to defend the practice of putting trans women in female prisons? Anybody? Any British politician active since the 1990s.
There was a time when those of us concerned about Government borrowing were slapped down by Government supporters (now Opposition supporters) who asserted borrowing was fine and we could just keep doing it.
£50 billion by 2028/9 isn't quite as bad as it sounds and it'll be easy for some to think that means £50 billion of tax rises now which it doesn't.
Again, we come back to the questions which have afflicted us since 2008 - to reduce the deficit and reduce borrowing, what do we do? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending? Do we do both? If we do the former, which taxes do we raise? If we do the latter, which areas of public spending do we cut and what will be the impact of both the tax rises and the spending cuts?
Rather like the "boats", plenty of complaining and plenty pointing out the problem but little in the way of practical, workable and coherent solutions. I do think Starmer and Reeves were unwise in ruling out changes to Income Tax and VAT before the election - that was boxing themselves into a corner for no reason.
You’re quite right. The Ming vase strategy was an error. They’re also unwise ruling out reform to The Triple Lock and the public sector pensions that are unfunded.
The ghost of Theresa May's 2017 campaign would beg to differ.
The problem with Theresa May's 2017 campaign was not social care but that Lynton Crosby had apparently not been told there was a new leader so crafted the campaign for David Cameron – confident in front of crowds and the camera, with no support from a sidelined Cabinet.
What killed the Conservative majority in 2017 was the two terrorist outrages during the campaign itself, alongside insistence that Tory police cuts had made no difference. Suddenly Labour was the party of Law and Order.
And parroting Crosby's slogan ‘strong and stable’ does not work when you are neither.
I will go to my grave insisting that the terrorist outrages had little effect on the polls in 2017. If you look at the trend line across all polls it looks like there was an effect, but if you ignore the trend line and compare by polling company before-and-after you'll see it's an artefact.
My memory is that the Grande attack happened just as it became clear the dementia tax position was untenable. I was fully expecting a reverse ferret to defuse the issue. But Grande paused all campaigning for a week and what was a saveable situation ossified into catastrophe for the Tories.
One of the most bizarre political phenomenon of my lifetime. According to the polls, Theresa was set to win one of biggest democratic mandates in global political history, yet it all imploded because of a welfare policy that probably hardly anyone had understood or even read. Was that policy really the reason or were those polling leads a chimera? Many of us will recall David Herdson's electrifying canvassing report on PB that night, when he described the mood on the doorstep going from enthusiastic to utter blackness in a matter of days.
There was a time when those of us concerned about Government borrowing were slapped down by Government supporters (now Opposition supporters) who asserted borrowing was fine and we could just keep doing it.
£50 billion by 2028/9 isn't quite as bad as it sounds and it'll be easy for some to think that means £50 billion of tax rises now which it doesn't.
Again, we come back to the questions which have afflicted us since 2008 - to reduce the deficit and reduce borrowing, what do we do? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending? Do we do both? If we do the former, which taxes do we raise? If we do the latter, which areas of public spending do we cut and what will be the impact of both the tax rises and the spending cuts?
Rather like the "boats", plenty of complaining and plenty pointing out the problem but little in the way of practical, workable and coherent solutions. I do think Starmer and Reeves were unwise in ruling out changes to Income Tax and VAT before the election - that was boxing themselves into a corner for no reason.
You’re quite right. The Ming vase strategy was an error. They’re also unwise ruling out reform to The Triple Lock and the public sector pensions that are unfunded.
The ghost of Theresa May's 2017 campaign would beg to differ.
The problem with Theresa May's 2017 campaign was not social care but that Lynton Crosby had apparently not been told there was a new leader so crafted the campaign for David Cameron – confident in front of crowds and the camera, with no support from a sidelined Cabinet.
What killed the Conservative majority in 2017 was the two terrorist outrages during the campaign itself, alongside insistence that Tory police cuts had made no difference. Suddenly Labour was the party of Law and Order.
And parroting Crosby's slogan ‘strong and stable’ does not work when you are neither.
I will go to my grave insisting that the terrorist outrages had little effect on the polls in 2017. If you look at the trend line across all polls it looks like there was an effect, but if you ignore the trend line and compare by polling company before-and-after you'll see it's an artefact.
My memory is that the Grande attack happened just as it became clear the dementia tax position was untenable. I was fully expecting a reverse ferret to defuse the issue. But Grande paused all campaigning for a week and what was a saveable situation ossified into catastrophe for the Tories.
One of the most bizarre political phenomenon of my lifetime. According to the polls, Theresa was set to win one of biggest democratic mandates in global political history, yet it all imploded because of a welfare policy that probably hardly anyone had understood or even read. Was that policy really the reason or were those polling leads a chimera? Many of us will recall David Herdson's electrifying canvassing report on PB that night, when he described the mood on the doorstep going from enthusiastic to utter blackness in a matter of days.
The poll lead was real. At the start of the campaign, the Conservatives won a huge victory in the local elections.
Then, everything began to fall apart, as the Conservatives ran an atrocious campaign, and Jeremy Corbyn proved a far better campaigner than anyone thought he was.
Quick question. Of all the politicians in the UK, which one would you pick to defend the practice of putting trans women in female prisons? Anybody? Any British politician active since the 1990s.
Quick question. Of all the politicians in the UK, which one would you pick to defend the practice of putting trans women in female prisons? Anybody? Any British politician active since the 1990s.
There's a video on several news sites. But don't watch it, or read the article, because I would draw PB's attention to this detail: Iftikhar was finally arrested ... on March 16, 2024, more than a year on from the vile outburst.
There's a video. How the flip does it take over a year to arrest the guy? And come to think of it, wasn't 2024 last year?
And if the police can't act in a reasonable time, why doesn't the airline launch private prosecutions, like betting shops did?
I was just out and about and a thought occurred to me..... if the launch of Corbyns party really hammers Labour, might they try a really out there imposition of PR (with presumably Tory and LD support if the former are still dying horribly and the latter stick to their guns plus SNP and Plaid will be fairly keen i think) - to impose it before the next election they could just keep existing boundaries, have Orkney/Shetland and Western Isles retain their special fptp individual status and split the remaining 648 constituencies into 108 groups of 6 with 6 to be elected in each on D'hondt basis like Wales. Hail Mary shut out Reform from majority effort?
No. They have got a stonking majority on 33% of the vote themselves. They quite like the current set up. (As do all election winners under FPTP surprisingly enough).
As we move to five/six party politics FPTP will not be sustainable.
Perhaps it is the Conservatives who will not be sustainable.
PR would make them perfectly sustainable, even just 15% of the vote would give the Conservatives 90-100 odd MPs at least and they could well then be Kingmakers between whether Farage or Starmer becomes PM.
Whereas unless the Tories get back over 20% with Kemi or a new leader then they will be down to less than 50 MPs with FPTP and 15% of the vote would see the Tories near wiped out
When PR would have helped the LDs or the SDP or the Greens out none of the bigger parties could have cared less. It will be the same if the only thing that will work for the Conservatives is PR, the powers that be won't care.
The LDs and Greens still will, as will Corbyn's party as PR will like the Tories be more likely to put them in government.
Even Labour might back PR if Reform look likely to win a clear majority on just 30%+ of the vote
There's a video on several news sites. But don't watch it, or read the article, because I would draw PB's attention to this detail: Iftikhar was finally arrested ... on March 16, 2024, more than a year on from the vile outburst.
There's a video. How the flip does it take over a year to arrest the guy? And come to think of it, wasn't 2024 last year?
And if the police can't act in a reasonable time, why doesn't the airline launch private prosecutions, like betting shops did?
Extra funding and streamlining processes for swifter justice is such an obvious no brainer.
There was a time when those of us concerned about Government borrowing were slapped down by Government supporters (now Opposition supporters) who asserted borrowing was fine and we could just keep doing it.
£50 billion by 2028/9 isn't quite as bad as it sounds and it'll be easy for some to think that means £50 billion of tax rises now which it doesn't.
Again, we come back to the questions which have afflicted us since 2008 - to reduce the deficit and reduce borrowing, what do we do? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending? Do we do both? If we do the former, which taxes do we raise? If we do the latter, which areas of public spending do we cut and what will be the impact of both the tax rises and the spending cuts?
Rather like the "boats", plenty of complaining and plenty pointing out the problem but little in the way of practical, workable and coherent solutions. I do think Starmer and Reeves were unwise in ruling out changes to Income Tax and VAT before the election - that was boxing themselves into a corner for no reason.
You’re quite right. The Ming vase strategy was an error. They’re also unwise ruling out reform to The Triple Lock and the public sector pensions that are unfunded.
The ghost of Theresa May's 2017 campaign would beg to differ.
The problem with Theresa May's 2017 campaign was not social care but that Lynton Crosby had apparently not been told there was a new leader so crafted the campaign for David Cameron – confident in front of crowds and the camera, with no support from a sidelined Cabinet.
What killed the Conservative majority in 2017 was the two terrorist outrages during the campaign itself, alongside insistence that Tory police cuts had made no difference. Suddenly Labour was the party of Law and Order.
And parroting Crosby's slogan ‘strong and stable’ does not work when you are neither.
I will go to my grave insisting that the terrorist outrages had little effect on the polls in 2017. If you look at the trend line across all polls it looks like there was an effect, but if you ignore the trend line and compare by polling company before-and-after you'll see it's an artefact.
My memory is that the Grande attack happened just as it became clear the dementia tax position was untenable. I was fully expecting a reverse ferret to defuse the issue. But Grande paused all campaigning for a week and what was a saveable situation ossified into catastrophe for the Tories.
One of the most bizarre political phenomenon of my lifetime. According to the polls, Theresa was set to win one of biggest democratic mandates in global political history, yet it all imploded because of a welfare policy that probably hardly anyone had understood or even read. Was that policy really the reason or were those polling leads a chimera? Many of us will recall David Herdson's electrifying canvassing report on PB that night, when he described the mood on the doorstep going from enthusiastic to utter blackness in a matter of days.
I remember 2017 election night coverage. I was in my weekday digs. I had Doritos. Everybody on PB pooed themselves when the exit poll came out. Except me, because based on the YouGov MRP I had bet Con most seats, not Con maj. Some PBers were in despair until the Scottish results came in, where the blues performed better than expected.
There was a time when those of us concerned about Government borrowing were slapped down by Government supporters (now Opposition supporters) who asserted borrowing was fine and we could just keep doing it.
£50 billion by 2028/9 isn't quite as bad as it sounds and it'll be easy for some to think that means £50 billion of tax rises now which it doesn't.
Again, we come back to the questions which have afflicted us since 2008 - to reduce the deficit and reduce borrowing, what do we do? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending? Do we do both? If we do the former, which taxes do we raise? If we do the latter, which areas of public spending do we cut and what will be the impact of both the tax rises and the spending cuts?
Rather like the "boats", plenty of complaining and plenty pointing out the problem but little in the way of practical, workable and coherent solutions. I do think Starmer and Reeves were unwise in ruling out changes to Income Tax and VAT before the election - that was boxing themselves into a corner for no reason.
You’re quite right. The Ming vase strategy was an error. They’re also unwise ruling out reform to The Triple Lock and the public sector pensions that are unfunded.
The ghost of Theresa May's 2017 campaign would beg to differ.
The problem with Theresa May's 2017 campaign was not social care but that Lynton Crosby had apparently not been told there was a new leader so crafted the campaign for David Cameron – confident in front of crowds and the camera, with no support from a sidelined Cabinet.
What killed the Conservative majority in 2017 was the two terrorist outrages during the campaign itself, alongside insistence that Tory police cuts had made no difference. Suddenly Labour was the party of Law and Order.
And parroting Crosby's slogan ‘strong and stable’ does not work when you are neither.
