Earlier, @BartholomewRoberts raised the suggestion that the number of asylum seekers per area was an important metric, and on that metric, we take more people than France, although France takes more per head of population. I've now done some further calculations and offer the following league table of asylum seekers (2024 numbers) per square kilometre:
Malta 2.22 Belgium 1.29 Cyprus 0.99 Luxembourg 0.85 Netherlands 0.80 - European Netherlands only counted Germany 0.70 Greece 0.56 Italy 0.53 UK 0.43 - excluding Channel Islands and other Crown dependencies Spain 0.34 - excluding African territories Austria 0.30 France 0.29 - European France only counted Slovenia 0.28 Ireland 0.27 Bulgaria 0.11 Poland 0.05 Denmark 0.05 Estonia 0.03 Portugal 0.03 - excluding Madeira Sweden 0.03 Croatia 0.02 Czechia 0.02 Latvia 0.02 Romania 0.01 Finland 0.01 Lithuania 0.01 Slovakia < 0.01 Hungary < 0.01
So, the UK is in the top third, but way below countries like Malta and Cyprus (which are on the frontline, so to speak) and also below other comparable nations (Germany, BENELUX). You can also see the reluctance of many eastern Europeans countries.
Seems an appropriate list and quite interesting with some surprising elements.
Portugal is the stand-out surprise for me, especially considering neighbouring Spain has nearly as many as we do.
I don't myself think it's that appropriate a list. Large chunks of Finland and Sweden, and even a fair amount of Romania and Spain, are not very hospitable, so their numbers look worse than they really are. Likewise, Belgium is all very inhabitable, so they look good on a by-area figure.
Maybe per total GDP is the best figure!
Significant parts of the UK are uninhabitable/Scotland* too, but overall it is the best metric for space needed to develop.
Without considering pre-existing population densities and the fact that new developments are considerably more viable on undeveloped land than further building up on already developed land.
Curious how come Portugal has such a low figure. Scandinavia and Eastern Europe being so low was not a surprise, but Portugal definitely stands out more.
* j/k malc.
And such comparisons ignore the fact that asylum claims are just one of multiple migration methods.
In the U.K. claiming asylum is not the first resort, because of the rules about not working. Which means that if you claim asylum, you are limited to work in the black economy.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
Lots of places used be part of the British Empire, and Britain hasn't tried to reconquer them. Lots of other Empires have also come apart. It's only authoritarian dictatorships - like Russia and China - that seek to reconquer former imperial possessions.
We should make no concession to such thinking.
Making concessions to such thinking is different to recognising it exists.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
So, research into this has come up with a few answers:
(1) we speak English and those seeking refuge are often more likely to speak English than French or German (2) existing communities - if there is already an existing community from a particular country in the UK, possibly including people you know, that is a draw (3) people pay people smugglers to get them out of a situation, but often don't know and/or have no control over their final destination
There isn't much evidence that what we offer in the way of benefits is massively out of step with our neighbours, and not much evidence that those seeking asylum have much idea of what they will be getting.
Maybe the only solution to the problem of English being the global language is to switch to Welsh.
PART 1: THE ARTICLE Yes, @viewcode is and it's in the toilets. It's currently on its fifth draft and is 1,9XX words long not including the appendices, so I'll have to kill my darlings, including the Shaun Of The Dead reference.
I invited four discussants on to discuss the article. "Discussants" is an old technique you don't see much around these days, where you give a lecture/report and then two groups discuss, pro- and con. Two of my discussants (@NigelB and @kyf_100 ) from the pro-trans direction, and another two (@Cyclefree and @DavidL) from the gender-critical direction. Problem is, due to her personal circs @Cyclefree cannot contribute much, and @DavidL has not yet responded. Also @NigelB and @kyf100 are not lawyers and have pointed out that this makes it imbalanced.
To cure this I propose the following
i) Nudge @DavidL: sir you don't have to be a discussant if you don't want to, but I would be grateful if you could tell me yea or nay
ii) Is there somebody from the the pro-trans direction (or at least not explicitly gender-critical) with legal experience who would like to be a discussant?
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
Lots of places used be part of the British Empire, and Britain hasn't tried to reconquer them. Lots of other Empires have also come apart. It's only authoritarian dictatorships - like Russia and China - that seek to reconquer former imperial possessions.
We should make no concession to such thinking.
Just before the current invasion of Ukraine, one person here claimed that to call Russia an empire made the word meaningless. Not a Tankie.
But the thinking that because it’s next door, it’s theirs + the USSR had “progressive intent” is not uncommon.
Nor is it limited to their Western neighbours. Moscow have been trying similar things with the 'Stans' in terms of tying them to the Russian 'Empire'. THey just haven't yet gone quite as far as full scale invasion.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
Lots of places used be part of the British Empire, and Britain hasn't tried to reconquer them. Lots of other Empires have also come apart. It's only authoritarian dictatorships - like Russia and China - that seek to reconquer former imperial possessions.
We should make no concession to such thinking.
Just before the current invasion of Ukraine, one person here claimed that to call Russia an empire made the word meaningless. Not a Tankie.
But the thinking that because it’s next door, it’s theirs + the USSR had “progressive intent” is not uncommon.
The whole notion that it's "not an empire", if the occupied territory is not overseas, is absolutely bizarre.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
So, research into this has come up with a few answers:
(1) we speak English and those seeking refuge are often more likely to speak English than French or German (2) existing communities - if there is already an existing community from a particular country in the UK, possibly including people you know, that is a draw (3) people pay people smugglers to get them out of a situation, but often don't know and/or have no control over their final destination
There isn't much evidence that what we offer in the way of benefits is massively out of step with our neighbours, and not much evidence that those seeking asylum have much idea of what they will be getting.
Still hard to understand if they are so traumatised that they would risk their lives based on that, I am still to be convinced it is not down to our pathetic systems allowing any old tom dick or harry to stay and keep them in much better conditions etc than they have ever had.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
It is however, as anachronistic as thinking that Ireland, and the Former Dominions are all "part of" Britain.
That is, of course, true, but even on here one occasionally gets suggestions that Ireland should ‘reunite’ with the rest of the UK!i
I would vote for reunification of Ireland with Britain - but the emphasis there is on "vote".
Ukrainians voted to be independent of Russia. What more is there to say?
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too. (It ain't nuclear weapons that have stopped, say, German/Danish border disputes going hot.)
With the Northern Ireland peace deal, it was a help that we were both in the EU. Both being in the EU softens the border and makes border disputes less relevant. If you can go back and forth freely, it matters less which side of the border you are. EU/EEA membership and the like has helped make many border disputes across Europe less relevant. People in South Tyrol are less bothered about being in Italy when they can easily cross the border into Switzerland. There's no Schleswig-Holstein Question when the German-Danish border matters little. Ethnic Hungarians in Romania are less bothered when the border between Hungary and Romania is more porous.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
It seems to me that Western support for Israel's onslaught on the Palestinians has contributed to the less than enthusiasic attitude to Russian sanctions in the many parts of the world that are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. They don't view Russian actions in the Ukraine as being much different to Israel's actions in Gaza and so regard demands to sanction Russia as hypocritical. Western support for Israel has probably damaged the outlook for Ukraine substantially more than Spanish and Irish sympathy for Gaza.
My view is that those nations that support Russia are so cynical in their outlook, that absolutely nothing that Western powers did in relation to Gaza would make a difference.
Cynics can be easier to deal with than idealists. You just need to work out what they want.
In India's relationship with the UK, that seems to be to ensure Modi is seen as the boss of the relationship, with India no longer the supplicant.
This country needs to realise that India under Modi is not our friend.
I think we also need to recognise that India under anyone has many citizens with a very deep resentment of Britain based on history, and kept very much alive by Bollywood storytelling. It would be good to focus on building an alternative, forward-looking narrative of co-operation with India, but it cannot be one based on giving in, because then we will get neither respect nor friendship.
We should tell them to GTF on a motorbike. Why do we need to crawl to every tyrant nowadays. Can we stoop any lower , having to beg people to be nice is pathetic.
WRT Ukraine, we have done better than Germany, France, and Italy, per capita, but the real stand outs are Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands, whose per capita contributions far outshine the rest.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
Lots of places used be part of the British Empire, and Britain hasn't tried to reconquer them. Lots of other Empires have also come apart. It's only authoritarian dictatorships - like Russia and China - that seek to reconquer former imperial possessions.
We should make no concession to such thinking.
Making concessions to such thinking is different to recognising it exists.
Okay. That was not the tone I was getting from your repeated comments in this vein. What point are you trying to make?
I recognise that this thinking is exists, which then leads me to recognise that the threat from Russia is much wider than just to Ukraine, but also encompasses the Baltic States, Finland, Poland, etc, and so it is even more important that we put a stop to it in Ukraine, than to try and come to terms with it in some way.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
So, research into this has come up with a few answers:
(1) we speak English and those seeking refuge are often more likely to speak English than French or German (2) existing communities - if there is already an existing community from a particular country in the UK, possibly including people you know, that is a draw (3) people pay people smugglers to get them out of a situation, but often don't know and/or have no control over their final destination
There isn't much evidence that what we offer in the way of benefits is massively out of step with our neighbours, and not much evidence that those seeking asylum have much idea of what they will be getting.
That gives many reasons why they might want to apply for a visa to come here.
Its not a reason for us to accept people smugglers.
Have we noted this Court of appeal judgment recently published? Problem gamblers are unlikely to get their money back. In this case the sum is £1.4 million.
PART 1: THE ARTICLE Yes, @viewcode is and it's in the toilets. It's currently on its fifth draft and is 1,9XX words long not including the appendices, so I'll have to kill my darlings, including the Shaun Of The Dead reference.
I invited four discussants on to discuss the article. "Discussants" is an old technique you don't see much around these days, where you give a lecture/report and then two groups discuss, pro- and con. Two of my discussants (@NigelB and @kyf_100 ) from the pro-trans direction, and another two (@Cyclefree and @DavidL) from the gender-critical direction. Problem is, due to her personal circs @Cyclefree cannot contribute much, and @DavidL has not yet responded. Also @NigelB and @kyf100 are not lawyers and have pointed out that this makes it imbalanced.
To cure this I propose the following
i) Nudge @DavidL: sir you don't have to be a discussant if you don't want to, but I would be grateful if you could tell me yea or nay
ii) Is there somebody from the the pro-trans direction (or at least not explicitly gender-critical) with legal experience who would like to be a discussant?
PART 2: THE PEGGIE CASE I have not yet studied the case in depth but I do note that the judges in both Peggie and Kelly gave weight to the number of objectors, which means I may be able to incorporate it in the Kelly section
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
So, research into this has come up with a few answers:
(1) we speak English and those seeking refuge are often more likely to speak English than French or German (2) existing communities - if there is already an existing community from a particular country in the UK, possibly including people you know, that is a draw (3) people pay people smugglers to get them out of a situation, but often don't know and/or have no control over their final destination
There isn't much evidence that what we offer in the way of benefits is massively out of step with our neighbours, and not much evidence that those seeking asylum have much idea of what they will be getting.