I will go to my grave insisting that the terrorist outrages had little effect on the polls in 2017. If you look at the trend line across all polls it looks like there was an effect, but if you ignore the trend line and compare by polling company before-and-after you'll see it's an artefact.
My memory is that the Grande attack happened just as it became clear the dementia tax position was untenable. I was fully expecting a reverse ferret to defuse the issue. But Grande paused all campaigning for a week and what was a saveable situation ossified into catastrophe for the Tories.
One of the most bizarre political phenomenon of my lifetime. According to the polls, Theresa was set to win one of biggest democratic mandates in global political history, yet it all imploded because of a welfare policy that probably hardly anyone had understood or even read. Was that policy really the reason or were those polling leads a chimera? Many of us will recall David Herdson's electrifying canvassing report on PB that night, when he described the mood on the doorstep going from enthusiastic to utter blackness in a matter of days.
The poll lead was real. At the start of the campaign, the Conservatives won a huge victory in the local elections.
Then, everything began to fall apart, as the Conservatives ran an atrocious campaign, and Jeremy Corbyn proved a far better campaigner than anyone thought he was.
Corbyn and Boris were brilliant election campaigners but far worse competent managers and administrators of government, May and Sunak were reasonably competent PMs but hopeless election campaigners and Starmer is now looking poor at both despite his 2024 election win and sense of competence brought to Labour after Corbyn.
The last PMs we had who were reasonably competent leading a government and effective election campaigners were Cameron and Blair
There's a video on several news sites. But don't watch it, or read the article, because I would draw PB's attention to this detail: Iftikhar was finally arrested ... on March 16, 2024, more than a year on from the vile outburst.
There's a video. How the flip does it take over a year to arrest the guy? And come to think of it, wasn't 2024 last year?
And if the police can't act in a reasonable time, why doesn't the airline launch private prosecutions, like betting shops did?
He’s going to Lahore and I’m assuming he’s a Muslim and he was pissed out of his tree?
Quick question. Of all the politicians in the UK, which one would you pick to defend the practice of putting trans women in female prisons? Anybody? Any British politician active since the 1990s.
If and when we build our shiny new prisons someone please build a trans wing or two so this issue can be put on the back burner.
Prison Establishments and Gender Identity
Eighty-four of the 123 public and private prisons (68%) in England and Wales said that they had one or more transgender prisoners on 31st March 2024. Of the 295 transgender prisoners:
Fifty-one (17%) were in female prisons. The majority of these (48) self-identified as transgender male, the remainder self-identified as transgender female, non-binary, in a different way[footnote 13] , or did not provide a response. Two hundred and forty-four (83%) were in male prisons. The majority of these (225) self-identified as transgender female, the remainder self-identified as transgender male, non-binary, in a different way, or did not provide a response.
....The figures reported in this bulletin give an estimate of the number of transgender prisoners and are likely to underestimate the true number.
A small prison would probably be about right for the whole pop.
There's a video on several news sites. But don't watch it, or read the article, because I would draw PB's attention to this detail: Iftikhar was finally arrested ... on March 16, 2024, more than a year on from the vile outburst.
There's a video. How the flip does it take over a year to arrest the guy? And come to think of it, wasn't 2024 last year?
And if the police can't act in a reasonable time, why doesn't the airline launch private prosecutions, like betting shops did?
He’s going to Lahore and I’m assuming he’s a Muslim and he was pissed out of his tree?
WTF was he thinking.
About all these Virgins in the sky that he had been promised?
There was a time when those of us concerned about Government borrowing were slapped down by Government supporters (now Opposition supporters) who asserted borrowing was fine and we could just keep doing it.
£50 billion by 2028/9 isn't quite as bad as it sounds and it'll be easy for some to think that means £50 billion of tax rises now which it doesn't.
Again, we come back to the questions which have afflicted us since 2008 - to reduce the deficit and reduce borrowing, what do we do? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending? Do we do both? If we do the former, which taxes do we raise? If we do the latter, which areas of public spending do we cut and what will be the impact of both the tax rises and the spending cuts?
Rather like the "boats", plenty of complaining and plenty pointing out the problem but little in the way of practical, workable and coherent solutions. I do think Starmer and Reeves were unwise in ruling out changes to Income Tax and VAT before the election - that was boxing themselves into a corner for no reason.
You’re quite right. The Ming vase strategy was an error. They’re also unwise ruling out reform to The Triple Lock and the public sector pensions that are unfunded.
The should just bite the bullet, break a pledge or two, and raise income tax as well as looking at council tax bands/land tax for starters.
But it’s a mammoth task and not an easy one especially given they fold to their backbenchers when trying to make modest changes to spending as we saw with welfare. A so called cut was simply slowing the rate of growth.
As was discussed on here yesterday, the incoming government had one chance, at their first Budget, to say that the finances were much worse than they had been led to believe, and there’s going to have to be 2p on all income tax rates for the duration of this Parliament.
Instead, they went tinkering with a load of little things, and wasted huge amounts of political capital in exchange for very little additional income.
It was as if they’d spent the last five years doing no preparation for government at all.
See Nick Clegg/Tuition Fees for why they didn't choose that path.
They could have made it clear that it was temporary, and cut it at in the final Budget before the next election.
Instead, they’ve taken all the flak but not raised any money. They’re now both unpopular and broke, with bond rates slowly ticking up to make the situation even worse.
It is what the electorate persistently vote for so what we get. Teeter along with sticking plasters to eke out what we can before either we hit disaster or unexpected good fortune down the line.
Reform will be no different when they get their chance. May even fall faster in popularity as likely to be more chaotic.
It’s not just a UK problem either, much of the developed world is totally screwed, yet there remains little enthusiasm among the electorate to do anything about it.
Argentina appears to have mostly succeeded with the right-wing approach in recent years, others such as Denmark have succeeded with a more left-wing approach.
Meanwhile, many of the major economies have huge budget deficits and debt/GDP ratios above 100%. In many cases they hadn’t properly recovered from the 2008 recession when the pandemic hit.
The US had a good go at cutting out waste, but the Executive can’t do much without Congress, who are still as keen as ever to line their own pockets, and don’t dare vote to cut a penny from spending on their own constituents. They’ll still be adding more than a trillion dollars to the debt this year.
I can see that this cycle continues in many countries, with more and more extremist governments been elected over the next decade, until either economies crash or there’s the political will to actually fix the problems.
I think the end result will always been economies crashing because the political will will never exist - voters like sweeties and easy fixes too much
Just look at what happened when Labour tried to trim a small amount from the rise of the benefits bill
They have a stonking majority and could not get it through.
There comes a point at which force majeure applies. perhaps they are all waiting for the IMF/western nations all default together or some similar moment.
The most unaddressed question remains this: Reform have a 30%+ chance of governing from 2029. What will they actually do in government - how, broadly, will they govern? It isn't possible to govern on completely fantasy economics (see Truss), so what will they actually do from Day 1 when the fast bowling starts? The lack of interrogation of this question is remarkable.
Nothing they have said has led me to believe they have any sense of fiscal responsibility just more populism.
Do they demolish housing and return it to farmland, such as it is in Japan?
A lot of the time in the countryside that people are moving out of houses will just be left to rot. It costs a bit of money to knock them down and often the ownership is a mess.
The depopulating towns don't have replacement-level farmers either. Farmer's kids fuck off to the cities and get proper civilized jobs and they have restrictive rules on buying farmland where you have to already be a local farmer to buy local farmland so new people couldn't move in and start farming even if they wanted to live in a dead town.
My understanding is that Japanese housing isn't really built to last anyway, and that housing older than more than, say, 40 years is essentially worth nothing. No doubt there is much nuance to this I have missed.
I was just out and about and a thought occurred to me..... if the launch of Corbyns party really hammers Labour, might they try a really out there imposition of PR (with presumably Tory and LD support if the former are still dying horribly and the latter stick to their guns plus SNP and Plaid will be fairly keen i think) - to impose it before the next election they could just keep existing boundaries, have Orkney/Shetland and Western Isles retain their special fptp individual status and split the remaining 648 constituencies into 108 groups of 6 with 6 to be elected in each on D'hondt basis like Wales. Hail Mary shut out Reform from majority effort?
I've been saying this for a while. They might bring in PR if they're doing so badly that they would win more seats under than system than the current one. You give up the chance of winning a majority again, but at least you avoid being reduced to a very small number of seats.
I can't see them bringing in PR.
PR is like Brexit. It is such a constitutional change I feel it could only be done by explicit manifesto pledge or a referendum - I'm not even sure explicit manifesto pledge would be enough. It wasn't in Labour's manifesto and they won't feel confident enough to win a referendum so it'll just get quietly shelved.
There was a time when those of us concerned about Government borrowing were slapped down by Government supporters (now Opposition supporters) who asserted borrowing was fine and we could just keep doing it.
£50 billion by 2028/9 isn't quite as bad as it sounds and it'll be easy for some to think that means £50 billion of tax rises now which it doesn't.
Again, we come back to the questions which have afflicted us since 2008 - to reduce the deficit and reduce borrowing, what do we do? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending? Do we do both? If we do the former, which taxes do we raise? If we do the latter, which areas of public spending do we cut and what will be the impact of both the tax rises and the spending cuts?
Rather like the "boats", plenty of complaining and plenty pointing out the problem but little in the way of practical, workable and coherent solutions. I do think Starmer and Reeves were unwise in ruling out changes to Income Tax and VAT before the election - that was boxing themselves into a corner for no reason.
You’re quite right. The Ming vase strategy was an error. They’re also unwise ruling out reform to The Triple Lock and the public sector pensions that are unfunded.
The ghost of Theresa May's 2017 campaign would beg to differ.
The problem with Theresa May's 2017 campaign was not social care but that Lynton Crosby had apparently not been told there was a new leader so crafted the campaign for David Cameron – confident in front of crowds and the camera, with no support from a sidelined Cabinet.
What killed the Conservative majority in 2017 was the two terrorist outrages during the campaign itself, alongside insistence that Tory police cuts had made no difference. Suddenly Labour was the party of Law and Order.
And parroting Crosby's slogan ‘strong and stable’ does not work when you are neither.
I will go to my grave insisting that the terrorist outrages had little effect on the polls in 2017. If you look at the trend line across all polls it looks like there was an effect, but if you ignore the trend line and compare by polling company before-and-after you'll see it's an artefact.
My memory is that the Grande attack happened just as it became clear the dementia tax position was untenable. I was fully expecting a reverse ferret to defuse the issue. But Grande paused all campaigning for a week and what was a saveable situation ossified into catastrophe for the Tories.
One of the most bizarre political phenomenon of my lifetime. According to the polls, Theresa was set to win one of biggest democratic mandates in global political history, yet it all imploded because of a welfare policy that probably hardly anyone had understood or even read. Was that policy really the reason or were those polling leads a chimera? Many of us will recall David Herdson's electrifying canvassing report on PB that night, when he described the mood on the doorstep going from enthusiastic to utter blackness in a matter of days.
The poll lead was real. At the start of the campaign, the Conservatives won a huge victory in the local elections.
Then, everything began to fall apart, as the Conservatives ran an atrocious campaign, and Jeremy Corbyn proved a far better campaigner than anyone thought he was.
The signs were there throughout the campaign. The lead with YouGov collapsed from 24% to 9% even before Manchester. Stupidly long campaign that everyone had utterly had enough of by voting day. Allowing the campaign to straddle the locals and the complacency it engendered in the Tory vote was insane. Unnecessary elections are a bad idea.
There was a time when those of us concerned about Government borrowing were slapped down by Government supporters (now Opposition supporters) who asserted borrowing was fine and we could just keep doing it.
£50 billion by 2028/9 isn't quite as bad as it sounds and it'll be easy for some to think that means £50 billion of tax rises now which it doesn't.