Still hard to understand if they are so traumatised that they would risk their lives based on that, I am still to be convinced it is not down to our pathetic systems allowing any old tom dick or harry to stay and keep them in much better conditions etc than they have ever had.
Our systems does not allow any Tom, Dick or Harry to stay. The acceptance rate is just below half. So we allow Tom and half a Dick to stay.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I will treat you with more respect when you stop making misleading claims about what I have or have not written.
Again, you are being wilfully misleading. There is far more to the defence and security of Europe than just propping up Ukraine, however important that might also be. A point I made clear in my original posting, have repeated since and which you continue to ignore because it doesn't suit your rather warped narrative.
And no, I do not accept your point about weakening Europe. That presupposes that the EU is the main driver of European defence in Security. It isn't, it never has been and probably never will be. NATO -with or without the US - is far more important and the JEF is growing in importance.
The EU have singularly failed to get agreement on European defence because all the individual nations are playing the system to their own advantage whilst a couple are actively pro-Russia. What we actually need is those countries who are willing to get onboard with defence and security to do so and leave the others behind. But of course that is nigh on impossible in the context of the EU. One of many reasons we are better off on the outside.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Please keep this information anonymous. Addressing the noise and vibration issues is only the tip of the iceberg; the entire platform is affected by numerous faults and design shortcomings.
A significant design flaw was identified during a Bovie instructors’ course. While testing the rear door emergency cut-off system, instructors discovered that it did not function as intended. Rather than activating upon contact, the emergency cut-off bar bent or moved out of the way, allowing the dummy to be crushed by the rear door.
When this issue was raised with GD, the response was that it was “user error,” and that the bar was designed to be activated by hand only—before anyone could be injured. They further asserted that the likelihood of someone becoming trapped was extremely low. Ultimately, it took four attempts to position the dummy precisely enough for the bar to activate.
This led to the discovery of another major design flaw. When the emergency bar remains depressed—due to the dummy being trapped between the hull and the rear door—the door cannot be released electronically, and there is no quick-release mechanism. Instead, the door must be opened manually via a pump system. This requires two personnel inside the vehicle, the removal of a section of racking to access the pump, and approximately 15 minutes of effort, even under ideal conditions with a prepared crew. When this was reported to GD, it was again dismissed as neither a problem nor a design fault. Efforts by Bovie instructors to provide constructive feedback were disregarded.
These platforms are not user-friendly and will inevitably cost the Army more in parts, labour, and future modifications. In their current state, they are simply not fit for purpose https://x.com/MilitaryBanter/status/1998040071442759946
I think the problem is not "is it fixable?" but "will GDLS fix it?". It's beginning to dawn on me that they just won't and will sue anybody who says otherwise.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
So, research into this has come up with a few answers:
(1) we speak English and those seeking refuge are often more likely to speak English than French or German (2) existing communities - if there is already an existing community from a particular country in the UK, possibly including people you know, that is a draw (3) people pay people smugglers to get them out of a situation, but often don't know and/or have no control over their final destination
There isn't much evidence that what we offer in the way of benefits is massively out of step with our neighbours, and not much evidence that those seeking asylum have much idea of what they will be getting.
That gives many reasons why they might want to apply for a visa to come here.
Its not a reason for us to accept people smugglers.
As previously, most of them have very little chance of being granted a visa to come here.
"Hello visa office. Yes, I am fleeing Eritrea and am planning to claim asylum when I arrive in the UK. May I have a visa?" is usually answered "No."
And no-one is saying we should "accept people smugglers". I think everyone here agrees people smugglers are bad.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
Genuine question: why? Is it the benefits? The racism? They can't speak French/German? Other?
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
So, research into this has come up with a few answers:
(1) we speak English and those seeking refuge are often more likely to speak English than French or German (2) existing communities - if there is already an existing community from a particular country in the UK, possibly including people you know, that is a draw (3) people pay people smugglers to get them out of a situation, but often don't know and/or have no control over their final destination
There isn't much evidence that what we offer in the way of benefits is massively out of step with our neighbours, and not much evidence that those seeking asylum have much idea of what they will be getting.
Maybe the only solution to the problem of English being the global language is to switch to Welsh.
Have we noted this Court of appeal judgment recently published? Problem gamblers are unlikely to get their money back. In this case the sum is £1.4 million.
The only restriction on gambling should be age. You have to be eighteen or above to bet, and after that it's your own fault if you lose. Never has there been a better example of the overreaching Nanny State than these rules on betting
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
It is however, as anachronistic as thinking that Ireland, and the Former Dominions are all "part of" Britain.
That is, of course, true, but even on here one occasionally gets suggestions that Ireland should ‘reunite’ with the rest of the UK!i
I would vote for reunification of Ireland with Britain - but the emphasis there is on "vote".
Ukrainians voted to be independent of Russia. What more is there to say?
Yes, I don't think I have ever seen it suggested anywhere that Ireland should be reunited with the UK against the will of its inhabitants.
But I wonder if the last hundred years or so when national self-determination was seen as the natural way of things is a historical anomaly. It only works in an open world where everyone believes in it. It feels like we are slipping out of the idealist phase of history and back in to the realist. Empires weren't built purely because everyone wanted an empire - they were built because if you didn't conquer and occupy weak but important location x, your rival would and make you weaker by default. We moved past that when world trade became a thing and you could just buy stuff from everywhere. But it feels like we are slipping back into it. Globalisation only works if most people believe in it.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
Genuine question: why? Is it the benefits? The racism? They can't speak French/German? Other?
I think it's important to remember that France and Germany take more asylum seekers than us. It's not as if France is full of asylum seekers trying to get smuggled into the UK. The majority stay in France. And, as Bart pointed out earlier, most of our asylum seekers don't come over on boats: the majority have entered the UK on a visa and subsequently claim asylum.
(Although the people coming over on boats have a higher acceptance rate for their asylum applications than those already in the UK. If one takes those whose claims are rejected to be those who are "abusing" the system, then that's not the boat people.)
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
Lots of places used be part of the British Empire, and Britain hasn't tried to reconquer them. Lots of other Empires have also come apart. It's only authoritarian dictatorships - like Russia and China - that seek to reconquer former imperial possessions.
We should make no concession to such thinking.
Just before the current invasion of Ukraine, one person here claimed that to call Russia an empire made the word meaningless. Not a Tankie.
But the thinking that because it’s next door, it’s theirs + the USSR had “progressive intent” is not uncommon.
Nor is it limited to their Western neighbours. Moscow have been trying similar things with the 'Stans' in terms of tying them to the Russian 'Empire'. THey just haven't yet gone quite as far as full scale invasion.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too. (It ain't nuclear weapons that have stopped, say, German/Danish border disputes going hot.)
With the Northern Ireland peace deal, it was a help that we were both in the EU. Both being in the EU softens the border and makes border disputes less relevant. If you can go back and forth freely, it matters less which side of the border you are. EU/EEA membership and the like has helped make many border disputes across Europe less relevant. People in South Tyrol are less bothered about being in Italy when they can easily cross the border into Switzerland. There's no Schleswig-Holstein Question when the German-Danish border matters little. Ethnic Hungarians in Romania are less bothered when the border between Hungary and Romania is more porous.
I think the Balkans are a good example of when nukes aren't everything.
If I were to guess the contributions to peace overall for Europe, it's perhaps 70:30 in favour of nuclear weapons because they have prevented a hot war between major powers. In terms of smaller territorial disputes, I think economic and political integration is everything - the Balkans conflict happened in the post-nuke age after all.
I don't think there's much doubt Ukraine would be safer had it retained its nukes - and also why European equivocation on airspace violations is so dangerous. I think you could also argue that the threat of nuclear war forces countries to integrate because that's the only option left with territorial conquest out of the picture. Disentangling the two is tricky.
Have we noted this Court of appeal judgment recently published? Problem gamblers are unlikely to get their money back. In this case the sum is £1.4 million.
Good. "I and stupid and you should have stopped me betting" is insulting to the freedom of the individual and places an unreasonable burden upon the bookie.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
So, research into this has come up with a few answers:
(1) we speak English and those seeking refuge are often more likely to speak English than French or German (2) existing communities - if there is already an existing community from a particular country in the UK, possibly including people you know, that is a draw (3) people pay people smugglers to get them out of a situation, but often don't know and/or have no control over their final destination
There isn't much evidence that what we offer in the way of benefits is massively out of step with our neighbours, and not much evidence that those seeking asylum have much idea of what they will be getting.
That gives many reasons why they might want to apply for a visa to come here.
Its not a reason for us to accept people smugglers.
As previously, most of them have very little chance of being granted a visa to come here.
"Hello visa office. Yes, I am fleeing Eritrea and am planning to claim asylum when I arrive in the UK. May I have a visa?" is usually answered "No."
And no-one is saying we should "accept people smugglers". I think everyone here agrees people smugglers are bad.
So if they're rejected then they're rejected, that means don't come here. It does not mean pay people smugglers.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
It is however, as anachronistic as thinking that Ireland, and the Former Dominions are all "part of" Britain.
That is, of course, true, but even on here one occasionally gets suggestions that Ireland should ‘reunite’ with the rest of the UK!i
I would vote for reunification of Ireland with Britain - but the emphasis there is on "vote".
Ukrainians voted to be independent of Russia. What more is there to say?
Yes, I don't think I have ever seen it suggested anywhere that Ireland should be reunited with the UK against the will of its inhabitants.
But I wonder if the last hundred years or so when national self-determination was seen as the natural way of things is a historical anomaly. It only works in an open world where everyone believes in it. It feels like we are slipping out of the idealist phase of history and back in to the realist. Empires weren't built purely because everyone wanted an empire - they were built because if you didn't conquer and occupy weak but important location x, your rival would and make you weaker by default. We moved past that when world trade became a thing and you could just buy stuff from everywhere. But it feels like we are slipping back into it. Globalisation only works if most people believe in it.
Here's the thing: most invasions end in failure, particularly wars of imperial conquest.
And when you do succeed, that's when it gets really difficult. You now have a significant minority of people who don't want to be a part of your country. Which means you're dealing with civil disobedience at best, with the possibility of terrorism and outright revolt and rebellion.
For what?
Countries get rich by not invading their neighbours. See Switzerland.
Have we noted this Court of appeal judgment recently published? Problem gamblers are unlikely to get their money back. In this case the sum is £1.4 million.
Good. "I and stupid and you should have stopped me betting" is insulting to the freedom of the individual and places an unreasonable burden upon the bookie.
Exactly. If people don't realise they are no good at gambling, that is their own fault. Some people do realise and don't care. We don't have a go at shops for people buying things they can't afford, and nor should we, so why is it different with gambling. Absolute nonsense
And I say this as someone who has won once in his last fifty bets... and the average odds were 6/1! Can I sue?! PLEASE!!!
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
Genuine question: why? Is it the benefits? The racism? They can't speak French/German? Other?
The reasons typically given are:
1) They already have friends, family or contacts in the UK 2) They can speak English reasonably well, or at least better than other European languages 3) It's relatively easy to get work in the UK even if you can't speak the lingo that well. The lack of ID cards helps with that.
Which, when you think about it, are exactly the reasons you or I would have for choosing a particular country to head for if we had to leave the UK in a hurry.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
Lots of places used be part of the British Empire, and Britain hasn't tried to reconquer them. Lots of other Empires have also come apart. It's only authoritarian dictatorships - like Russia and China - that seek to reconquer former imperial possessions.
We should make no concession to such thinking.
Making concessions to such thinking is different to recognising it exists.
Okay. That was not the tone I was getting from your repeated comments in this vein. What point are you trying to make?
I recognise that this thinking is exists, which then leads me to recognise that the threat from Russia is much wider than just to Ukraine, but also encompasses the Baltic States, Finland, Poland, etc, and so it is even more important that we put a stop to it in Ukraine, than to try and come to terms with it in some way.
I’m trying to suggest that thinking in terms of one, or even two lifetimes worth of experience may well be not enough. ‘Culture’ doesn’t only work one way, and it’s to Britain’s credit that it hasn’t tried to reconquer ‘lost lands’. Or not since about 1960 and Macmillan’s “ Winds of Change” speech anyway!
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
Genuine question: why? Is it the benefits? The racism? They can't speak French/German? Other?
The reasons typically given are:
1) They already have friends, family or contacts in the UK 2) They can speak English reasonably well, or at least better than other European languages 3) It's relatively easy to get work in the UK even if you can't speak the lingo that well. The lack of ID cards helps with that.
Which, when you think about it, are exactly the reasons you or I would have for choosing a particular country to head for if we had to leave the UK in a hurry.
All invalid reasons because the countries they are moving from are safe.
An interesting interview by Scott Galloway with Anne Applebaum on "Ukraine and America's credibility crisis". It's one of several I have heard beginning to explore where the USA may go post-Trump:
Please keep this information anonymous. Addressing the noise and vibration issues is only the tip of the iceberg; the entire platform is affected by numerous faults and design shortcomings.
A significant design flaw was identified during a Bovie instructors’ course. While testing the rear door emergency cut-off system, instructors discovered that it did not function as intended. Rather than activating upon contact, the emergency cut-off bar bent or moved out of the way, allowing the dummy to be crushed by the rear door.
When this issue was raised with GD, the response was that it was “user error,” and that the bar was designed to be activated by hand only—before anyone could be injured. They further asserted that the likelihood of someone becoming trapped was extremely low. Ultimately, it took four attempts to position the dummy precisely enough for the bar to activate.
This led to the discovery of another major design flaw. When the emergency bar remains depressed—due to the dummy being trapped between the hull and the rear door—the door cannot be released electronically, and there is no quick-release mechanism. Instead, the door must be opened manually via a pump system. This requires two personnel inside the vehicle, the removal of a section of racking to access the pump, and approximately 15 minutes of effort, even under ideal conditions with a prepared crew. When this was reported to GD, it was again dismissed as neither a problem nor a design fault. Efforts by Bovie instructors to provide constructive feedback were disregarded.
These platforms are not user-friendly and will inevitably cost the Army more in parts, labour, and future modifications. In their current state, they are simply not fit for purpose https://x.com/MilitaryBanter/status/1998040071442759946
I think the problem is not "is it fixable?" but "will GDLS fix it?". It's beginning to dawn on me that they just won't and will sue anybody who says otherwise.
Of course they won't. They've conned/strong armed the MoD into accepting it into service, even though it appears to be completely unfit for purpose.
And they are taking the line that the MoD is responsible for the problems.
There's also the issue of Welsh jobs.
Perhaps we could keep them employed stripping the useful bits of kit out of the hulls before scrapping them ?
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
It is however, as anachronistic as thinking that Ireland, and the Former Dominions are all "part of" Britain.
That is, of course, true, but even on here one occasionally gets suggestions that Ireland should ‘reunite’ with the rest of the UK!i
I would vote for reunification of Ireland with Britain - but the emphasis there is on "vote".
Ukrainians voted to be independent of Russia. What more is there to say?
Yes, I don't think I have ever seen it suggested anywhere that Ireland should be reunited with the UK against the will of its inhabitants.
But I wonder if the last hundred years or so when national self-determination was seen as the natural way of things is a historical anomaly. It only works in an open world where everyone believes in it. It feels like we are slipping out of the idealist phase of history and back in to the realist. Empires weren't built purely because everyone wanted an empire - they were built because if you didn't conquer and occupy weak but important location x, your rival would and make you weaker by default. We moved past that when world trade became a thing and you could just buy stuff from everywhere. But it feels like we are slipping back into it. Globalisation only works if most people believe in it.
Here's the thing: most invasions end in failure, particularly wars of imperial conquest.
And when you do succeed, that's when it gets really difficult. You now have a significant minority of people who don't want to be a part of your country. Which means you're dealing with civil disobedience at best, with the possibility of terrorism and outright revolt and rebellion.
For what?
Countries get rich by not invading their neighbours. See Switzerland.
It is not that they end in failure, they are a failure. Having to plant your flag and put 'boots on the ground' is proof that you are not invincible, and unless you invade, someone else will eat your lunch. Really dominant countries don't need to invade, they have spheres of influence, wherein countries are nominally independent, but they don't do anything you don't like.
This is true of most of Britain's Imperial conquests. It is also a way of looking at Ukraine. The US, aided by Europe, pulled Ukraine out of Russia's sphere of influence. Russia would have been unlikely to invade had Yanukovich remained in power - simply because they would have had everything they wanted with no sacrifice.
Interesting and not the wipe out for NHS Fife that was expected. I understand that various offers might have been made to Ms Peggie and turned down. She might be regretting that.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
It is however, as anachronistic as thinking that Ireland, and the Former Dominions are all "part of" Britain.
That is, of course, true, but even on here one occasionally gets suggestions that Ireland should ‘reunite’ with the rest of the UK!i
I would vote for reunification of Ireland with Britain - but the emphasis there is on "vote".
Ukrainians voted to be independent of Russia. What more is there to say?
Yes, I don't think I have ever seen it suggested anywhere that Ireland should be reunited with the UK against the will of its inhabitants.
But I wonder if the last hundred years or so when national self-determination was seen as the natural way of things is a historical anomaly. It only works in an open world where everyone believes in it. It feels like we are slipping out of the idealist phase of history and back in to the realist. Empires weren't built purely because everyone wanted an empire - they were built because if you didn't conquer and occupy weak but important location x, your rival would and make you weaker by default. We moved past that when world trade became a thing and you could just buy stuff from everywhere. But it feels like we are slipping back into it. Globalisation only works if most people believe in it.
Here's the thing: most invasions end in failure, particularly wars of imperial conquest.
And when you do succeed, that's when it gets really difficult. You now have a significant minority of people who don't want to be a part of your country. Which means you're dealing with civil disobedience at best, with the possibility of terrorism and outright revolt and rebellion.
For what?
Countries get rich by not invading their neighbours. See Switzerland.
Russia became the world's current largest empire by invading its neighbours over the course of a few centuries. Is it rich ? Of course not.
But its rulers are immensely wealthy. And they make all the decisions.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
Genuine question: why? Is it the benefits? The racism? They can't speak French/German? Other?
The reasons typically given are:
1) They already have friends, family or contacts in the UK 2) They can speak English reasonably well, or at least better than other European languages 3) It's relatively easy to get work in the UK even if you can't speak the lingo that well. The lack of ID cards helps with that.
Which, when you think about it, are exactly the reasons you or I would have for choosing a particular country to head for if we had to leave the UK in a hurry.
All invalid reasons because the countries they are moving from are safe.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
It is however, as anachronistic as thinking that Ireland, and the Former Dominions are all "part of" Britain.
That is, of course, true, but even on here one occasionally gets suggestions that Ireland should ‘reunite’ with the rest of the UK!i
I would vote for reunification of Ireland with Britain - but the emphasis there is on "vote".
Ukrainians voted to be independent of Russia. What more is there to say?
Yes, I don't think I have ever seen it suggested anywhere that Ireland should be reunited with the UK against the will of its inhabitants.
But I wonder if the last hundred years or so when national self-determination was seen as the natural way of things is a historical anomaly. It only works in an open world where everyone believes in it. It feels like we are slipping out of the idealist phase of history and back in to the realist. Empires weren't built purely because everyone wanted an empire - they were built because if you didn't conquer and occupy weak but important location x, your rival would and make you weaker by default. We moved past that when world trade became a thing and you could just buy stuff from everywhere. But it feels like we are slipping back into it. Globalisation only works if most people believe in it.
Here's the thing: most invasions end in failure, particularly wars of imperial conquest.
And when you do succeed, that's when it gets really difficult. You now have a significant minority of people who don't want to be a part of your country. Which means you're dealing with civil disobedience at best, with the possibility of terrorism and outright revolt and rebellion.
For what?
Countries get rich by not invading their neighbours. See Switzerland.
History is replete with countries who got rich invading their neighbours. The Swiss got rich, at least in part, by being a safe haven for the proceeds of such activity.
PART 1: THE ARTICLE Yes, @viewcode is and it's in the toilets. It's currently on its fifth draft and is 1,9XX words long not including the appendices, so I'll have to kill my darlings, including the Shaun Of The Dead reference.
I invited four discussants on to discuss the article. "Discussants" is an old technique you don't see much around these days, where you give a lecture/report and then two groups discuss, pro- and con. Two of my discussants (@NigelB and @kyf_100 ) from the pro-trans direction, and another two (@Cyclefree and @DavidL) from the gender-critical direction. Problem is, due to her personal circs @Cyclefree cannot contribute much, and @DavidL has not yet responded. Also @NigelB and @kyf100 are not lawyers and have pointed out that this makes it imbalanced.
To cure this I propose the following
i) Nudge @DavidL: sir you don't have to be a discussant if you don't want to, but I would be grateful if you could tell me yea or nay
ii) Is there somebody from the the pro-trans direction (or at least not explicitly gender-critical) with legal experience who would like to be a discussant?
Have we noted this Court of appeal judgment recently published? Problem gamblers are unlikely to get their money back. In this case the sum is £1.4 million.
Good. "I and stupid and you should have stopped me betting" is insulting to the freedom of the individual and places an unreasonable burden upon the bookie.
Exactly. If people don't realise they are no good at gambling, that is their own fault. Some people do realise and don't care. We don't have a go at shops for people buying things they can't afford, and nor should we, so why is it different with gambling. Absolute nonsense
And I say this as someone who has won once in his last fifty bets... and the average odds were 6/1! Can I sue?! PLEASE!!!