Again, we come back to the questions which have afflicted us since 2008 - to reduce the deficit and reduce borrowing, what do we do? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending? Do we do both? If we do the former, which taxes do we raise? If we do the latter, which areas of public spending do we cut and what will be the impact of both the tax rises and the spending cuts?
Rather like the "boats", plenty of complaining and plenty pointing out the problem but little in the way of practical, workable and coherent solutions. I do think Starmer and Reeves were unwise in ruling out changes to Income Tax and VAT before the election - that was boxing themselves into a corner for no reason.
You’re quite right. The Ming vase strategy was an error. They’re also unwise ruling out reform to The Triple Lock and the public sector pensions that are unfunded.
The ghost of Theresa May's 2017 campaign would beg to differ.
The problem with Theresa May's 2017 campaign was not social care but that Lynton Crosby had apparently not been told there was a new leader so crafted the campaign for David Cameron – confident in front of crowds and the camera, with no support from a sidelined Cabinet.
What killed the Conservative majority in 2017 was the two terrorist outrages during the campaign itself, alongside insistence that Tory police cuts had made no difference. Suddenly Labour was the party of Law and Order.
And parroting Crosby's slogan ‘strong and stable’ does not work when you are neither.
I will go to my grave insisting that the terrorist outrages had little effect on the polls in 2017. If you look at the trend line across all polls it looks like there was an effect, but if you ignore the trend line and compare by polling company before-and-after you'll see it's an artefact.
My memory is that the Grande attack happened just as it became clear the dementia tax position was untenable. I was fully expecting a reverse ferret to defuse the issue. But Grande paused all campaigning for a week and what was a saveable situation ossified into catastrophe for the Tories.
One of the most bizarre political phenomenon of my lifetime. According to the polls, Theresa was set to win one of biggest democratic mandates in global political history, yet it all imploded because of a welfare policy that probably hardly anyone had understood or even read. Was that policy really the reason or were those polling leads a chimera? Many of us will recall David Herdson's electrifying canvassing report on PB that night, when he described the mood on the doorstep going from enthusiastic to utter blackness in a matter of days.
The poll lead was real. At the start of the campaign, the Conservatives won a huge victory in the local elections.
Then, everything began to fall apart, as the Conservatives ran an atrocious campaign, and Jeremy Corbyn proved a far better campaigner than anyone thought he was.
Corbyn and Boris were brilliant election campaigners but far worse competent managers and administrators of government, May and Sunak were reasonably competent PMs but hopeless election campaigners and Starmer is now looking poor at both despite his 2024 election win and sense of competence brought to Labour after Corbyn.
The last PMs we had who were reasonably competent leading a government and effective election campaigners were Cameron and Blair
Not Cameron. Not the man whose negative campaigning, against the backdrop of the GFC, could manage only a hung parliament, and even in 2015 won a convincing victory only because the SNP wiped out Labour in Scotland. Cameron also lost the Brexit referendum and barely scraped home in Indyref after the positive case for the union was made by Ruth Davidson and Gordon Brown.
There's a video on several news sites. But don't watch it, or read the article, because I would draw PB's attention to this detail: Iftikhar was finally arrested ... on March 16, 2024, more than a year on from the vile outburst.
There's a video. How the flip does it take over a year to arrest the guy? And come to think of it, wasn't 2024 last year?
And if the police can't act in a reasonable time, why doesn't the airline launch private prosecutions, like betting shops did?
He’s going to Lahore and I’m assuming he’s a Muslim and he was pissed out of his tree?
WTF was he thinking.
About all these Virgins in the sky that he had been promised?
This is why I don’t drink and also not really an observant Muslim.
Nobody has confirmed to me that these virgins are female.
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Lots of people are affected by immigration in ways they don't notice. They'll have friends, neighbours and colleagues who are immigrants, as we do here with the many PBers who are immigrants or emigrants, or married to such. But the media and some political actors try to crowd out that experience of immigration with this relentless focus on the boats, even while people coming over on small boats is a small fraction of immigration to the UK. Which is why the YouGov polling also shows that the public are grossly misinformed, with many believing that most immigration to the UK is from such sources, and those are the people who are most aggrieved.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
There was a time when those of us concerned about Government borrowing were slapped down by Government supporters (now Opposition supporters) who asserted borrowing was fine and we could just keep doing it.
£50 billion by 2028/9 isn't quite as bad as it sounds and it'll be easy for some to think that means £50 billion of tax rises now which it doesn't.
Again, we come back to the questions which have afflicted us since 2008 - to reduce the deficit and reduce borrowing, what do we do? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending? Do we do both? If we do the former, which taxes do we raise? If we do the latter, which areas of public spending do we cut and what will be the impact of both the tax rises and the spending cuts?
Rather like the "boats", plenty of complaining and plenty pointing out the problem but little in the way of practical, workable and coherent solutions. I do think Starmer and Reeves were unwise in ruling out changes to Income Tax and VAT before the election - that was boxing themselves into a corner for no reason.
You’re quite right. The Ming vase strategy was an error. They’re also unwise ruling out reform to The Triple Lock and the public sector pensions that are unfunded.
The ghost of Theresa May's 2017 campaign would beg to differ.
The problem with Theresa May's 2017 campaign was not social care but that Lynton Crosby had apparently not been told there was a new leader so crafted the campaign for David Cameron – confident in front of crowds and the camera, with no support from a sidelined Cabinet.
What killed the Conservative majority in 2017 was the two terrorist outrages during the campaign itself, alongside insistence that Tory police cuts had made no difference. Suddenly Labour was the party of Law and Order.
And parroting Crosby's slogan ‘strong and stable’ does not work when you are neither.
I will go to my grave insisting that the terrorist outrages had little effect on the polls in 2017. If you look at the trend line across all polls it looks like there was an effect, but if you ignore the trend line and compare by polling company before-and-after you'll see it's an artefact.
My memory is that the Grande attack happened just as it became clear the dementia tax position was untenable. I was fully expecting a reverse ferret to defuse the issue. But Grande paused all campaigning for a week and what was a saveable situation ossified into catastrophe for the Tories.
One of the most bizarre political phenomenon of my lifetime. According to the polls, Theresa was set to win one of biggest democratic mandates in global political history, yet it all imploded because of a welfare policy that probably hardly anyone had understood or even read. Was that policy really the reason or were those polling leads a chimera? Many of us will recall David Herdson's electrifying canvassing report on PB that night, when he described the mood on the doorstep going from enthusiastic to utter blackness in a matter of days.
The poll lead was real. At the start of the campaign, the Conservatives won a huge victory in the local elections.
Then, everything began to fall apart, as the Conservatives ran an atrocious campaign, and Jeremy Corbyn proved a far better campaigner than anyone thought he was.
Corbyn and Boris were brilliant election campaigners but far worse competent managers and administrators of government, May and Sunak were reasonably competent PMs but hopeless election campaigners and Starmer is now looking poor at both despite his 2024 election win and sense of competence brought to Labour after Corbyn.
The last PMs we had who were reasonably competent leading a government and effective election campaigners were Cameron and Blair
Not Cameron. Not the man whose negative campaigning, against the backdrop of the GFC, could manage only a hung parliament, and even in 2015 won a convincing victory only because the SNP wiped out Labour in Scotland. Cameron also lost the Brexit referendum and barely scraped home in Indyref after the positive case for the union was made by Ruth Davidson and Gordon Brown.
Cameron took the Tories back to power after 3 general election defeats in 2010 and won a majority against the odds in 2015 because he gained seats from the LDs and kept Labour down not because of the SNP.
He was not as good a campaigner as Boris but a more competent PM than Boris
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
If that lot is correct, Macron has absolutely run rings round Starmer.
There was a time when those of us concerned about Government borrowing were slapped down by Government supporters (now Opposition supporters) who asserted borrowing was fine and we could just keep doing it.
£50 billion by 2028/9 isn't quite as bad as it sounds and it'll be easy for some to think that means £50 billion of tax rises now which it doesn't.
Again, we come back to the questions which have afflicted us since 2008 - to reduce the deficit and reduce borrowing, what do we do? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending? Do we do both? If we do the former, which taxes do we raise? If we do the latter, which areas of public spending do we cut and what will be the impact of both the tax rises and the spending cuts?
Rather like the "boats", plenty of complaining and plenty pointing out the problem but little in the way of practical, workable and coherent solutions. I do think Starmer and Reeves were unwise in ruling out changes to Income Tax and VAT before the election - that was boxing themselves into a corner for no reason.
You’re quite right. The Ming vase strategy was an error. They’re also unwise ruling out reform to The Triple Lock and the public sector pensions that are unfunded.
The should just bite the bullet, break a pledge or two, and raise income tax as well as looking at council tax bands/land tax for starters.
But it’s a mammoth task and not an easy one especially given they fold to their backbenchers when trying to make modest changes to spending as we saw with welfare. A so called cut was simply slowing the rate of growth.
As was discussed on here yesterday, the incoming government had one chance, at their first Budget, to say that the finances were much worse than they had been led to believe, and there’s going to have to be 2p on all income tax rates for the duration of this Parliament.
Instead, they went tinkering with a load of little things, and wasted huge amounts of political capital in exchange for very little additional income.
It was as if they’d spent the last five years doing no preparation for government at all.
See Nick Clegg/Tuition Fees for why they didn't choose that path.
They could have made it clear that it was temporary, and cut it at in the final Budget before the next election.
Instead, they’ve taken all the flak but not raised any money. They’re now both unpopular and broke, with bond rates slowly ticking up to make the situation even worse.
It is what the electorate persistently vote for so what we get. Teeter along with sticking plasters to eke out what we can before either we hit disaster or unexpected good fortune down the line.
Reform will be no different when they get their chance. May even fall faster in popularity as likely to be more chaotic.
It’s not just a UK problem either, much of the developed world is totally screwed, yet there remains little enthusiasm among the electorate to do anything about it.
Argentina appears to have mostly succeeded with the right-wing approach in recent years, others such as Denmark have succeeded with a more left-wing approach.
Meanwhile, many of the major economies have huge budget deficits and debt/GDP ratios above 100%. In many cases they hadn’t properly recovered from the 2008 recession when the pandemic hit.
The US had a good go at cutting out waste, but the Executive can’t do much without Congress, who are still as keen as ever to line their own pockets, and don’t dare vote to cut a penny from spending on their own constituents. They’ll still be adding more than a trillion dollars to the debt this year.
I can see that this cycle continues in many countries, with more and more extremist governments been elected over the next decade, until either economies crash or there’s the political will to actually fix the problems.
I think the end result will always been economies crashing because the political will will never exist - voters like sweeties and easy fixes too much
Just look at what happened when Labour tried to trim a small amount from the rise of the benefits bill
They have a stonking majority and could not get it through.
There comes a point at which force majeure applies. perhaps they are all waiting for the IMF/western nations all default together or some similar moment.
The most unaddressed question remains this: Reform have a 30%+ chance of governing from 2029. What will they actually do in government - how, broadly, will they govern? It isn't possible to govern on completely fantasy economics (see Truss), so what will they actually do from Day 1 when the fast bowling starts? The lack of interrogation of this question is remarkable.
Nothing they have said has led me to believe they have any sense of fiscal responsibility just more populism.
That is one of the reasons which makes it an interesting question. If Reform govern they won't govern with a view to the UK collapsing in 3 months, they will want to govern for some years. Which means they will have to pay attention to reality. How this circle is to be squared is fascinating and hugely underexplored.
I was just out and about and a thought occurred to me..... if the launch of Corbyns party really hammers Labour, might they try a really out there imposition of PR (with presumably Tory and LD support if the former are still dying horribly and the latter stick to their guns plus SNP and Plaid will be fairly keen i think) - to impose it before the next election they could just keep existing boundaries, have Orkney/Shetland and Western Isles retain their special fptp individual status and split the remaining 648 constituencies into 108 groups of 6 with 6 to be elected in each on D'hondt basis like Wales. Hail Mary shut out Reform from majority effort?