I was going to sue William Hills but I've changed my mind. I'm going to sue the horse.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
So, research into this has come up with a few answers:
(1) we speak English and those seeking refuge are often more likely to speak English than French or German (2) existing communities - if there is already an existing community from a particular country in the UK, possibly including people you know, that is a draw (3) people pay people smugglers to get them out of a situation, but often don't know and/or have no control over their final destination
There isn't much evidence that what we offer in the way of benefits is massively out of step with our neighbours, and not much evidence that those seeking asylum have much idea of what they will be getting.
That gives many reasons why they might want to apply for a visa to come here.
Its not a reason for us to accept people smugglers.
As previously, most of them have very little chance of being granted a visa to come here.
"Hello visa office. Yes, I am fleeing Eritrea and am planning to claim asylum when I arrive in the UK. May I have a visa?" is usually answered "No."
And no-one is saying we should "accept people smugglers". I think everyone here agrees people smugglers are bad.
So if they're rejected then they're rejected, that means don't come here. It does not mean pay people smugglers.
Yes, Bart. We know what the rules are. We also know that people sometimes don't follow the rules.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
Genuine question: why? Is it the benefits? The racism? They can't speak French/German? Other?
The reasons typically given are:
1) They already have friends, family or contacts in the UK 2) They can speak English reasonably well, or at least better than other European languages 3) It's relatively easy to get work in the UK even if you can't speak the lingo that well. The lack of ID cards helps with that.
Which, when you think about it, are exactly the reasons you or I would have for choosing a particular country to head for if we had to leave the UK in a hurry.
All invalid reasons because the countries they are moving from are safe.
Sudan? Eritrea?
Tbf the discussion was about moving to UK from France or Germany.
An interesting interview by Scott Galloway with Anne Applebaum on "Ukraine and America's credibility crisis". It's one of several I have heard beginning to explore where the USA may go post-Trump:
I don't think we can write off the US completely (except for the rest of Trump' term).
It still quite possible the MAGA crew gets thrown out wholesale, and the US tries to pick up the threads of its previous alliances. But they will never again (certainly not in my lifetime) be seen as the reliable backstop for the western world.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
An interesting interview by Scott Galloway with Anne Applebaum on "Ukraine and America's credibility crisis". It's one of several I have heard beginning to explore where the USA may go post-Trump:
Please keep this information anonymous. Addressing the noise and vibration issues is only the tip of the iceberg; the entire platform is affected by numerous faults and design shortcomings.
A significant design flaw was identified during a Bovie instructors’ course. While testing the rear door emergency cut-off system, instructors discovered that it did not function as intended. Rather than activating upon contact, the emergency cut-off bar bent or moved out of the way, allowing the dummy to be crushed by the rear door.
When this issue was raised with GD, the response was that it was “user error,” and that the bar was designed to be activated by hand only—before anyone could be injured. They further asserted that the likelihood of someone becoming trapped was extremely low. Ultimately, it took four attempts to position the dummy precisely enough for the bar to activate.
This led to the discovery of another major design flaw. When the emergency bar remains depressed—due to the dummy being trapped between the hull and the rear door—the door cannot be released electronically, and there is no quick-release mechanism. Instead, the door must be opened manually via a pump system. This requires two personnel inside the vehicle, the removal of a section of racking to access the pump, and approximately 15 minutes of effort, even under ideal conditions with a prepared crew. When this was reported to GD, it was again dismissed as neither a problem nor a design fault. Efforts by Bovie instructors to provide constructive feedback were disregarded.
These platforms are not user-friendly and will inevitably cost the Army more in parts, labour, and future modifications. In their current state, they are simply not fit for purpose https://x.com/MilitaryBanter/status/1998040071442759946
I think the problem is not "is it fixable?" but "will GDLS fix it?". It's beginning to dawn on me that they just won't and will sue anybody who says otherwise.
Here's another video of the general the of the newly delivered vehicle.
Hiya mate, can you please keep annon, Just a basic walk-around of a vehicle straight from GD, and absolutely nothing in-depth. However, this is what GD was sending us, and our CoC, who were already lined up for jobs with them, would tell us to accept them. There were a lot more problems than this. https://x.com/MilitaryBanter/status/1997681909103509610
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
It is however, as anachronistic as thinking that Ireland, and the Former Dominions are all "part of" Britain.
That is, of course, true, but even on here one occasionally gets suggestions that Ireland should ‘reunite’ with the rest of the UK!i
I would vote for reunification of Ireland with Britain - but the emphasis there is on "vote".
Ukrainians voted to be independent of Russia. What more is there to say?
The Irish are not stupid, why would they want to be under the yoke again.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
Genuine question: why? Is it the benefits? The racism? They can't speak French/German? Other?
The reasons typically given are:
1) They already have friends, family or contacts in the UK 2) They can speak English reasonably well, or at least better than other European languages 3) It's relatively easy to get work in the UK even if you can't speak the lingo that well. The lack of ID cards helps with that.
Which, when you think about it, are exactly the reasons you or I would have for choosing a particular country to head for if we had to leave the UK in a hurry.
All invalid reasons because the countries they are moving from are safe.
Viewcode asked what motivates them, and those are the reasons typically given. Motivation doesn't stop with physical safety; most people want to optimise their lot in life.
If, for example, I had to flee the UK, I'd head for Germany because I have contacts there and speak the language. That might involve passing through France, but I wouldn't want to stop in France because I don't know anyone there and I don't speak French. So I'd do my damndest to get into Germany even if I were physically safe in France.
Whether those reasons are "valid" or not is a different matter and depends on the criteria that you are applying. But those are the reasons.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
Genuine question: why? Is it the benefits? The racism? They can't speak French/German? Other?
The reasons typically given are:
1) They already have friends, family or contacts in the UK 2) They can speak English reasonably well, or at least better than other European languages 3) It's relatively easy to get work in the UK even if you can't speak the lingo that well. The lack of ID cards helps with that.
Which, when you think about it, are exactly the reasons you or I would have for choosing a particular country to head for if we had to leave the UK in a hurry.
All invalid reasons because the countries they are moving from are safe.
Sudan? Eritrea?
Tbf the discussion was about moving to UK from France or Germany.
Noted. But a Sudanese who speaks tolerable English but no German is likely, in their judgement anyway, to have a better chance of a job and an acceptable life in UK than Germany.
PART 1: THE ARTICLE Yes, @viewcode is and it's in the toilets. It's currently on its fifth draft and is 1,9XX words long not including the appendices, so I'll have to kill my darlings, including the Shaun Of The Dead reference.
I invited four discussants on to discuss the article. "Discussants" is an old technique you don't see much around these days, where you give a lecture/report and then two groups discuss, pro- and con. Two of my discussants (@NigelB and @kyf_100 ) from the pro-trans direction, and another two (@Cyclefree and @DavidL) from the gender-critical direction. Problem is, due to her personal circs @Cyclefree cannot contribute much, and @DavidL has not yet responded. Also @NigelB and @kyf100 are not lawyers and have pointed out that this makes it imbalanced.
To cure this I propose the following
i) Nudge @DavidL: sir you don't have to be a discussant if you don't want to, but I would be grateful if you could tell me yea or nay
ii) Is there somebody from the the pro-trans direction (or at least not explicitly gender-critical) with legal experience who would like to be a discussant?
PART 1: THE ARTICLE Yes, @viewcode is and it's in the toilets. It's currently on its fifth draft and is 1,9XX words long not including the appendices, so I'll have to kill my darlings, including the Shaun Of The Dead reference.
I invited four discussants on to discuss the article. "Discussants" is an old technique you don't see much around these days, where you give a lecture/report and then two groups discuss, pro- and con. Two of my discussants (@NigelB and @kyf_100 ) from the pro-trans direction, and another two (@Cyclefree and @DavidL) from the gender-critical direction. Problem is, due to her personal circs @Cyclefree cannot contribute much, and @DavidL has not yet responded. Also @NigelB and @kyf100 are not lawyers and have pointed out that this makes it imbalanced.
To cure this I propose the following
i) Nudge @DavidL: sir you don't have to be a discussant if you don't want to, but I would be grateful if you could tell me yea or nay
ii) Is there somebody from the the pro-trans direction (or at least not explicitly gender-critical) with legal experience who would like to be a discussant?
Apologies. I have just completed a second trial back to back in Aberdeen and really have not had time to look at this yet. I will try my best over the next couple of days but I have a lot of catching up to do on all the other stuff that got swept aside. If you can find someone more suitable or available please do. Otherwise I will do my best to look at this in the next couple of days.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
Re malcolmg's comment, I am repeatedly disappointed by the ability of people to confidently opine on matters of which they are completely ignorant. Perhaps AI thinking is actually pretty close to human thinking!
Can you explain then when things are so good in France and Germany why these people pay thousands and risk their lives to come to the UK. Not hard to guess why and it is not the weather.
Genuine question: why? Is it the benefits? The racism? They can't speak French/German? Other?
I have no clue as we never really get any proper debate on teh subject. However likely several factors but I still suspect it is that they are not as soft on them there and unlike here they do not get the same almost 100% guarantee that lawyers/dogooders will get them asylum or the maount of benefits/accomodation/health services / etc etc. We are definitely soft marks, apart from tehy may speak some English it is hard to see wht they would prefer here to France or Germany.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
Apologies. I have just completed a second trial back to back in Aberdeen and really have not had time to look at this yet. I will try my best over the next couple of days but I have a lot of catching up to do on all the other stuff that got swept aside. If you can find someone more suitable or available please do. Otherwise I will do my best to look at this in the next couple of days.
It's not something that needs to be done immediately sir. "Next Couple Of Days" is perfectly fine. Am grateful for your contribs
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
Have we noted this Court of appeal judgment recently published? Problem gamblers are unlikely to get their money back. In this case the sum is £1.4 million.
Good. "I and stupid and you should have stopped me betting" is insulting to the freedom of the individual and places an unreasonable burden upon the bookie.
Exactly. If people don't realise they are no good at gambling, that is their own fault. Some people do realise and don't care. We don't have a go at shops for people buying things they can't afford, and nor should we, so why is it different with gambling. Absolute nonsense
And I say this as someone who has won once in his last fifty bets... and the average odds were 6/1! Can I sue?! PLEASE!!!
Another bet that doofus lost. A very expensive one too.
PART 1: THE ARTICLE Yes, @viewcode is and it's in the toilets. It's currently on its fifth draft and is 1,9XX words long not including the appendices, so I'll have to kill my darlings, including the Shaun Of The Dead reference.
I invited four discussants on to discuss the article. "Discussants" is an old technique you don't see much around these days, where you give a lecture/report and then two groups discuss, pro- and con. Two of my discussants (@NigelB and @kyf_100 ) from the pro-trans direction, and another two (@Cyclefree and @DavidL) from the gender-critical direction. Problem is, due to her personal circs @Cyclefree cannot contribute much, and @DavidL has not yet responded. Also @NigelB and @kyf100 are not lawyers and have pointed out that this makes it imbalanced.