I've been saying this for a while. They might bring in PR if they're doing so badly that they would win more seats under than system than the current one. You give up the chance of winning a majority again, but at least you avoid being reduced to a very small number of seats.
I can't see them bringing in PR.
PR is like Brexit. It is such a constitutional change I feel it could only be done by explicit manifesto pledge or a referendum - I'm not even sure explicit manifesto pledge would be enough. It wasn't in Labour's manifesto and they won't feel confident enough to win a referendum so it'll just get quietly shelved.
The public are sick of referendums, and most of them don't care about voting systems. So I think they could do it with all of the parties except the Tories supporting it.
I was just out and about and a thought occurred to me..... if the launch of Corbyns party really hammers Labour, might they try a really out there imposition of PR (with presumably Tory and LD support if the former are still dying horribly and the latter stick to their guns plus SNP and Plaid will be fairly keen i think) - to impose it before the next election they could just keep existing boundaries, have Orkney/Shetland and Western Isles retain their special fptp individual status and split the remaining 648 constituencies into 108 groups of 6 with 6 to be elected in each on D'hondt basis like Wales. Hail Mary shut out Reform from majority effort?
I've been saying this for a while. They might bring in PR if they're doing so badly that they would win more seats under than system than the current one. You give up the chance of winning a majority again, but at least you avoid being reduced to a very small number of seats.
I can't see them bringing in PR.
PR is like Brexit. It is such a constitutional change I feel it could only be done by explicit manifesto pledge or a referendum - I'm not even sure explicit manifesto pledge would be enough. It wasn't in Labour's manifesto and they won't feel confident enough to win a referendum so it'll just get quietly shelved.
If Labour scrape back next time reliant on LD confidence and supply in a hung parliament though then PR would be very much on the table
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
If that lot is correct, Macron has absolutely run rings round Starmer.
Why would you expect anything Leon posts to be correct?
I was just out and about and a thought occurred to me..... if the launch of Corbyns party really hammers Labour, might they try a really out there imposition of PR (with presumably Tory and LD support if the former are still dying horribly and the latter stick to their guns plus SNP and Plaid will be fairly keen i think) - to impose it before the next election they could just keep existing boundaries, have Orkney/Shetland and Western Isles retain their special fptp individual status and split the remaining 648 constituencies into 108 groups of 6 with 6 to be elected in each on D'hondt basis like Wales. Hail Mary shut out Reform from majority effort?
I've been saying this for a while. They might bring in PR if they're doing so badly that they would win more seats under than system than the current one. You give up the chance of winning a majority again, but at least you avoid being reduced to a very small number of seats.
I can't see them bringing in PR.
PR is like Brexit. It is such a constitutional change I feel it could only be done by explicit manifesto pledge or a referendum - I'm not even sure explicit manifesto pledge would be enough. It wasn't in Labour's manifesto and they won't feel confident enough to win a referendum so it'll just get quietly shelved.
The public are sick of referendums, and most of them don't care about voting systems. So I think they could do it with all of the parties except the Tories supporting it.
You could also sell it easily with the rise of the Fruits - system cannot cope etc If they want it then now is probably the time
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Do they demolish housing and return it to farmland, such as it is in Japan?
Saw this in action in April. You go through rural communities which have been closed/moved as the local authority don't want to spend any more money e.g. roads on diminishing numbers. It's backed by legislation and probably agreement. But I have to say that in the rural communities I did walk through, the roads were pothole free and the buses worked.
I'll see if I can find a pic of the sign explaining it in English.
Hasn't Japan always done this, building new homes instead of moving into old ones as we do, or am I mixing them up with somewhere else?
In a place with valuable land you would normally knock down the old house and build a new one on the site. In a place with cheap land you sometimes leave the old house there and build a new one next to it. But what's happening in the depopulating areas is that people are dying without kids or their kids don't want to go back there anyhow, and the land isn't worth much so they just leave it there and nature gradually eats the house.
My town is quite a popular location where there are incoming people looking for land but even here there are two dead houses down my road.
That sounds very like the crofting lands in Scotland, albeit a bit later on. The crofters usually didn't remodel the old traditional turfed/thatched house = called tigh dubh, black house, in the Gaelic areas, but simply built a new one next to it = tigh geal, white house. The old house was used as a byre/shed/store or simply let to decay naturally. That combination of current house and old ruin is a very common landscape element.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
County cricket coach banned for sending pictures of his genitals to female colleague
Coach has been dismissed by the county because of his conduct and has not worked in cricket since
A county coach has been banned from cricket for nine months for inappropriate sexual behaviour, including sending three pictures of his genitals to a more junior colleague.
The Cricket Regulator announced on Wednesday morning that the independent Cricket Discipline Panel (CDP) had banned the unnamed coach for nine months – three of them suspended – and ordered him to complete an education course after he was found guilty of misconduct.
The CDP is regularly choosing not to name those it finds guilty, and on this occasion its statement said: “Due to exceptional circumstances regarding the health of that coach and the serious risk of harm identified if his name was to be published, his name has been redacted.”
The full judgement revealed the coach had “two separate victims in the summer of 2023 and early 2024”. He was found guilty of sending a photo of his penis as well as attempting to kiss a junior member of staff.
It said: “He engaged in inappropriate and sexualised messaging, including sending images of his erect penis, to more junior female members of staff at a CCC [county cricket club]. On one occasion he attempted to kiss one of the more junior members of staff.”
It added that his second victim was “much younger than the Respondent and he occupied a far more senior position than she did at a CCC”, adding that she “had to interact with the Respondent because of her work”.
He sent her a picture of his erect penis, which she did not respond to. “A few days later the Respondent sent two further pictures of his erect penis,” read the judgement.
It continued: “The Respondent asked Victim 2 to check the changing rooms to see if any rubbish was left. Whilst in the changing room the Respondent made an inappropriate attempt to kiss Victim 2, who pulled away.”
The first victim, according to the judgement, had a “particular vulnerability” that the coach knew about. He sent her “inappropriate and sexualised messaging”, including “a photo of his erect penis under clothing”. She asked him to stop, but he sent “a further message of a sexualised and inappropriate nature” a few days later.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
If that lot is correct, Macron has absolutely run rings round Starmer.
Why would you expect anything Leon posts to be correct?
It's in contradiction to our convo earlier, hence the if
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
The cost of looking after asylum seekers is a result of inadequate resources in processing. If only there was an organisation that could do a cost/benefit analysis on the options and be able to divert the funds needed to remove the blockage. Allowing them to work only lets the incompetents off the hook.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Yes, paying large amounts of money to keep able bodied people in enforced idleness for years on end in this manner is idiocy.
I was just out and about and a thought occurred to me..... if the launch of Corbyns party really hammers Labour, might they try a really out there imposition of PR (with presumably Tory and LD support if the former are still dying horribly and the latter stick to their guns plus SNP and Plaid will be fairly keen i think) - to impose it before the next election they could just keep existing boundaries, have Orkney/Shetland and Western Isles retain their special fptp individual status and split the remaining 648 constituencies into 108 groups of 6 with 6 to be elected in each on D'hondt basis like Wales. Hail Mary shut out Reform from majority effort?
I've been saying this for a while. They might bring in PR if they're doing so badly that they would win more seats under than system than the current one. You give up the chance of winning a majority again, but at least you avoid being reduced to a very small number of seats.
I can't see them bringing in PR.
PR is like Brexit. It is such a constitutional change I feel it could only be done by explicit manifesto pledge or a referendum - I'm not even sure explicit manifesto pledge would be enough. It wasn't in Labour's manifesto and they won't feel confident enough to win a referendum so it'll just get quietly shelved.
The public are sick of referendums, and most of them don't care about voting systems. So I think they could do it with all of the parties except the Tories supporting it.
Plenty of Tories now support PR, including Nigel Evans. Reform are now the biggest beneficiaries of FPTP on current polls
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Lord Filkin from 2002, minister responsible for the change:
"The asylum system is working increasingly quickly, through reforms and increased resources. Measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will continue this process. This means that the employment concession, whereby asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if their application remained outstanding for longer than six months without a decision being made, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The vast majority—around 80 per cent—of asylum seekers receive a decision within six months, and work is continuing to improve that further. An increasingly small number of people, Toggle showing location ofColumn WA 108therefore, are entitled to apply for the concession. It is also the case that the great majority of new asylum applicants will have their cases decided within two months and the concession, which dates from a time when lengthy delays were widespread in the asylum system, is therefore no longer appropriate.We are determined to make it clear that there is a distinct separation between asylum processes and labour migration channels."
In his favour at least was 80% processed within 6 months. That reached 5% under Boris.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
The cost of looking after asylum seekers is a result of inadequate resources in processing. If only there was an organisation that could do a cost/benefit analysis on the options and be able to divert the funds needed to remove the blockage. Allowing them to work only lets the incompetents off the hook.
It’s almost like the processing side of things was done by a different department and budget to the people paying for the accommodation
Quick question. Of all the politicians in the UK, which one would you pick to defend the practice of putting trans women in female prisons? Anybody? Any British politician active since the 1990s.
If and when we build our shiny new prisons someone please build a trans wing or two so this issue can be put on the back burner.
Prison Establishments and Gender Identity
Eighty-four of the 123 public and private prisons (68%) in England and Wales said that they had one or more transgender prisoners on 31st March 2024. Of the 295 transgender prisoners:
Fifty-one (17%) were in female prisons. The majority of these (48) self-identified as transgender male, the remainder self-identified as transgender female, non-binary, in a different way[footnote 13] , or did not provide a response. Two hundred and forty-four (83%) were in male prisons. The majority of these (225) self-identified as transgender female, the remainder self-identified as transgender male, non-binary, in a different way, or did not provide a response.
....The figures reported in this bulletin give an estimate of the number of transgender prisoners and are likely to underestimate the true number.
A small prison would probably be about right for the whole pop.
We badly need birth sex for this. From memory, trans people with GRCs aren't recorded as trans in prison (I don't know if that's changed recently) and would not be included in this. Given the small size of the population it should be possible to identify people by going thru newspaper archives. It's traditional that small populations aren't named individually, but I don't see how incarceration can be anything other than public domain and there's no privacy assumption
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Yes, paying large amounts of money to keep able bodied people in enforced idleness for years on end in this manner is idiocy.
It doesn't suit anyone at all.
The migrants want to work. The taxpayer doesn't want to fund them unnecessarily. The locals don't want asylum hotels. The administrators are bogged down and unmotivated. The politicians get kicked out.
It should not be beyond the wit of mankind to change this.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Lord Filkin from 2002, minister responsible for the change:
"The asylum system is working increasingly quickly, through reforms and increased resources. Measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will continue this process. This means that the employment concession, whereby asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if their application remained outstanding for longer than six months without a decision being made, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The vast majority—around 80 per cent—of asylum seekers receive a decision within six months, and work is continuing to improve that further. An increasingly small number of people, Toggle showing location ofColumn WA 108therefore, are entitled to apply for the concession. It is also the case that the great majority of new asylum applicants will have their cases decided within two months and the concession, which dates from a time when lengthy delays were widespread in the asylum system, is therefore no longer appropriate.We are determined to make it clear that there is a distinct separation between asylum processes and labour migration channels."
In his favour at least was 80% processed within 6 months. That reached 5% under Boris.
Because Cameron, May and Bozo all reduced spending on processing to save money,
To be honest that’s not a 100% attack on the Tories as the cuts may have started earlier under Brown - I don’t think they did but I haven’t the evidence to categorically say the spending cuts started on x date
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Lord Filkin from 2002, minister responsible for the change:
"The asylum system is working increasingly quickly, through reforms and increased resources. Measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will continue this process. This means that the employment concession, whereby asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if their application remained outstanding for longer than six months without a decision being made, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The vast majority—around 80 per cent—of asylum seekers receive a decision within six months, and work is continuing to improve that further. An increasingly small number of people, Toggle showing location ofColumn WA 108therefore, are entitled to apply for the concession. It is also the case that the great majority of new asylum applicants will have their cases decided within two months and the concession, which dates from a time when lengthy delays were widespread in the asylum system, is therefore no longer appropriate.We are determined to make it clear that there is a distinct separation between asylum processes and labour migration channels."
In his favour at least was 80% processed within 6 months. That reached 5% under Boris.
Because Cameron, May and Bozo all reduced spending on processing to save money,
To be honest that’s not a 100% attack on the Tories as the cuts may have started earlier under Brown - I don’t think they did but I haven’t the evidence to categorically say the spending cuts started on x date
In 2014 it was 87% processed within 6 months. I highlighted Boris in particular as it is a combination of not just the budget cuts but also a lack of seriousness or interest in the detail and potential solutions.
Potential Farage voters may want to consider this. Probably not though.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Lord Filkin from 2002, minister responsible for the change:
"The asylum system is working increasingly quickly, through reforms and increased resources. Measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will continue this process. This means that the employment concession, whereby asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if their application remained outstanding for longer than six months without a decision being made, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The vast majority—around 80 per cent—of asylum seekers receive a decision within six months, and work is continuing to improve that further. An increasingly small number of people, Toggle showing location ofColumn WA 108therefore, are entitled to apply for the concession. It is also the case that the great majority of new asylum applicants will have their cases decided within two months and the concession, which dates from a time when lengthy delays were widespread in the asylum system, is therefore no longer appropriate.We are determined to make it clear that there is a distinct separation between asylum processes and labour migration channels."
In his favour at least was 80% processed within 6 months. That reached 5% under Boris.
Because Cameron, May and Bozo all reduced spending on processing to save money,
To be honest that’s not a 100% attack on the Tories as the cuts may have started earlier under Brown - I don’t think they did but I haven’t the evidence to categorically say the spending cuts started on x date
In 2014 it was 87% processed within 6 months. I highlighted Boris in particular as it is a combination of not just the budget cuts but also a lack of seriousness or interest in the detail and potential solutions.
Potential Farage voters may want to consider this. Probably not though.
The catch is that to process migrants is to acknowledge their existence. Or that, once they are on British soil, there are limits to what the British state can do. Plenty of voters don't really want to do that at all.
So Trump panics that he’ll look weak if his deadline is ignored so sends Whitkoff to meet Putin. I expect we’ll see some guff about constructive talks and Trump will then extend the deadline as Putin throws him a scrap.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Yes, paying large amounts of money to keep able bodied people in enforced idleness for years on end in this manner is idiocy.
It doesn't suit anyone at all.
The migrants want to work. The taxpayer doesn't want to fund them unnecessarily. The locals don't want asylum hotels. The administrators are bogged down and unmotivated. The politicians get kicked out.
It should not be beyond the wit of mankind to change this.
If you let asylum seekers work, then that is yet ANOTHER pull factor, and we will get even more boat people
This very very very very basic fact seems beyond the intellectual grasp of yourself, @Nigelb, @bondegezou, the usual midwit cuckoos
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Lord Filkin from 2002, minister responsible for the change:
"The asylum system is working increasingly quickly, through reforms and increased resources. Measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will continue this process. This means that the employment concession, whereby asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if their application remained outstanding for longer than six months without a decision being made, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The vast majority—around 80 per cent—of asylum seekers receive a decision within six months, and work is continuing to improve that further. An increasingly small number of people, Toggle showing location ofColumn WA 108therefore, are entitled to apply for the concession. It is also the case that the great majority of new asylum applicants will have their cases decided within two months and the concession, which dates from a time when lengthy delays were widespread in the asylum system, is therefore no longer appropriate.We are determined to make it clear that there is a distinct separation between asylum processes and labour migration channels."
In his favour at least was 80% processed within 6 months. That reached 5% under Boris.
Because Cameron, May and Bozo all reduced spending on processing to save money,
To be honest that’s not a 100% attack on the Tories as the cuts may have started earlier under Brown - I don’t think they did but I haven’t the evidence to categorically say the spending cuts started on x date
In 2014 it was 87% processed within 6 months. I highlighted Boris in particular as it is a combination of not just the budget cuts but also a lack of seriousness or interest in the detail and potential solutions.
Potential Farage voters may want to consider this. Probably not though.
How many of the cases are made more complicated because of an unfortunate incident where all ID, passports, documentation etc fell into the English channel mid way across?
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Yes, paying large amounts of money to keep able bodied people in enforced idleness for years on end in this manner is idiocy.
It doesn't suit anyone at all.
The migrants want to work. The taxpayer doesn't want to fund them unnecessarily. The locals don't want asylum hotels. The administrators are bogged down and unmotivated. The politicians get kicked out.
It should not be beyond the wit of mankind to change this.
If you let asylum seekers work, then that is yet ANOTHER pull factor, and we will get even more boat people
This very very very very basic fact seems beyond the intellectual grasp of yourself, @Nigelb, @bondegezou, the usual midwit cuckoos
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Yes, paying large amounts of money to keep able bodied people in enforced idleness for years on end in this manner is idiocy.
It doesn't suit anyone at all.
The migrants want to work. The taxpayer doesn't want to fund them unnecessarily. The locals don't want asylum hotels. The administrators are bogged down and unmotivated. The politicians get kicked out.
It should not be beyond the wit of mankind to change this.
If you let asylum seekers work, then that is yet ANOTHER pull factor, and we will get even more boat people
This very very very very basic fact seems beyond the intellectual grasp of yourself, @Nigelb, @bondegezou, the usual midwit cuckoos
That would depend entirely upon the conditions that government sets. Another very, very basic point.
Go and read the text of the treaty, if you want to do something useful.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Yes, paying large amounts of money to keep able bodied people in enforced idleness for years on end in this manner is idiocy.
It doesn't suit anyone at all.
The migrants want to work. The taxpayer doesn't want to fund them unnecessarily. The locals don't want asylum hotels. The administrators are bogged down and unmotivated. The politicians get kicked out.
It should not be beyond the wit of mankind to change this.
If you let asylum seekers work, then that is yet ANOTHER pull factor, and we will get even more boat people
This very very very very basic fact seems beyond the intellectual grasp of yourself, @Nigelb, @bondegezou, the usual midwit cuckoos
That would depend entirely upon the conditions that government sets. Another very, very basic point.
Go and read the text of the treaty, if you want to do something useful.
They're not going to be working for nothing. Therefore they will be working for something. They will have paid employment. A massive pull factor - as Macron has pointed out
For those interested in the pharma industry (which ought to be anyone with a real interest in the economy), this is a very good piece of history from the last couple of decades.
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Lord Filkin from 2002, minister responsible for the change:
"The asylum system is working increasingly quickly, through reforms and increased resources. Measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will continue this process. This means that the employment concession, whereby asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if their application remained outstanding for longer than six months without a decision being made, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The vast majority—around 80 per cent—of asylum seekers receive a decision within six months, and work is continuing to improve that further. An increasingly small number of people, Toggle showing location ofColumn WA 108therefore, are entitled to apply for the concession. It is also the case that the great majority of new asylum applicants will have their cases decided within two months and the concession, which dates from a time when lengthy delays were widespread in the asylum system, is therefore no longer appropriate.We are determined to make it clear that there is a distinct separation between asylum processes and labour migration channels."
In his favour at least was 80% processed within 6 months. That reached 5% under Boris.
Because Cameron, May and Bozo all reduced spending on processing to save money,
To be honest that’s not a 100% attack on the Tories as the cuts may have started earlier under Brown - I don’t think they did but I haven’t the evidence to categorically say the spending cuts started on x date
In 2014 it was 87% processed within 6 months. I highlighted Boris in particular as it is a combination of not just the budget cuts but also a lack of seriousness or interest in the detail and potential solutions.
Potential Farage voters may want to consider this. Probably not though.
How many of the cases are made more complicated because of an unfortunate incident where all ID, passports, documentation etc fell into the English channel mid way across?
If there is a persistent and ongoing issue, it is up to the government of the day to fix it. Not just moan about it to the press.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Lord Filkin from 2002, minister responsible for the change:
"The asylum system is working increasingly quickly, through reforms and increased resources. Measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will continue this process. This means that the employment concession, whereby asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if their application remained outstanding for longer than six months without a decision being made, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The vast majority—around 80 per cent—of asylum seekers receive a decision within six months, and work is continuing to improve that further. An increasingly small number of people, Toggle showing location ofColumn WA 108therefore, are entitled to apply for the concession. It is also the case that the great majority of new asylum applicants will have their cases decided within two months and the concession, which dates from a time when lengthy delays were widespread in the asylum system, is therefore no longer appropriate.We are determined to make it clear that there is a distinct separation between asylum processes and labour migration channels."
In his favour at least was 80% processed within 6 months. That reached 5% under Boris.
Because Cameron, May and Bozo all reduced spending on processing to save money,
To be honest that’s not a 100% attack on the Tories as the cuts may have started earlier under Brown - I don’t think they did but I haven’t the evidence to categorically say the spending cuts started on x date
In 2014 it was 87% processed within 6 months. I highlighted Boris in particular as it is a combination of not just the budget cuts but also a lack of seriousness or interest in the detail and potential solutions.
Potential Farage voters may want to consider this. Probably not though.
How many of the cases are made more complicated because of an unfortunate incident where all ID, passports, documentation etc fell into the English channel mid way across?
If there is a persistent and ongoing issue, it is up to the government of the day to fix it. Not just moan about it to the press.
Just asking a question. I suspect some of the cases are quite hard because of issues like this.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Yes, paying large amounts of money to keep able bodied people in enforced idleness for years on end in this manner is idiocy.
It doesn't suit anyone at all.
The migrants want to work. The taxpayer doesn't want to fund them unnecessarily. The locals don't want asylum hotels. The administrators are bogged down and unmotivated. The politicians get kicked out.
It should not be beyond the wit of mankind to change this.
If you let asylum seekers work, then that is yet ANOTHER pull factor, and we will get even more boat people
This very very very very basic fact seems beyond the intellectual grasp of yourself, @Nigelb, @bondegezou, the usual midwit cuckoos
That would depend entirely upon the conditions that government sets. Another very, very basic point.
Go and read the text of the treaty, if you want to do something useful.
They're not going to be working for nothing. Therefore they will be working for something. They will have paid employment. A massive pull factor - as Macron has pointed out
Go away and do Basic Logic
I thought you believed the pull factor was free accommodation in luxury 4 star hotels not a bit of honest graft? Make your mind up man.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Lord Filkin from 2002, minister responsible for the change:
"The asylum system is working increasingly quickly, through reforms and increased resources. Measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will continue this process. This means that the employment concession, whereby asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if their application remained outstanding for longer than six months without a decision being made, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The vast majority—around 80 per cent—of asylum seekers receive a decision within six months, and work is continuing to improve that further. An increasingly small number of people, Toggle showing location ofColumn WA 108therefore, are entitled to apply for the concession. It is also the case that the great majority of new asylum applicants will have their cases decided within two months and the concession, which dates from a time when lengthy delays were widespread in the asylum system, is therefore no longer appropriate.We are determined to make it clear that there is a distinct separation between asylum processes and labour migration channels."
In his favour at least was 80% processed within 6 months. That reached 5% under Boris.
Because Cameron, May and Bozo all reduced spending on processing to save money,
To be honest that’s not a 100% attack on the Tories as the cuts may have started earlier under Brown - I don’t think they did but I haven’t the evidence to categorically say the spending cuts started on x date
In 2014 it was 87% processed within 6 months. I highlighted Boris in particular as it is a combination of not just the budget cuts but also a lack of seriousness or interest in the detail and potential solutions.
Potential Farage voters may want to consider this. Probably not though.