To cure this I propose the following
i) Nudge @DavidL: sir you don't have to be a discussant if you don't want to, but I would be grateful if you could tell me yea or nay
ii) Is there somebody from the the pro-trans direction (or at least not explicitly gender-critical) with legal experience who would like to be a discussant?
PART 2: THE PEGGIE CASE I have not yet studied the case in depth but I do note that the judges in both Peggie and Kelly gave weight to the number of objectors, which means I may be able to incorporate it in the Kelly section
Popped in this afternoon just to see if you were already on the case, pun intended. Glad to see you are!
The trouble with all this stuff is the speed at which it moves. That, and following it in depth is a full time job in itself (a mere 312 page judgement to read tonight!).
When you started your article, it was fairly rational (albeit disputed) to reach a conclusion, legally speaking that trans women are a) legally 'men' for the purpose of the EA and b) legally excluded from single sex spaces.
In the space of a week, we have not one but two judgements (Kelly v Leonardo, Peggie v NHS Fife) that seem to suggest, at least, that (b) is incorrect.
To complicate matters further, the Good Law Project expect their judicial review into the EHRC's draft guidance to be handed down over the next few weeks.
This is why I'm rather more interested in the political debate than the letter of the law. The law is just a set of rules that can change. Politics is what those rules mean, in practice, and how we as a society choose to balance conflicting, even oppositional views (enter proportionality, stage left...).
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
I was always taught that the verb second from start of a sentence went (but Yoda more fun is).
On the one hand I don't like the idea of Qatar having such a big stake in a global media org like WB, on the other Netflix is little more than a slop factory these days so there really isn't a good choice.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
Have we noted this Court of appeal judgment recently published? Problem gamblers are unlikely to get their money back. In this case the sum is £1.4 million.
Good. "I and stupid and you should have stopped me betting" is insulting to the freedom of the individual and places an unreasonable burden upon the bookie.
Exactly. If people don't realise they are no good at gambling, that is their own fault. Some people do realise and don't care. We don't have a go at shops for people buying things they can't afford, and nor should we, so why is it different with gambling. Absolute nonsense
And I say this as someone who has won once in his last fifty bets... and the average odds were 6/1! Can I sue?! PLEASE!!!
Another bet that doofus lost. A very expensive one too.
Nine day trial, two day appeal, silks on both sides. A few bob more reliably spent laying Arsenal for the Premiership.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
All the hard parts of learning Latin and Greek, and when finally accomplished the works of Kant and Hegel are just as incomprehensible. I see the young people are all renouncing languages altogether, and those that are not are going for Spanish.
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
I was always taught that the verb second from start of a sentence went (but Yoda more fun is).
It's something like, normally second, but goes to the end in a subordinate clause
An interesting interview by Scott Galloway with Anne Applebaum on "Ukraine and America's credibility crisis". It's one of several I have heard beginning to explore where the USA may go post-Trump:
Surely, that depends whether the USA goes Vance post Trump?
Yes. But for me an interesting point is that examination of US history shows the US being a multicultural society from the start. That is a very "American" way of approaching the hard work of refuting the white supremacist lie put forward by Trump, Vance, Bessent and the rest, then building something better on the rubble.
The current hatred of Muslims, Somalis (cats and dogs) etc is just a repeat of a dozen previous cycles with different groups of people. In the 19C, Irish did not count as white, then Italians, Jews, Hispanics and so on. As per Sellars and Yeatman, American history is a sequence of waves.
It is really the self-obsessed Magaloofs selling themselves a series of tissues of bollocks.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
All the hard parts of learning Latin and Greek, and when finally accomplished the works of Kant and Hegel are just as incomprehensible. I see the young people are all renouncing languages altogether, and those that are not are going for Spanish.
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
I rather regret giving up Latin, but it was that or three Sciences. And I wanted to do medicine, or similar. So that was that.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
All the hard parts of learning Latin and Greek, and when finally accomplished the works of Kant and Hegel are just as incomprehensible. I see the young people are all renouncing languages altogether, and those that are not are going for Spanish.
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
I met a Frenchman in Lapland who had moved there because he didn't like crowds. He worked there in the tourist industry. I asked him how he had managed to learn the language. He looked puzzled - why would he need to? He spoke English - that was all he needed. Personally I'd feel very uncomfortable living anywhere I didn't speak the local language. Which given my capacity for languages rules 80% of the world out straight away.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
It is however, as anachronistic as thinking that Ireland, and the Former Dominions are all "part of" Britain.
That is, of course, true, but even on here one occasionally gets suggestions that Ireland should ‘reunite’ with the rest of the UK!i
I would vote for reunification of Ireland with Britain - but the emphasis there is on "vote".
Ukrainians voted to be independent of Russia. What more is there to say?
Yes, I don't think I have ever seen it suggested anywhere that Ireland should be reunited with the UK against the will of its inhabitants.
But I wonder if the last hundred years or so when national self-determination was seen as the natural way of things is a historical anomaly. It only works in an open world where everyone believes in it. It feels like we are slipping out of the idealist phase of history and back in to the realist. Empires weren't built purely because everyone wanted an empire - they were built because if you didn't conquer and occupy weak but important location x, your rival would and make you weaker by default. We moved past that when world trade became a thing and you could just buy stuff from everywhere. But it feels like we are slipping back into it. Globalisation only works if most people believe in it.
Here's the thing: most invasions end in failure, particularly wars of imperial conquest.
And when you do succeed, that's when it gets really difficult. You now have a significant minority of people who don't want to be a part of your country. Which means you're dealing with civil disobedience at best, with the possibility of terrorism and outright revolt and rebellion.
For what?
Countries get rich by not invading their neighbours. See Switzerland.
I don't go quite all the way with that. There's nuance.
Switzerland partly became rich by supplying a workforce to all its neighbours to invade all its other neighbours in rotation, then repatriating and keeping much of their money.
The French want Russian assets frozen in France to be exempt from the reparations loan. Fuxsake, this is never going to happen.
Didn’t a bright spark say during the American Revolution that “we must hang together or surely we will hang apart”.
Unfortunately, as ever, national concerns in Europe take precedence over the good for the continent. France with their protectionism, Spain and Ireland with their obsession with Gaza over the real threat, Hungary and Slovakia with its leaders beholden to Putin. At least Germany has made the post Merkel switch to reality and the Baltic, Poland and Scandinavia/Nordic nations are being pragmatic.
We will likely fudge spending and end up with an approach that isn’t optimised for the real threat.
Putin knows all this and even though he would be on a hiding to nothing if he tried to roll into Poland and the Baltic when his army is incapable of winning in Ukraine as it is but he will play a long game and benefit from disunity and selfishness.
Britain probably not best placed to advise others on European unity, unfortunately.
That sounds like the whole history of European 'unity' with each country looking for its own advantage over the other members of the Union
Oh sure, and the French are the absolute worst but I think it takes a certain lack of self awareness to think that a country that has done more than any other in recent years to weaken European unity and advance Putin's divide and rule strategy has any credibility in this space.
In terms of defence Britain has done far more to strengthen Europe than any of the traditional EU major players. You only have to look at the JEF or the Mutual Defence Pact that the UK signed with Sweden and FInland prior to their accession to NATO. This is proper practical stuff rather than just talking about it. And it cannot be hindered by the pro-Russian elements within the EU.
Germany has provided more military support to Ukaine than we have and the EU overall has provided over EUR80bn, more than the US and five times what we have.
Firstly I wasn't talking just about financial aid to Ukraine as should have been obvious from my mentioning the JEF so stop moving the goalposts.
And secondly, given the EU economy is about 5 times larger than the UKs that looks like we are pretty much on a par in terms of support for Ukraine.
Why are you so desperate to do down the UK just for the sake of your precious EU?
I could ask why are you so desperate to deny that Brexit was a project supported by Putin and designed to weaken the EU? Or why are you so keen to talk up our contribution to defending Europe while denying the role of other countries? You initially said we had done "far more" to strengthen European defence than any EU member and you now say we are "on par" in terms of our support for Ukraine, the current front line in our defence of Europe. And you say I am the one moving the goalposts... The people "doing down" the UK are Putin's useful idiots who supported a disastrous exit from the EU that has left us poorer and weaker on the world stage.
I didn't deny the contribution of other countries. You are the only one here trying to claim that we have weakened defence and security.
And don't misquote me (what am I saying, you can only make and argument by misquoting people)
I did not say, "any EU member", I said "any of the traditional EU major players". I phrased it specifically that way because I am aware that the Eastern EU countries have done far more than the UK or anyone else.
So stop lying, stop misquoting and stop being such a fucking tool for the EU.
We are doing less than Germany, in terms of defence funding for Ukraine. Are they not a "traditional EU member player"? I have had a lot of respect for you as a poster but in the last couple of days you have indulged in a number of unpleasant ad hominem attacks when I have posted on the subject of Brexit, which is a shame. I will nevertheless continue to argue that the UK has been weakened by Brexit, that Europe has been weakened, divided and distracted by it, and Russia has been the main beneficiary. This is not because I am some starry eyed EU fanatic, as you seem to imagine, but because I can see the reality of what has happened in the last nine years. It is driven by what I see as our national self interest. One of the many delusions of Brexiteers is to imagine they have some kind of monopoly on patriotic sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I am sure that Russia was delighted by Brexit, but it is very far from being a first-rank cause of European weakness.
Is it worth remembering that the Russian seizure of Crimea started in February 2014? This was before the Carswell and Reckless defections to UKIP, before UKIP won the 2014 European elections. Before Brexit had weakened Britain and Europe, but Britain and Europe were still too weak to take any effective action against Russia seizing the territory of Ukraine.
Russia seized bits of Georgia six years earlier, in 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Immediately followed by newly-elected President Obama offering a friendly 'reset' in relations.
Part at least of the overall problem is that these territories were part of the old Russian Soviet Republic and/or the Tsarist Empire, and therefore have been ‘part’ of Russia for many, many years. And, yes I know the Ukraine was, and was indeed arguably the dominant part of historical Russia.
It’s something people with short memories find hard to grasp, sometimes. Or appreciate the effects on people’s thinking.
It is however, as anachronistic as thinking that Ireland, and the Former Dominions are all "part of" Britain.
That is, of course, true, but even on here one occasionally gets suggestions that Ireland should ‘reunite’ with the rest of the UK!i
I would vote for reunification of Ireland with Britain - but the emphasis there is on "vote".
Ukrainians voted to be independent of Russia. What more is there to say?
Yes, I don't think I have ever seen it suggested anywhere that Ireland should be reunited with the UK against the will of its inhabitants.
But I wonder if the last hundred years or so when national self-determination was seen as the natural way of things is a historical anomaly. It only works in an open world where everyone believes in it. It feels like we are slipping out of the idealist phase of history and back in to the realist. Empires weren't built purely because everyone wanted an empire - they were built because if you didn't conquer and occupy weak but important location x, your rival would and make you weaker by default. We moved past that when world trade became a thing and you could just buy stuff from everywhere. But it feels like we are slipping back into it. Globalisation only works if most people believe in it.
Here's the thing: most invasions end in failure, particularly wars of imperial conquest.
And when you do succeed, that's when it gets really difficult. You now have a significant minority of people who don't want to be a part of your country. Which means you're dealing with civil disobedience at best, with the possibility of terrorism and outright revolt and rebellion.
For what?
Countries get rich by not invading their neighbours. See Switzerland.
I don't go quite all the way with that. There's nuance.
Switzerland partly became rich by supplying a workforce to all its neighbours to invade all its other neighbours in rotation, then repatriating and keeping much of their money.
If a gold rush is happening, the best way to profit is to sell the pans.
The other subtlety is that, whilst countries tend not to get rich by invading other countries, their rulers can...
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
All the hard parts of learning Latin and Greek, and when finally accomplished the works of Kant and Hegel are just as incomprehensible. I see the young people are all renouncing languages altogether, and those that are not are going for Spanish.
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
I rather regret giving up Latin, but it was that or three Sciences. And I wanted to do medicine, or similar. So that was that.
Having an O level in Latin was compulsory for attending Oxbridge until some time in the 70s/80s.
In the 80s no matter what you wanted to study you had to have O levels in English, Maths, and a foreign language.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
All the hard parts of learning Latin and Greek, and when finally accomplished the works of Kant and Hegel are just as incomprehensible. I see the young people are all renouncing languages altogether, and those that are not are going for Spanish.
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
I met a Frenchman in Lapland who had moved there because he didn't like crowds. He worked there in the tourist industry. I asked him how he had managed to learn the language. He looked puzzled - why would he need to? He spoke English - that was all he needed. Personally I'd feel very uncomfortable living anywhere I didn't speak the local language. Which given my capacity for languages rules 80% of the world out straight away.
One set of co-in-laws is Thai, who speak no English. I find Thai quite difficult, but learning any new language is getting increasingly difficult.
It appears that US corporations do irony really well.
Our #LandSystems team were delighted to host the Minister for Defence Readiness & Industry, @LukePollard, last week to support the @BritishArmy's announcement that the #AJAX Armoured Fighting Vehicle has achieved Initial Operating Capability (IOC). This achievement represents a pivotal moment in the ongoing transformation of the British Army’s Modernisation.
AJAX is: ✅Built in Merthyr Tydfil, supported by 230+ UK suppliers ✅Responsible for sustaining 4,100 skilled jobs across the UK ✅Comprised of 589 vehicles across six variants ✅Export-ready and NATO-interoperable
AJAX delivers cutting-edge reconnaissance, firepower, and digital integration – supporting the UK’s Strategic Defence Review 2025 themes of warfighting readiness, industrial resilience and innovation shaped by lessons from Ukraine.
This is more than a capability milestone. It’s a symbol of British engineering excellence, national resilience, and the power of defence to drive economic growth. https://x.com/gduknews/status/1989348335774253189
This is more than a capability milestone. It’s a symbol of British engineering excellence, national resilience, and the power of defence to drive economic growth. As long as nobody sits in it.
For some reason I am reminded about the urban legend of boobtrapped Japanese pistols from WWII.
Scattered on the battlefield, they were alleged to explode if used.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
All the hard parts of learning Latin and Greek, and when finally accomplished the works of Kant and Hegel are just as incomprehensible. I see the young people are all renouncing languages altogether, and those that are not are going for Spanish.
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
I rather regret giving up Latin, but it was that or three Sciences. And I wanted to do medicine, or similar. So that was that.
Having an O level in Latin was compulsory for attending Oxbridge until some time in the 70s/80s.
In the 80s no matter what you wanted to study you had to have O levels in English, Maths, and a foreign language.
At my school, in 50’s, boys who had done Science, and who were considered Oxbridge material, did a third year in the VIth to enable them to get O level Latin.
PART 1: THE ARTICLE Yes, @viewcode is and it's in the toilets. It's currently on its fifth draft and is 1,9XX words long not including the appendices, so I'll have to kill my darlings, including the Shaun Of The Dead reference.
I invited four discussants on to discuss the article. "Discussants" is an old technique you don't see much around these days, where you give a lecture/report and then two groups discuss, pro- and con. Two of my discussants (@NigelB and @kyf_100 ) from the pro-trans direction, and another two (@Cyclefree and @DavidL) from the gender-critical direction. Problem is, due to her personal circs @Cyclefree cannot contribute much, and @DavidL has not yet responded. Also @NigelB and @kyf100 are not lawyers and have pointed out that this makes it imbalanced.
To cure this I propose the following
i) Nudge @DavidL: sir you don't have to be a discussant if you don't want to, but I would be grateful if you could tell me yea or nay
ii) Is there somebody from the the pro-trans direction (or at least not explicitly gender-critical) with legal experience who would like to be a discussant?
PART 2: THE PEGGIE CASE I have not yet studied the case in depth but I do note that the judges in both Peggie and Kelly gave weight to the number of objectors, which means I may be able to incorporate it in the Kelly section
Popped in this afternoon just to see if you were already on the case, pun intended. Glad to see you are!
The trouble with all this stuff is the speed at which it moves. That, and following it in depth is a full time job in itself (a mere 312 page judgement to read tonight!).
When you started your article, it was fairly rational (albeit disputed) to reach a conclusion, legally speaking that trans women are a) legally 'men' for the purpose of the EA and b) legally excluded from single sex spaces.
In the space of a week, we have not one but two judgements (Kelly v Leonardo, Peggie v NHS Fife) that seem to suggest, at least, that (b) is incorrect.
To complicate matters further, the Good Law Project expect their judicial review into the EHRC's draft guidance to be handed down over the next few weeks.
This is why I'm rather more interested in the political debate than the letter of the law. The law is just a set of rules that can change. Politics is what those rules mean, in practice, and how we as a society choose to balance conflicting, even oppositional views (enter proportionality, stage left...).
Noted. Considering changing rooms and toilets
Changing rooms IIUC the SC Judgment FWS was clear on changing rooms: the answer is "no access for TW". Peggie seems to have modified that, and now the answer seems to be "access is permitted unless somebody objects, and then withdrawn until the objection is resolved". Which brings me to...
Toilets My article tries to address whether toilet access comes under FWS (there is disagreement) and the more I read the more I think there is no consensus and it will have to wait until Govt resolves the EHRC guidance. Kelly added a quirk which Peggie echoed, namely the weight of numbers - the number of objectors is relevant and a single objector is insufficient. This surprised me.
Apparently Peggie also rejects the interpretation that FWS directly addressed toilets, saying that if it had meant toilets it would have said so. I agree with that, but I can't deny that many lawyers says it does.
I hope TSE isn't talking his book with all the anti-Badenoch threads. The reason she stays, in my opinion, is that her performance has improved and who are you going to replace her with? The Tories might be doomed whoever the leader is, but I think they'd be a lot better off sticking with Badenoch than bringing in Jenrick.
Nope.
I voted for Badenoch last year and want her to remain in place lest that human colostomy bag Jenrick takes over.
The point I was trying to make is that whilst Badenoch’s performances have improved the Tories are still doing worse than the 2024 GE.
That’s what is focussing the minds of Tory MPs.
I have the feeling that Reform’s numbers have a lot of air in them, as the analytics people say. So tricky to weigh up, as it’s like an outsider in a horse race going twenty lengths clear; it should come back to the pack, but maybe it won’t
It would be tough on Kemi if Reform collapsed in scandal after she’d been removed. Her successor would probably have a Sir Keir style open goal at the next election
Isn't it likely that one of the factors keeping the Tory polling figure low is that it is impossible to know whether a person should vote Tory to help keep Reform out, or vote Tory to help put Reform in?
As long as that polling figure figure is low, the question of voting Tory to have a Tory government doesn't arise; like with voting LD.
No different leader will resolve that issue unless they tell us. It can only be resolved by Reform collapse, or Tory decisiveness.
Surely if your voting Tory but don't like Reform much, at this point you're mainly voting Tory in the hopes of a Tory - Ref coalition where the Tories are able to be a moderating influence on a Ref government.
There's virtually no hope of a Tory majority unless something big changes. If you don't want a rightish government, why are you voting Tory at all?
To be fair, as a Ref voter this would probably be my preferred outcome - Ref are needed to fix immigration, but with Tory influence to ensure they cut spending rather than increase the state.
More generally - why do people constantly treat politics like a team sport, where they back their team through thick or thin, regardless of how useless they are.
I couldn't care less about the fate of any of the UK's political parties, I care about the policies which they enact on the country.
IMHO, the country needs: Net zero immigration for an extended period (until house prices are back to sanity). Massive shrinkage of the state, coupled with a fairly massive reduction in the tax burden, and also a very reduced deficit. Deregulation across most spheres of life.
I'll vote for anyone who looks like they might deliver some of that, or failing that is least likely to deliver the opposite. I couldn't care less what colour label they wear as they are doing it.
This is however slightly tempered by a belief that leopards aren't given to changing their spots - e. g. whatever the Labour Party says before elections about not increasing taxes, you can be can be sure that if elected they'll tax, spend and borrow like it's going out of fashion, because that's what they always do.
If a Reform government is not high spend (somewhere in the middle of the western European pack as % of GDP) I shall eat my hat.
Me too. I think they'll probably fix immigration, and might manage some of the more straightforward deregulation required, and that will be about it. It's still better than the alternatives, which are unlikely to make progress towards any of my desired destinations.
There is no party serious about reducing the size of the state, or even attempting to balance the books, although they Tories occasionally make some of the right noises - for that reason, a Ref-Tory coalition is probably my prefered outcome.
I wouldn't want the Tories to have a majority on their own, see my comments about leopards and spots.
Immigration is down 75% from the Boriswave already.
still circa 50K illegals coming in on boats and costing a fortune, that has to be stopped.
Yes, and in terms of what voters care about this is far more important. Much of the Boriswave was made of of Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. Few people objected to that. Voters have a distinct hierarchy of the sorts of immigration they'll accept. We've reduced immigration of the sort people don't mind but we're still getting the immigration which is politically toxic: the unskilled, the chancers, the criminals and the fanatics.
Many of these people are refugees fleeing death and torture. The UK takes fewer refugees than many other countries. Many refugees go on to make significant positive contributions to their host country.
Should we invade France if they're causing the death and torture of refugees?
You keep making this point but it is idiotic. Every country needs to do its share in terms of accepting refugees. France already has 50% more refugees than we do, relative to their population.
So who determines what our share is and whom we should accept?
I would far rather we accept people, safely, via bringing people over from refugee camps near to conflicts, like David Cameron suggested, than accept people who pay people smugglers who drown people in the Channel.