How many of the cases are made more complicated because of an unfortunate incident where all ID, passports, documentation etc fell into the English channel mid way across?
If there is a persistent and ongoing issue, it is up to the government of the day to fix it. Not just moan about it to the press.
Just asking a question. I suspect some of the cases are quite hard because of issues like this.
Sure, but if that is the problem the government should set up rules to deal with it, not let cases drift to 3 or 4 years whilst spending their energy moaning about it rather than fixing it.
That requires serious politicians unlike Boris or Farage.
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Nice anti-immigrant tirade.
Not all immigrants are brown, black or muslim.
Do you really think that it is only bad to rant about “brown, black or muslim” immigrants?
What about other colours? What about “No Irish”? “No Poles”?
And these days, rich Londoners are *unlikely* to be English.
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Well they would but it is overwhelmingly legal migration. Boat people are a very small proportion. You have to separate out the invited (large majority) from the uninvited (small) and the overstayers (unknown as we don't have the controls). The large number of EU that we here have gone home as there are better prospects.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Lord Filkin from 2002, minister responsible for the change:
"The asylum system is working increasingly quickly, through reforms and increased resources. Measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will continue this process. This means that the employment concession, whereby asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if their application remained outstanding for longer than six months without a decision being made, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The vast majority—around 80 per cent—of asylum seekers receive a decision within six months, and work is continuing to improve that further. An increasingly small number of people, Toggle showing location ofColumn WA 108therefore, are entitled to apply for the concession. It is also the case that the great majority of new asylum applicants will have their cases decided within two months and the concession, which dates from a time when lengthy delays were widespread in the asylum system, is therefore no longer appropriate.We are determined to make it clear that there is a distinct separation between asylum processes and labour migration channels."
In his favour at least was 80% processed within 6 months. That reached 5% under Boris.
Because Cameron, May and Bozo all reduced spending on processing to save money,
To be honest that’s not a 100% attack on the Tories as the cuts may have started earlier under Brown - I don’t think they did but I haven’t the evidence to categorically say the spending cuts started on x date
In 2014 it was 87% processed within 6 months. I highlighted Boris in particular as it is a combination of not just the budget cuts but also a lack of seriousness or interest in the detail and potential solutions.
Potential Farage voters may want to consider this. Probably not though.
How many of the cases are made more complicated because of an unfortunate incident where all ID, passports, documentation etc fell into the English channel mid way across?
If there is a persistent and ongoing issue, it is up to the government of the day to fix it. Not just moan about it to the press.
Just asking a question. I suspect some of the cases are quite hard because of issues like this.
The destruction (or claimed loss) of documents has been a tactic used for decades.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Yes, paying large amounts of money to keep able bodied people in enforced idleness for years on end in this manner is idiocy.
It doesn't suit anyone at all.
The migrants want to work. The taxpayer doesn't want to fund them unnecessarily. The locals don't want asylum hotels. The administrators are bogged down and unmotivated. The politicians get kicked out.
It should not be beyond the wit of mankind to change this.
If you let asylum seekers work, then that is yet ANOTHER pull factor, and we will get even more boat people
This very very very very basic fact seems beyond the intellectual grasp of yourself, @Nigelb, @bondegezou, the usual midwit cuckoos
That would depend entirely upon the conditions that government sets. Another very, very basic point.
Go and read the text of the treaty, if you want to do something useful.
They're not going to be working for nothing. Therefore they will be working for something. They will have paid employment. A massive pull factor - as Macron has pointed out
Go away and do Basic Logic
They are currently paid to do nothing, and housed at great expense, as you have noticed.
The most significant pull factor is not those that we know about, and whose immigration claims we are processing while we detain them. It is the likely very large number working below the radar of the authorities.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Yes, paying large amounts of money to keep able bodied people in enforced idleness for years on end in this manner is idiocy.
It doesn't suit anyone at all.
The migrants want to work. The taxpayer doesn't want to fund them unnecessarily. The locals don't want asylum hotels. The administrators are bogged down and unmotivated. The politicians get kicked out.
It should not be beyond the wit of mankind to change this.
If you let asylum seekers work, then that is yet ANOTHER pull factor, and we will get even more boat people
This very very very very basic fact seems beyond the intellectual grasp of yourself, @Nigelb, @bondegezou, the usual midwit cuckoos
That would depend entirely upon the conditions that government sets. Another very, very basic point.
Go and read the text of the treaty, if you want to do something useful.
They're not going to be working for nothing. Therefore they will be working for something. They will have paid employment. A massive pull factor - as Macron has pointed out
Go away and do Basic Logic
I thought you believed the pull factor was free accommodation in luxury 4 star hotels not a bit of honest graft? Make your mind up man.
Er, it can be more than one thing. Or are certain things only ever caused by one thing, in your ridiculous micro-brain?
Manny Macron made it helpfully plain to us when he did his Ritual Humiliation of Starmer, sorry, state visit to the UK. ie he pointed out, lucidly, the pull factors that drag so many of these chancers to the UK
Some of them we cannot do much about - the English language, the presence of ethnic/family networks already in the UK
But there are things we can do something about, and he named them:
The lavish hospitality we lay on, in four star hotels, free driving lessons, trips to the movies, etc
The instant access to the NHS, dentistry, everything, arguably better access than taxpaying Britons get
The ability to work. Macron was talking about the way, in our ID-less country, these people can easily get black economy cash jobs with Deliveroo, Uber. This is a huge draw, because if you are working AND living for free in a hotel that is an extremely pleasing prospect
If you make it easy for these people to work in the real economy that simply increases the attraction of the UK, on top of everything else. Go there illegally, claim asylum, and immediately you get the right to work?! - unlike people who try and immigrate LEGALLY. Only morons would suggest this
The answer to all this is to accept reality. Abolish asylum protection and institute some kind of Rwanda deal. No one who comes here on a boat can expect to stay, you will all go home, or to some god forsaken island. That's it. The boats would stop within a week
Just as the British have to accept we are no longer rich, and must pay our way, so we must accept that the wet dreams of liberals can no longer be afforded. No, we cannot host 500 million illegal migrants and expect our public services to function as normal
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Well they would but it is overwhelmingly legal migration. Boat people are a very small proportion. You have to separate out the invited (large majority) from the uninvited (small) and the overstayers (unknown as we don't have the controls). The large number of EU that we here have gone home as there are better prospects.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Well they would but it is overwhelmingly legal migration. Boat people are a very small proportion. You have to separate out the invited (large majority) from the uninvited (small) and the overstayers (unknown as we don't have the controls). The large number of EU that we here have gone home as there are better prospects.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
I cannot understand why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work pending a decision. Some of them have skills we need. A positive work ethic would be a factor in deciding whether they should stay. A win win, surely.
Anecdote alert. Earlier this year I spoke to a homeless guy in Blackpool (I had given him a tenner). He said that asylum seekers should be expected to work and have their benefits stopped and made homeless like he was if they didn't.
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Well they would but it is overwhelmingly legal migration. Boat people are a very small proportion. You have to separate out the invited (large majority) from the uninvited (small) and the overstayers (unknown as we don't have the controls). The large number of EU that we here have gone home as there are better prospects.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
Of course. And it is their incompetence which created the crisis in the first place by allowing the system assessing immigrants to grind to a halt creating huge backlogs and, of course, full hotels. In fairness I thought Angela Eagles was quite good about that on the Today program on Monday.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
It is not the Home Office but the governments.
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
Yes, paying large amounts of money to keep able bodied people in enforced idleness for years on end in this manner is idiocy.
It doesn't suit anyone at all.
The migrants want to work. The taxpayer doesn't want to fund them unnecessarily. The locals don't want asylum hotels. The administrators are bogged down and unmotivated. The politicians get kicked out.
It should not be beyond the wit of mankind to change this.
If you let asylum seekers work, then that is yet ANOTHER pull factor, and we will get even more boat people
This very very very very basic fact seems beyond the intellectual grasp of yourself, @Nigelb, @bondegezou, the usual midwit cuckoos
That would depend entirely upon the conditions that government sets. Another very, very basic point.
Go and read the text of the treaty, if you want to do something useful.
They're not going to be working for nothing. Therefore they will be working for something. They will have paid employment. A massive pull factor - as Macron has pointed out
Go away and do Basic Logic
I thought you believed the pull factor was free accommodation in luxury 4 star hotels not a bit of honest graft? Make your mind up man.
County cricket coach banned for sending pictures of his genitals to female colleague
Coach has been dismissed by the county because of his conduct and has not worked in cricket since
A county coach has been banned from cricket for nine months for inappropriate sexual behaviour, including sending three pictures of his genitals to a more junior colleague.
The Cricket Regulator announced on Wednesday morning that the independent Cricket Discipline Panel (CDP) had banned the unnamed coach for nine months – three of them suspended – and ordered him to complete an education course after he was found guilty of misconduct.
The CDP is regularly choosing not to name those it finds guilty, and on this occasion its statement said: “Due to exceptional circumstances regarding the health of that coach and the serious risk of harm identified if his name was to be published, his name has been redacted.”
The full judgement revealed the coach had “two separate victims in the summer of 2023 and early 2024”. He was found guilty of sending a photo of his penis as well as attempting to kiss a junior member of staff.
It said: “He engaged in inappropriate and sexualised messaging, including sending images of his erect penis, to more junior female members of staff at a CCC [county cricket club]. On one occasion he attempted to kiss one of the more junior members of staff.”
It added that his second victim was “much younger than the Respondent and he occupied a far more senior position than she did at a CCC”, adding that she “had to interact with the Respondent because of her work”.
He sent her a picture of his erect penis, which she did not respond to. “A few days later the Respondent sent two further pictures of his erect penis,” read the judgement.
It continued: “The Respondent asked Victim 2 to check the changing rooms to see if any rubbish was left. Whilst in the changing room the Respondent made an inappropriate attempt to kiss Victim 2, who pulled away.”
The first victim, according to the judgement, had a “particular vulnerability” that the coach knew about. He sent her “inappropriate and sexualised messaging”, including “a photo of his erect penis under clothing”. She asked him to stop, but he sent “a further message of a sexualised and inappropriate nature” a few days later.
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Well they would but it is overwhelmingly legal migration. Boat people are a very small proportion. You have to separate out the invited (large majority) from the uninvited (small) and the overstayers (unknown as we don't have the controls). The large number of EU that we here have gone home as there are better prospects.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
Most of the public thinks immigration is too high, whether that's legal or illegal, or whatever combination of the two it might be.
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Well they would but it is overwhelmingly legal migration. Boat people are a very small proportion. You have to separate out the invited (large majority) from the uninvited (small) and the overstayers (unknown as we don't have the controls). The large number of EU that we here have gone home as there are better prospects.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
Hmm. How many of those you class as 'invited' are actually invited? And how many are here only because we're so desperately poor at keeping them out? The tent cities of people in Manchester City Centre are immigrants who are now technically here legally - having been granted leave to remain - but it would be stretching a definition to call them 'invited'.
Almost nobody has a problem with immigrants we've actually invited. Engineers from America. Doctors from India. Skilled workers from Hong Kong. These people are, to a large extent, invisible to the naked eye as immigrants. Culturally at least, they Look Like Us. But there are a lot of technically 'legal' immigrants who don't fall into that category.
County cricket coach banned for sending pictures of his genitals to female colleague
Coach has been dismissed by the county because of his conduct and has not worked in cricket since
A county coach has been banned from cricket for nine months for inappropriate sexual behaviour, including sending three pictures of his genitals to a more junior colleague.
The Cricket Regulator announced on Wednesday morning that the independent Cricket Discipline Panel (CDP) had banned the unnamed coach for nine months – three of them suspended – and ordered him to complete an education course after he was found guilty of misconduct.
The CDP is regularly choosing not to name those it finds guilty, and on this occasion its statement said: “Due to exceptional circumstances regarding the health of that coach and the serious risk of harm identified if his name was to be published, his name has been redacted.”