What about you?
And which scale you look at changes things dramatically, relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does.
The UK, also shown, ranks 11th with 160 applicants per 100,000 residents. Data is from July 2024 to June 2025
You suggest, however, that "relative to per square km, I'm pretty sure we take considerably more than France does." So...
UK: 244,376 km2 France: 632,702.3 km2, but that's including French Guiana etc. European France is 543,940 km2 Germany: 357,114 km2 Spain: 506,030 km2
So, asylum seekers per area gives us...
UK: 0.45 France: 0.25, but European France, if we presume no aslym seekers to French Guiana, not certain what the figures are there, comes to, is 0.29 Germany: 0.53 Spain: 0.31
Therefore, yes, we take more than France (and Spain) per area, but still less than Germany, and I've not done the figures, but I presume we're still way below Greece and Belgium.
The Boriswave is the confounder. We allow legal migration, illegal migration and asylum to be conflated by bad actors. And people never want to actually look and understand data.
I get it. People see migrants fleeing from (checks notes) France and wonders why they don't stay there and claim asylum. One reason was revealed on QT last week - often they have been refused by other nations along the way...
they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries. Soft touch for any chancer.
What social rights do I have as an asylum seeker in France?
As an asylum seeker, you will benefit from social rights during your procedure. This means that you are normally entitled to: health cover (social security), reduced transport fares, accommodation, a monthly allowance (ADA ) in the form of a payment card which does not allow you to withdraw money but only to pay in certain authorized stores.
It's similar in Germany.
So even more ridiculous that the parasites pay to come here , they will not be getting the largesse we stupidly hand out.
You're presumably going to admit that you have spouted Reform bullshit in the earlier post?
"they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries"
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
Also inflected, much more than the creolized pidgin derivative known as English. No sweat for someone who has done Latin, but in this degenerate age ...
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
All the hard parts of learning Latin and Greek, and when finally accomplished the works of Kant and Hegel are just as incomprehensible. I see the young people are all renouncing languages altogether, and those that are not are going for Spanish.
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
I rather regret giving up Latin, but it was that or three Sciences. And I wanted to do medicine, or similar. So that was that.
Having an O level in Latin was compulsory for attending Oxbridge until some time in the 70s/80s.
In the 80s no matter what you wanted to study you had to have O levels in English, Maths, and a foreign language.
At my school, in 50’s, boys who had done Science, and who were considered Oxbridge material, did a third year in the VIth to enable them to get O level Latin.
English and Maths nobody would argue with as important. I've no idea what we studied in English mind you - I can't tell you a single thing I learned in English lessons.
The other essentials - a foreign language - excellent in hindsight, although it mainly taught me about what should have been taught in the English lessons. - chemistry - I think this is a far more important grounding than many other subjects - history - I absolutely hated it. Now though I rather love it, and through gritted teeth I'll admit that I did get a sense of the subject
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
A war within the old Yugoslavia of course. Not the greatest advert for ultra-nationalism I can think of.
Meanwhile the UK is doing so well after Brexit isn't it. That's the narrative yiou need to worry about.
Not really a good example of a stable and peaceful federation!
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
All the hard parts of learning Latin and Greek, and when finally accomplished the works of Kant and Hegel are just as incomprehensible. I see the young people are all renouncing languages altogether, and those that are not are going for Spanish.
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
I rather regret giving up Latin, but it was that or three Sciences. And I wanted to do medicine, or similar. So that was that.
Having an O level in Latin was compulsory for attending Oxbridge until some time in the 70s/80s.
In the 80s no matter what you wanted to study you had to have O levels in English, Maths, and a foreign language.
I had to have O level Latin to read maths at Cambridge. I had O level Greek as well. Useful for maths Δ, δ. I think that's about it.
"A former Royal Marine has been banned from working with children after he protested against illegal migrants, The Telegraph can disclose.
Free speech campaigners said spurious safeguarding concerns were increasingly being deployed to “silence” people with “patriotic views” in a “scandalous abuse of the system”."
"A former Royal Marine has been banned from working with children after he protested against illegal migrants, The Telegraph can disclose.
Free speech campaigners said spurious safeguarding concerns were increasingly being deployed to “silence” people with “patriotic views” in a “scandalous abuse of the system”."
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
All the hard parts of learning Latin and Greek, and when finally accomplished the works of Kant and Hegel are just as incomprehensible. I see the young people are all renouncing languages altogether, and those that are not are going for Spanish.
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
I rather regret giving up Latin, but it was that or three Sciences. And I wanted to do medicine, or similar. So that was that.
Having an O level in Latin was compulsory for attending Oxbridge until some time in the 70s/80s.
In the 80s no matter what you wanted to study you had to have O levels in English, Maths, and a foreign language.
I had to have O level Latin to read maths at Cambridge. I had O level Greek as well. Useful for maths Δ, δ. I think that's about it.
Much more useful for a biologist actually - gave a sense of the underlying word structures and etymologies which helped a lot with catching on to the specialised terminologies. As well as Latin. In fact botanists still use a formalised basic Latin to formally name plant species etc. Must be the only folk apart from historians/archaeologists and the RC Church clergy to use it professionally outside the classics classrooms.
But I tended to fade when learning the middle pluperfect tenses of the verbs (necessary to translate "I had had that cowboy builder repair my roof the previous year").
"A former Royal Marine has been banned from working with children after he protested against illegal migrants, The Telegraph can disclose.
Free speech campaigners said spurious safeguarding concerns were increasingly being deployed to “silence” people with “patriotic views” in a “scandalous abuse of the system”."
do you think the word "after" is a little vague? It doesn't imply cause and effect, only time.
He was charged (and cleared) of inciting racial hatred, but arrests and charges appear on enhanced DBS checks, not just convictions.
Surely that’s unjust?
He was cleared and yet it is still impacting his life.
Increasingly, over time, more of this stuff is being bought in. The enhanced DBS checks looking at past arrests is just a part of it.
Accept a caution, and many jobs are closed to you.
Police forces have fought tooth and nail to retain all kinds of information on people who are innocent - even fighting the courts over it.
But don’t worry. It will only affect people you don’t like. It will never happen to you.
Isn't that down to the kind of screwups over security clearance that came to light in the Soham murder investigations? Which were ISTR police screwups at least in part.
Many people ranting about the EU don't know much about the bloody history of this continent (or conveniently ignore it)
The EU is barely 30 years old, and its precursor, the EEC, almost 70. Before this project began, there had never been a single 30yr period in recorded history when the people of today’s EU were not fighting each other. Centuries of conflict culminating in the worst human-made disaster in history, the second World War
You'll have a hard time finding Europeans that don't want to improve and reform the EU, but imperfect unions of democracies work! US states haven't taken up arms against each other for 150 years now, despite sometimes extreme political differences. If you bet politically on European fragmentation, you're making a mistake https://x.com/martinmbauer/status/1997981079110623540
This old lie again.
The lack of war in Europe had bugger all to do with the EEC/EU and everything to do with the cold war balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union. Neither side would allow war in Europe because they were too frightened of escalation.
It is no supsrise that, within 2 years of the fall of the Berlin wall we had war again in Europe - in the Balkans. Or does that bit of Europe not count when it goes against your narrative?
My father’s equivalent of this ran something like: “before the EEC / EU, an army crossed the line at least once every fifty years”. (It may have been something like: there’s no fifty year period where an army didn’t cross the line, which is slightly different but contains an annoying double negative. Historians can tell me which, or neither, is closer to the truth!)
A few skirmishes in the Balkans don’t change that reality, no matter how awful they were locally.
Post cold war we’re almost at a fifty year gap again. Lets hope we make it to 2029!
The issue was never the EEC / EU which is worth about as much as the League of Nations for preventing wars.
The issue is nuclear weapons.
Nobody wants to fight a major war when nuclear weapons are on the line.
The EEC/EU has fostered closer commercial and cultural links between countries, and that contributes to peace too.
The extent of that is debatable. What's bringing European countries closer together culturally is more Anglosphere-led globalisation than European integration. If anything, French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC.
Do you have a source for this claim that "French and German people are less likely to learn each other's languages than they were before the EEC"? I call bollocks to that.
That's what English is for.
My Italian colleague at work speaks French, but was complaining German was hard. She's learning because her partner is Swiss and speaks German (as well as Italian, French, Spanish and English).
German is hard (I’ve got it at O level) because they will, at the end of the sentence, the verb put.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
All the hard parts of learning Latin and Greek, and when finally accomplished the works of Kant and Hegel are just as incomprehensible. I see the young people are all renouncing languages altogether, and those that are not are going for Spanish.
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
I rather regret giving up Latin, but it was that or three Sciences. And I wanted to do medicine, or similar. So that was that.
Having an O level in Latin was compulsory for attending Oxbridge until some time in the 70s/80s.
In the 80s no matter what you wanted to study you had to have O levels in English, Maths, and a foreign language.
I had to have O level Latin to read maths at Cambridge. I had O level Greek as well. Useful for maths Δ, δ. I think that's about it.
Much more useful for a biologist actually - gave a sense of the underlying word structures and etymologies which helped a lot with catching on to the specialised terminologies. As well as Latin. In fact botanists still use a formalised basic Latin to formally name plant species etc. Must be the only folk apart from historians/archaeologists and the RC Church clergy to use it professionally outside the classics classrooms.
But I tended to fade when learning the middle pluperfect tenses of the verbs (necessary to translate "I had had that cowboy builder repair my roof the previous year").
That reminds me of the sentence about a grammar exam. Alice, where Bob had had "had", had had "had had". "Had had" was correct. Obviously the middle pluperfect!
PART 1: THE ARTICLE Yes, @viewcode is and it's in the toilets. It's currently on its fifth draft and is 1,9XX words long not including the appendices, so I'll have to kill my darlings, including the Shaun Of The Dead reference.
I invited four discussants on to discuss the article. "Discussants" is an old technique you don't see much around these days, where you give a lecture/report and then two groups discuss, pro- and con. Two of my discussants (@NigelB and @kyf_100 ) from the pro-trans direction, and another two (@Cyclefree and @DavidL) from the gender-critical direction. Problem is, due to her personal circs @Cyclefree cannot contribute much, and @DavidL has not yet responded. Also @NigelB and @kyf100 are not lawyers and have pointed out that this makes it imbalanced.
To cure this I propose the following
i) Nudge @DavidL: sir you don't have to be a discussant if you don't want to, but I would be grateful if you could tell me yea or nay
ii) Is there somebody from the the pro-trans direction (or at least not explicitly gender-critical) with legal experience who would like to be a discussant?
PART 2: THE PEGGIE CASE I have not yet studied the case in depth but I do note that the judges in both Peggie and Kelly gave weight to the number of objectors, which means I may be able to incorporate it in the Kelly section
Up for it but also rather busy. Let me know if I can help.
Have we noted this Court of appeal judgment recently published? Problem gamblers are unlikely to get their money back. In this case the sum is £1.4 million.