The full judgement revealed the coach had “two separate victims in the summer of 2023 and early 2024”. He was found guilty of sending a photo of his penis as well as attempting to kiss a junior member of staff.
It said: “He engaged in inappropriate and sexualised messaging, including sending images of his erect penis, to more junior female members of staff at a CCC [county cricket club]. On one occasion he attempted to kiss one of the more junior members of staff.”
It added that his second victim was “much younger than the Respondent and he occupied a far more senior position than she did at a CCC”, adding that she “had to interact with the Respondent because of her work”.
He sent her a picture of his erect penis, which she did not respond to. “A few days later the Respondent sent two further pictures of his erect penis,” read the judgement.
It continued: “The Respondent asked Victim 2 to check the changing rooms to see if any rubbish was left. Whilst in the changing room the Respondent made an inappropriate attempt to kiss Victim 2, who pulled away.”
The first victim, according to the judgement, had a “particular vulnerability” that the coach knew about. He sent her “inappropriate and sexualised messaging”, including “a photo of his erect penis under clothing”. She asked him to stop, but he sent “a further message of a sexualised and inappropriate nature” a few days later.
County cricket coach banned for sending pictures of his genitals to female colleague
Coach has been dismissed by the county because of his conduct and has not worked in cricket since
A county coach has been banned from cricket for nine months for inappropriate sexual behaviour, including sending three pictures of his genitals to a more junior colleague.
The Cricket Regulator announced on Wednesday morning that the independent Cricket Discipline Panel (CDP) had banned the unnamed coach for nine months – three of them suspended – and ordered him to complete an education course after he was found guilty of misconduct.
The CDP is regularly choosing not to name those it finds guilty, and on this occasion its statement said: “Due to exceptional circumstances regarding the health of that coach and the serious risk of harm identified if his name was to be published, his name has been redacted.”
The full judgement revealed the coach had “two separate victims in the summer of 2023 and early 2024”. He was found guilty of sending a photo of his penis as well as attempting to kiss a junior member of staff.
It said: “He engaged in inappropriate and sexualised messaging, including sending images of his erect penis, to more junior female members of staff at a CCC [county cricket club]. On one occasion he attempted to kiss one of the more junior members of staff.”
It added that his second victim was “much younger than the Respondent and he occupied a far more senior position than she did at a CCC”, adding that she “had to interact with the Respondent because of her work”.
He sent her a picture of his erect penis, which she did not respond to. “A few days later the Respondent sent two further pictures of his erect penis,” read the judgement.
It continued: “The Respondent asked Victim 2 to check the changing rooms to see if any rubbish was left. Whilst in the changing room the Respondent made an inappropriate attempt to kiss Victim 2, who pulled away.”
The first victim, according to the judgement, had a “particular vulnerability” that the coach knew about. He sent her “inappropriate and sexualised messaging”, including “a photo of his erect penis under clothing”. She asked him to stop, but he sent “a further message of a sexualised and inappropriate nature” a few days later.
Given there is only one person it could actually be on those timeframes, the anonymisation seems rather an odd decision.
I don't know who it is, good job it wasn't player or the rumour mill might have led to calls for de kock out.
Well, I'm obviously not going to name him, or even make the pun on his name that I could here, but it wasn't very hard to work it out. If they had just said 2023 there would have been several possibilities,* but if he was in post in 2024 and not since we're down to one.
*County coaches seem to be a funny lot, and that's before we even mention Dale Benkenstein who makes Ferrari's strategists look like Gary Kasparov.
For those interested in the pharma industry (which ought to be anyone with a real interest in the economy), this is a very good piece of history from the last couple of decades.
Europe had a biopharma equivalent of Bell Labs. Sadly no more.
Interesting. I worked in a relatively senior position in Novartis up to 1997 and knew Vasella a bit - he was seen as determined and effective but not especially revolutionary. In principle I don't see from the article why in-house research should automatically be better than buying in the most successful external research (which will always be vastly larger than any one company), though it's obviously more satisfying to choose the research lines internally. What am I missing?
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Well they would but it is overwhelmingly legal migration. Boat people are a very small proportion. You have to separate out the invited (large majority) from the uninvited (small) and the overstayers (unknown as we don't have the controls). The large number of EU that we here have gone home as there are better prospects.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
Most of the public thinks immigration is too high, whether that's legal or illegal, or whatever combination of the two it might be.
Most of the public massively overestimate how much immigration is illegal. When asked about specific categories of migration, like students or family reunion or Ukrainian refugees, the public is generally supportive.
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Well they would but it is overwhelmingly legal migration. Boat people are a very small proportion. You have to separate out the invited (large majority) from the uninvited (small) and the overstayers (unknown as we don't have the controls). The large number of EU that we here have gone home as there are better prospects.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
Most of the public thinks immigration is too high, whether that's legal or illegal, or whatever combination of the two it might be.
It is the perception that immigration is too high which is now ingrained in public opinion, and the public want it stopped now no matter how much politicians try to reason about stats or legal and illegal immigration
James Anderson's first Test match for England was against Zimbabwe at Lord's on May 22, 2003. He took a five-wicket haul (5/73) in that match, including his first Test wicket.
Next test was Richard Johnson's debut where he took a fantastic 6/33, wonder what became of him.
James Anderson's first Test match for England was against Zimbabwe at Lord's on May 22, 2003. He took a five-wicket haul (5/73) in that match, including his first Test wicket.
Next test was Richard Johnson's debut where he took a fantastic 6/33, wonder what became of him.
He became a coach and was sacked for poor performance a short while ago. Poor performance not appearing to be a problem for a different coach in another area...
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Well they would but it is overwhelmingly legal migration. Boat people are a very small proportion. You have to separate out the invited (large majority) from the uninvited (small) and the overstayers (unknown as we don't have the controls). The large number of EU that we here have gone home as there are better prospects.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
Most of the public thinks immigration is too high, whether that's legal or illegal, or whatever combination of the two it might be.
Most of the public massively overestimate how much immigration is illegal. When asked about specific categories of migration, like students or family reunion or Ukrainian refugees, the public is generally supportive.
Whether the public massively overestimate how much is illegal, it simply has become the perception, and no number of arguments are going to change that perception until legal migration is greatly reduced and the boats stopped
This YouGov graph also gives the lie to the bed wetting centrist dad PBers who say I go on about immigration too much
I’m the one in tune with the British people, who now make it their number one concern. Not the pb centrist dorks
You certainly go on about Reform too much. We get it, you regret voting for Starmer, but mentioning Reform and their electoral chances 43 times a day won't wipe that stain from your already motley record.
I’ll stop talking about reform if you stop talking about Scottish politics
Lol, you talk about Scottish politics more than I do! All low information cliché in your case, but to be scrupulously affair you don’t limit that to just that subject.
Further details of the Anglo-French migrants deal, this time from The Guardian
▪️ The UK pays all transport and admin costs, both directions.
▪️ France can veto any migrant we want to return, no reason required.
▪️ We can’t cross-check fingerprints of the ones they send, and they won’t run Eurodac checks for us.
▪️ We must process removals within 14 days of arrival or we lose the right to remove them.
▪️ Only around 50 migrants a week can be returned about 5% of weekly crossings.
▪️ Migrants can block their return using human rights appeals.
▪️ We can’t return those citing vague “public interest” concerns.
▪️ The UK MUST accept asylum seekers France chooses, with no independent vetting.
There are several conditions there that teeter on the edge of acceptability but the last is an Exocet missile. No rational government should ever have agreed to that. The challenge of producing something even more stupid than Rwanda was not a minor one but it appears the Home Office was once again up to it.
It is the Home Office who are processing the claims and making decisions.
It’s not the basic numbers that are really eye-opening (tho they are eye-opening), it’s the relentless rise of immigration as a major issue. It’s the purple line on the graph
Look at it. Unlike every other issue it has only one direction (absent brief glitches): upwards. It slowly and relentlessly ascends from 2022 (mid 20%) to 2025 (mid 50%). Is there any reason to believe this will stop?
I don’t think so because even if immigration finishes overnight and the boats all cease (not going to happen) there are ALREADY enough migrants here for concern to simply keep growing. It’s now baked in
And of course Labour won’t stop migration and won’t stop the boats
On this trajectory immigration will be overwhelmingly the biggest concern in a few years. Absolutely dominant. Perfect timing for Farage. If he avoids getting run over (etc) he is odds-on to be the next prime minister
The power of the media, both traditional and social. The majority of people aren’t affected by immigration. They are just bombarded with information about those who are.
Anyone who uses the NHS, or public transport, or worries about crime, or attempts to buy a house, or seeks a good school for their kids, or pays taxes to keep asylum seekers in 4 star hotels, etc etc - is affected by immigration. In other words: all of us
I’m not. I don’t give a fuck about Londoners. When you stop sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the country, I might start to care. Those of us in more rural communities suffer from London immigrants buying up our property and making them unaffordable for locals.
Why do you think Londoners move out?
Because this is what you can buy in Scotland for the price of a 2 bedroom flat in Camden.
Which is because of immigration.
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
Trust me, they have noticed immigration in Cornwall
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
Well they would but it is overwhelmingly legal migration. Boat people are a very small proportion. You have to separate out the invited (large majority) from the uninvited (small) and the overstayers (unknown as we don't have the controls). The large number of EU that we here have gone home as there are better prospects.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
Most of the public thinks immigration is too high, whether that's legal or illegal, or whatever combination of the two it might be.
Most of the public massively overestimate how much immigration is illegal. When asked about specific categories of migration, like students or family reunion or Ukrainian refugees, the public is generally supportive.
Whether the public massively overestimate how much is illegal, it simply has become the perception, and no number of arguments are going to change that perception until legal migration is greatly reduced and the boats stopped
Damn hard to fight against a perception that is more perception than reality. How do you fix a problem that is very largely (not completely, but very largely) imagined?
The naive idealistic answer is to push back against rabble-rousing liars, by calling them that to their face. I fully get why nobody wants to be the first to do that.
There was a time when those of us concerned about Government borrowing were slapped down by Government supporters (now Opposition supporters) who asserted borrowing was fine and we could just keep doing it.
£50 billion by 2028/9 isn't quite as bad as it sounds and it'll be easy for some to think that means £50 billion of tax rises now which it doesn't.
Again, we come back to the questions which have afflicted us since 2008 - to reduce the deficit and reduce borrowing, what do we do? Do we raise taxes, do we cut spending? Do we do both? If we do the former, which taxes do we raise? If we do the latter, which areas of public spending do we cut and what will be the impact of both the tax rises and the spending cuts?
Rather like the "boats", plenty of complaining and plenty pointing out the problem but little in the way of practical, workable and coherent solutions. I do think Starmer and Reeves were unwise in ruling out changes to Income Tax and VAT before the election - that was boxing themselves into a corner for no reason.
You’re quite right. The Ming vase strategy was an error. They’re also unwise ruling out reform to The Triple Lock and the public sector pensions that are unfunded.
The ghost of Theresa May's 2017 campaign would beg to differ.
The problem with Theresa May's 2017 campaign was not social care but that Lynton Crosby had apparently not been told there was a new leader so crafted the campaign for David Cameron – confident in front of crowds and the camera, with no support from a sidelined Cabinet.
What killed the Conservative majority in 2017 was the two terrorist outrages during the campaign itself, alongside insistence that Tory police cuts had made no difference. Suddenly Labour was the party of Law and Order.
And parroting Crosby's slogan ‘strong and stable’ does not work when you are neither.
I will go to my grave insisting that the terrorist outrages had little effect on the polls in 2017. If you look at the trend line across all polls it looks like there was an effect, but if you ignore the trend line and compare by polling company before-and-after you'll see it's an artefact.
My memory is that the Grande attack happened just as it became clear the dementia tax position was untenable. I was fully expecting a reverse ferret to defuse the issue. But Grande paused all campaigning for a week and what was a saveable situation ossified into catastrophe for the Tories.
One of the most bizarre political phenomenon of my lifetime. According to the polls, Theresa was set to win one of biggest democratic mandates in global political history, yet it all imploded because of a welfare policy that probably hardly anyone had understood or even read. Was that policy really the reason or were those polling leads a chimera? Many of us will recall David Herdson's electrifying canvassing report on PB that night, when he described the mood on the doorstep going from enthusiastic to utter blackness in a matter of days.
I remember 2017 election night coverage. I was in my weekday digs. I had Doritos. Everybody on PB pooed themselves when the exit poll came out. Except me, because based on the YouGov MRP I had bet Con most seats, not Con maj. Some PBers were in despair until the Scottish results came in, where the blues performed better than expected.
When Alastair Meeks (ex of this parish) posted "Jeremy Corbyn should now be favourite for Next Prime Minister" I almost had a coronary.
Comments
My town is quite a popular location where there are incoming people looking for land but even here there are two dead houses down my road.
If any of you picked Anne Widdecombe, well congrats: https://x.com/tomhfh/status/1953045804773523832#m
Then, everything began to fall apart, as the Conservatives ran an atrocious campaign, and Jeremy Corbyn proved a far better campaigner than anyone thought he was.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14975177/Virgin-Atlantic-passenger-threatens-stewardess-vile-tirade.html
There's a video on several news sites. But don't watch it, or read the article, because I would draw PB's attention to this detail: Iftikhar was finally arrested ... on March 16, 2024, more than a year on from the vile outburst.
There's a video. How the flip does it take over a year to arrest the guy? And come to think of it, wasn't 2024 last year?
And if the police can't act in a reasonable time, why doesn't the airline launch private prosecutions, like betting shops did?
Even Labour might back PR if Reform look likely to win a clear majority on just 30%+ of the vote
The last PMs we had who were reasonably competent leading a government and effective election campaigners were Cameron and Blair
WTF was he thinking.
Eighty-four of the 123 public and private prisons (68%) in England and Wales said that they had one or more transgender prisoners on 31st March 2024. Of the 295 transgender prisoners:
Fifty-one (17%) were in female prisons. The majority of these (48) self-identified as transgender male, the remainder self-identified as transgender female, non-binary, in a different way[footnote 13] , or did not provide a response.
Two hundred and forty-four (83%) were in male prisons. The majority of these (225) self-identified as transgender female, the remainder self-identified as transgender male, non-binary, in a different way, or did not provide a response.
....The figures reported in this bulletin give an estimate of the number of transgender prisoners and are likely to underestimate the true number.
A small prison would probably be about right for the whole pop.
PR is like Brexit. It is such a constitutional change I feel it could only be done by explicit manifesto pledge or a referendum - I'm not even sure explicit manifesto pledge would be enough. It wasn't in Labour's manifesto and they won't feel confident enough to win a referendum so it'll just get quietly shelved.
Stupidly long campaign that everyone had utterly had enough of by voting day. Allowing the campaign to straddle the locals and the complacency it engendered in the Tory vote was insane.
Unnecessary elections are a bad idea.
Nobody has confirmed to me that these virgins are female.
He was not as good a campaigner as Boris but a more competent PM than Boris
this has betting and politics implications.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-france-treaty-targeting-illegal-crossings-comes-into-force
If they want it then now is probably the time
Imagine you have a tray of sand. You can't say 'we'll just put the additional sand in one small place'; the sand will spread out throughout the tray (though here the analogy falls down because it's the sand which was there in the first place which spreads out to the rest of the tray). Immigration of foreigners into London increases the pressure on local services in Northumberland because Londoners move out of London in response to immigration. You can't just say 'well we're not affected by immigration around here'. Everyone is.
That said, I have just come back from a week in Cornwall and it was quite startling how British it was compared to Greater Manchester. So I understand why some don't necessarily perceive it yet. You realise that's what Greater Manchester (the outer bits of it, anyway) used to be like back in the 80s and 90s, and suddenly realise how much it has changed. In fact, I remember the first time I overheard a language other than English spoken on the bus and what a surprise it was - and that was only 20 years ago. The scale of change to the British population over the last three decades has been astonishing.
The combination of restrictions on asylum seekers, including the ability not to work, along with those delays creates an underclass of bored young men looking for trouble. Who could possibly have foreseen such a thing?
County cricket coach banned for sending pictures of his genitals to female colleague
Coach has been dismissed by the county because of his conduct and has not worked in cricket since
A county coach has been banned from cricket for nine months for inappropriate sexual behaviour, including sending three pictures of his genitals to a more junior colleague.
The Cricket Regulator announced on Wednesday morning that the independent Cricket Discipline Panel (CDP) had banned the unnamed coach for nine months – three of them suspended – and ordered him to complete an education course after he was found guilty of misconduct.
The CDP is regularly choosing not to name those it finds guilty, and on this occasion its statement said: “Due to exceptional circumstances regarding the health of that coach and the serious risk of harm identified if his name was to be published, his name has been redacted.”
The full judgement revealed the coach had “two separate victims in the summer of 2023 and early 2024”. He was found guilty of sending a photo of his penis as well as attempting to kiss a junior member of staff.
It said: “He engaged in inappropriate and sexualised messaging, including sending images of his erect penis, to more junior female members of staff at a CCC [county cricket club]. On one occasion he attempted to kiss one of the more junior members of staff.”
It added that his second victim was “much younger than the Respondent and he occupied a far more senior position than she did at a CCC”, adding that she “had to interact with the Respondent because of her work”.
He sent her a picture of his erect penis, which she did not respond to. “A few days later the Respondent sent two further pictures of his erect penis,” read the judgement.
It continued: “The Respondent asked Victim 2 to check the changing rooms to see if any rubbish was left. Whilst in the changing room the Respondent made an inappropriate attempt to kiss Victim 2, who pulled away.”
The first victim, according to the judgement, had a “particular vulnerability” that the coach knew about. He sent her “inappropriate and sexualised messaging”, including “a photo of his erect penis under clothing”. She asked him to stop, but he sent “a further message of a sexualised and inappropriate nature” a few days later.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2025/08/06/county-cricket-coach-banned-for-sending-explicit-pictures/
Dismay as north of England universities miss out on share of £54m talent fund
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/06/north-of-england-universities-miss-out-talent-fund
Labour in 2002 decided asylum seekers cannot work. The Tories in 2021 reviewed this and concurred with it.
Note there is actually an exemption after 1 year when certain jobs can be applied for. That should be brought down to maybe 2 months, and we should process 90% of claims within 2 months. Build out whatever processes and resources are needed for that to happen.
@TheCricketerMag
Brydon Carse has pulled out of The Hundred, citing workload management |
@GeorgeDobell1
No doubt David can give us the benefit of his judicial expertise.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68909bb2486754ec288783c2/CS_France_2.2025_Dangerous_Journeys_Agreement.pdf
https://conservativehome.com/2025/07/15/nigel-evans-it-might-be-time-to-think-the-unthinkable-about-our-electoral-system/
https://x.com/classicbritcom/status/1953075465138135347?s=61
"The asylum system is working increasingly quickly, through reforms and increased resources. Measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will continue this process. This means that the employment concession, whereby asylum seekers could apply for permission to work if their application remained outstanding for longer than six months without a decision being made, is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The vast majority—around 80 per cent—of asylum seekers receive a decision within six months, and work is continuing to improve that further. An increasingly small number of people, Toggle showing location ofColumn WA 108therefore, are entitled to apply for the concession. It is also the case that the great majority of new asylum applicants will have their cases decided within two months and the concession, which dates from a time when lengthy delays were widespread in the asylum system, is therefore no longer appropriate.We are determined to make it clear that there is a distinct separation between asylum processes and labour migration channels."
In his favour at least was 80% processed within 6 months. That reached 5% under Boris.
The migrants want to work.
The taxpayer doesn't want to fund them unnecessarily.
The locals don't want asylum hotels.
The administrators are bogged down and unmotivated.
The politicians get kicked out.
It should not be beyond the wit of mankind to change this.
To be honest that’s not a 100% attack on the Tories as the cuts may have started earlier under Brown - I don’t think they did but I haven’t the evidence to categorically say the spending cuts started on x date
Potential Farage voters may want to consider this. Probably not though.
This very very very very basic fact seems beyond the intellectual grasp of yourself, @Nigelb, @bondegezou, the usual midwit cuckoos
Another very, very basic point.
Go and read the text of the treaty, if you want to do something useful.
Go away and do Basic Logic
The Day Novartis Chose Discovery
How a Swiss pharma giant built the last great corporate research skunkworks - and why that model may never work again.
https://www.alexkesin.com/p/the-day-novartis-chose-discovery
Europe had a biopharma equivalent of Bell Labs. Sadly no more.
You may not have seen it in the lovely seaside villages, but go inland - Redruth, Camborne, St Austell, and it is highly visible. Even Truro has a few women in full burqas/niqabs now
That requires serious politicians unlike Boris or Farage.
What about other colours? What about “No Irish”? “No Poles”?
And these days, rich Londoners are *unlikely* to be English.
Which group of the 3 above do you have an objection to? Or am I tempting fate asking?
The most significant pull factor is not those that we know about, and whose immigration claims we are processing while we detain them. It is the likely very large number working below the radar of the authorities.
Manny Macron made it helpfully plain to us when he did his Ritual Humiliation of Starmer, sorry, state visit to the UK. ie he pointed out, lucidly, the pull factors that drag so many of these chancers to the UK
Some of them we cannot do much about - the English language, the presence of ethnic/family networks already in the UK
But there are things we can do something about, and he named them:
The lavish hospitality we lay on, in four star hotels, free driving lessons, trips to the movies, etc
The instant access to the NHS, dentistry, everything, arguably better access than taxpaying Britons get
The ability to work. Macron was talking about the way, in our ID-less country, these people can easily get black economy cash jobs with Deliveroo, Uber. This is a huge draw, because if you are working AND living for free in a hotel that is an extremely pleasing prospect
If you make it easy for these people to work in the real economy that simply increases the attraction of the UK, on top of everything else. Go there illegally, claim asylum, and immediately you get the right to work?! - unlike people who try and immigrate LEGALLY. Only morons would suggest this
The answer to all this is to accept reality. Abolish asylum protection and institute some kind of Rwanda deal. No one who comes here on a boat can expect to stay, you will all go home, or to some god forsaken island. That's it. The boats would stop within a week
Just as the British have to accept we are no longer rich, and must pay our way, so we must accept that the wet dreams of liberals can no longer be afforded. No, we cannot host 500 million illegal migrants and expect our public services to function as normal
He said that asylum seekers should be expected to work and have their benefits stopped and made homeless like he was if they didn't.
Which definitely made sense, buuuut...
(edit) I see you meant domestic abuse.
Almost nobody has a problem with immigrants we've actually invited. Engineers from America. Doctors from India. Skilled workers from Hong Kong. These people are, to a large extent, invisible to the naked eye as immigrants. Culturally at least, they Look Like Us. But there are a lot of technically 'legal' immigrants who don't fall into that category.
*County coaches seem to be a funny lot, and that's before we even mention Dale Benkenstein who makes Ferrari's strategists look like Gary Kasparov.
James Anderson's first Test match for England was against Zimbabwe at Lord's on May 22, 2003. He took a five-wicket haul (5/73) in that match, including his first Test wicket.
Next test was Richard Johnson's debut where he took a fantastic 6/33, wonder what became of him.
NEW THREAD
They can send us anyone and we can’t return them.
So all the people their intelligence services have identified but don’t have solid evidence about end up in the UK…
The naive idealistic answer is to push back against rabble-rousing liars, by calling them that to their face. I fully get why nobody wants to be the first to do that.