The only restriction on gambling should be age. You have to be eighteen or above to bet, and after that it's your own fault if you lose. Never has there been a better example of the overreaching Nanny State than these rules on betting
Part of the licensing conditions for pubs is that they don't serve people who have had too much to drink.
I don't have a problem extending that principle to gambling.
Comments
In the U.K. claiming asylum is not the first resort, because of the rules about not working. Which means that if you claim asylum, you are limited to work in the black economy.
Yes, @viewcode is and it's in the toilets. It's currently on its fifth draft and is 1,9XX words long not including the appendices, so I'll have to kill my darlings, including the Shaun Of The Dead reference.
I invited four discussants on to discuss the article. "Discussants" is an old technique you don't see much around these days, where you give a lecture/report and then two groups discuss, pro- and con. Two of my discussants (@NigelB and @kyf_100 ) from the pro-trans direction, and another two (@Cyclefree and @DavidL) from the gender-critical direction. Problem is, due to her personal circs @Cyclefree cannot contribute much, and @DavidL has not yet responded. Also @NigelB and @kyf100 are not lawyers and have pointed out that this makes it imbalanced.
To cure this I propose the following
I don't know if any other PBers are in town, but I'm happy to meet any hopefully also enjoying the glorious 75 degree December sunshine.
PM me if interested.
Ukrainians voted to be independent of Russia. What more is there to say?
With the Northern Ireland peace deal, it was a help that we were both in the EU. Both being in the EU softens the border and makes border disputes less relevant. If you can go back and forth freely, it matters less which side of the border you are. EU/EEA membership and the like has helped make many border disputes across Europe less relevant. People in South Tyrol are less bothered about being in Italy when they can easily cross the border into Switzerland. There's no Schleswig-Holstein Question when the German-Danish border matters little. Ethnic Hungarians in Romania are less bothered when the border between Hungary and Romania is more porous.
I recognise that this thinking is exists, which then leads me to recognise that the threat from Russia is much wider than just to Ukraine, but also encompasses the Baltic States, Finland, Poland, etc, and so it is even more important that we put a stop to it in Ukraine, than to try and come to terms with it in some way.
Its not a reason for us to accept people smugglers.
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2025/1589.html
I have not yet studied the case in depth but I do note that the judges in both Peggie and Kelly gave weight to the number of objectors, which means I may be able to incorporate it in the Kelly section
Again, you are being wilfully misleading. There is far more to the defence and security of Europe than just propping up Ukraine, however important that might also be. A point I made clear in my original posting, have repeated since and which you continue to ignore because it doesn't suit your rather warped narrative.
And no, I do not accept your point about weakening Europe. That presupposes that the EU is the main driver of European defence in Security. It isn't, it never has been and probably never will be. NATO -with or without the US - is far more important and the JEF is growing in importance.
The EU have singularly failed to get agreement on European defence because all the individual nations are playing the system to their own advantage whilst a couple are actively pro-Russia. What we actually need is those countries who are willing to get onboard with defence and security to do so and leave the others behind. But of course that is nigh on impossible in the context of the EU. One of many reasons we are better off on the outside.
"Hello visa office. Yes, I am fleeing Eritrea and am planning to claim asylum when I arrive in the UK. May I have a visa?" is usually answered "No."
And no-one is saying we should "accept people smugglers". I think everyone here agrees people smugglers are bad.
But I wonder if the last hundred years or so when national self-determination was seen as the natural way of things is a historical anomaly. It only works in an open world where everyone believes in it. It feels like we are slipping out of the idealist phase of history and back in to the realist. Empires weren't built purely because everyone wanted an empire - they were built because if you didn't conquer and occupy weak but important location x, your rival would and make you weaker by default. We moved past that when world trade became a thing and you could just buy stuff from everywhere. But it feels like we are slipping back into it. Globalisation only works if most people believe in it.
(Although the people coming over on boats have a higher acceptance rate for their asylum applications than those already in the UK. If one takes those whose claims are rejected to be those who are "abusing" the system, then that's not the boat people.)
If I were to guess the contributions to peace overall for Europe, it's perhaps 70:30 in favour of nuclear weapons because they have prevented a hot war between major powers. In terms of smaller territorial disputes, I think economic and political integration is everything - the Balkans conflict happened in the post-nuke age after all.
I don't think there's much doubt Ukraine would be safer had it retained its nukes - and also why European equivocation on airspace violations is so dangerous. I think you could also argue that the threat of nuclear war forces countries to integrate because that's the only option left with territorial conquest out of the picture. Disentangling the two is tricky.
And when you do succeed, that's when it gets really difficult. You now have a significant minority of people who don't want to be a part of your country. Which means you're dealing with civil disobedience at best, with the possibility of terrorism and outright revolt and rebellion.
For what?
Countries get rich by not invading their neighbours. See Switzerland.
And I say this as someone who has won once in his last fifty bets... and the average odds were 6/1! Can I sue?! PLEASE!!!
1) They already have friends, family or contacts in the UK
2) They can speak English reasonably well, or at least better than other European languages
3) It's relatively easy to get work in the UK even if you can't speak the lingo that well. The lack of ID cards helps with that.
Which, when you think about it, are exactly the reasons you or I would have for choosing a particular country to head for if we had to leave the UK in a hurry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAn3B_XNSMs
They've conned/strong armed the MoD into accepting it into service, even though it appears to be completely unfit for purpose.
And they are taking the line that the MoD is responsible for the problems.
There's also the issue of Welsh jobs.
Perhaps we could keep them employed stripping the useful bits of kit out of the hulls before scrapping them ?
This is true of most of Britain's Imperial conquests. It is also a way of looking at Ukraine. The US, aided by Europe, pulled Ukraine out of Russia's sphere of influence. Russia would have been unlikely to invade had Yanukovich remained in power - simply because they would have had everything they wanted with no sacrifice.
gives another account. Actual judgement here btw (have not read it).
https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/sandie-peggie-v-fife-health-board-and-another-judgment-and-summary/
Is it rich ? Of course not.
But its rulers are immensely wealthy.
And they make all the decisions.
It still quite possible the MAGA crew gets thrown out wholesale, and the US tries to pick up the threads of its previous alliances.
But they will never again (certainly not in my lifetime) be seen as the reliable backstop for the western world.
Hiya mate, can you please keep annon,
Just a basic walk-around of a vehicle straight from GD, and absolutely nothing in-depth. However, this is what GD was sending us, and our CoC, who were already lined up for jobs with them, would tell us to accept them. There were a lot more problems than this.
https://x.com/MilitaryBanter/status/1997681909103509610
If, for example, I had to flee the UK, I'd head for Germany because I have contacts there and speak the language. That might involve passing through France, but I wouldn't want to stop in France because I don't know anyone there and I don't speak French. So I'd do my damndest to get into Germany even if I were physically safe in France.
Whether those reasons are "valid" or not is a different matter and depends on the criteria that you are applying. But those are the reasons.
I knew someone who spoke fluent German, and, at the end of the War, was an interpreter. He said it could be difficult, when interviewing an apparently surrendering officer, to know whether he was actually surrendering or not.
Jared Kushner is part of the Paramount bid for WBD
https://x.com/danprimack/status/1998040806268325889
But Hunter Biden, right ?
Though, to be fair, operating that kind of business might diminish your talent.
https://www.ekole.fr/blog/lenseignement-lallemand-chute-libre
The trouble with all this stuff is the speed at which it moves. That, and following it in depth is a full time job in itself (a mere 312 page judgement to read tonight!).
When you started your article, it was fairly rational (albeit disputed) to reach a conclusion, legally speaking that trans women are a) legally 'men' for the purpose of the EA and b) legally excluded from single sex spaces.
In the space of a week, we have not one but two judgements (Kelly v Leonardo, Peggie v NHS Fife) that seem to suggest, at least, that (b) is incorrect.
To complicate matters further, the Good Law Project expect their judicial review into the EHRC's draft guidance to be handed down over the next few weeks.
This is why I'm rather more interested in the political debate than the letter of the law. The law is just a set of rules that can change. Politics is what those rules mean, in practice, and how we as a society choose to balance conflicting, even oppositional views (enter proportionality, stage left...).
There may be some pre-existing bias
(Even top decent universities like Nottingham are abandoning modern languages altogether).
The current hatred of Muslims, Somalis (cats and dogs) etc is just a repeat of a dozen previous cycles with different groups of people. In the 19C, Irish did not count as white, then Italians, Jews, Hispanics and so on. As per Sellars and Yeatman, American history is a sequence of waves.
It is really the self-obsessed Magaloofs selling themselves a series of tissues of bollocks.
eg Muslims have been in the USA since the 16C.
https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/african-muslims-early-america
Personally I'd feel very uncomfortable living anywhere I didn't speak the local language. Which given my capacity for languages rules 80% of the world out straight away.
Switzerland partly became rich by supplying a workforce to all its neighbours to invade all its other neighbours in rotation, then repatriating and keeping much of their money.
The other subtlety is that, whilst countries tend not to get rich by invading other countries, their rulers can...
In the 80s no matter what you wanted to study you had to have O levels in English, Maths, and a foreign language.
Bustenhalter.
Changing rooms
IIUC the SC Judgment FWS was clear on changing rooms: the answer is "no access for TW". Peggie seems to have modified that, and now the answer seems to be "access is permitted unless somebody objects, and then withdrawn until the objection is resolved". Which brings me to...
Toilets
My article tries to address whether toilet access comes under FWS (there is disagreement) and the more I read the more I think there is no consensus and it will have to wait until Govt resolves the EHRC guidance. Kelly added a quirk which Peggie echoed, namely the weight of numbers - the number of objectors is relevant and a single objector is insufficient. This surprised me.
Apparently Peggie also rejects the interpretation that FWS directly addressed toilets, saying that if it had meant toilets it would have said so. I agree with that, but I can't deny that many lawyers says it does.
"they don't get the benefits and free housing , etc in those other safe countries"
The other essentials
- a foreign language - excellent in hindsight, although it mainly taught me about what should have been taught in the English lessons.
- chemistry - I think this is a far more important grounding than many other subjects
- history - I absolutely hated it. Now though I rather love it, and through gritted teeth I'll admit that I did get a sense of the subject
I had O level Greek as well.
Useful for maths Δ, δ. I think that's about it.
He was cleared and yet it is still impacting his life.
Accept a caution, and many jobs are closed to you.
Police forces have fought tooth and nail to retain all kinds of information on people who are innocent - even fighting the courts over it.
But don’t worry. It will only affect people you don’t like. It will never happen to you.
But I tended to fade when learning the middle pluperfect tenses of the verbs (necessary to translate "I had had that cowboy builder repair my roof the previous year").
What about per empty dwelling?
Alice, where Bob had had "had", had had "had had". "Had had" was correct.
Obviously the middle pluperfect!
I don't have a problem extending that principle to gambling.