Also, in terms of the public's willingness to support increased Defence spending I think people underestimate the public and excuse the politicians. We can see other European countries, not just Poland and the Baltic States who are on the front line, but countries like Germany and Denmark who are doing a lot more to increase defence spending than the UK.
Yes, quite - we have a problem of political leadership.
If politicians won't lead us there then why wouldn't many voters prioritise benefits that matter to them personally?
All NATO nations committed to spend 5% of gdp on defence by 2035, even if Labour backbenchers have voted to prioritise welfare spending
Well, that will be the challenge for the next Conservative Government, presumably in 2029. How will they reach the 5% GDP figure in the course of a Parliament - I suppose they could keep defence spending and hope GDP falls to meet the targer but, more realistically, how will they increase the number assuming it can't all be done with growth concurrent with, what I imagine, will be commitments to lower taxes such as stamp duty?
Well they would restore the two child benefit cap for starters Labour have abandoned and reform the likes of PiP Labour also rejected reforms too
Cheap jibes aside, let's get serious on numbers.
I've seen the UK is spending £83 billion on defence this year - defence ranks fifth behind Social Care/Welfare (£379 billion), Health (£277 billion), Education (£146 billion) and Debt Interest Payments (£123 billion).
Instead of wittering on about GDP percentages, what amount would you like the UK to spend on defence and from where does that extra funding originate?
Looking at the income side, £329 billion from Income Tax, £214 billion from VAT, £199 billion from National Insurance.
If you want to double the amount spent on defence to sorry £160 billion, how do you get there? What elements of the other budgets would you reduce or how much additional tax would you seek to raise?
Well you could cut the welfare budget to £290 million for starters
How? What are you going to cut and by how much?
Restore the 2 child benefit cap for starters
From what I've read, restoring the cap would save between £2 billion and £3.5 billion so it's a drop in the ocean as well as a cheap political slogan. Do the Conservatives have any answers or policies on child poverty?
Don't bother - let's get to the substantive. Kemi Badenoch wants to "slash" "welfare". What does she mean by "slash" and, more important, what does she mean by "welfare" - funding for social care for vulnerable adults and children, pensions or, as I expect, Universal Credit and other allowances - what about Carers Allowance, by the way, would you advocate reducing that?
Presumably based on the perception there are millions of "scroungers" all enjoying the best of life thanks to Universal Credit, the plan will be to demonise these people and use that as an argument to carry forward a broad reduction of welfare payments.
Will the age at which individuals can collect the State pension be increased - to what and when? What measures will be taken to cajole people from living on Universal Credit back into work - will the levels of benefit be reduced to the point at which it becomes unviable to have them as your sole source of income? Will the levels of testing be enhanced to weed out the "scroungers" from those in genuine need ?
What of the infamous "Triple Lock" - will the Conservatives be committed to that for the life of the next Parliament or will they challenge what has become the orthodoxy in recent times?
£2billion and £3.5 billion is not a drop in the ocean; government budgets are made up of spending like this, and such attitudes are what leads to chronic waste in public spending.
Child poverty is not solved by dribbling out an extra giro allowance at great cost to working taxpayers; it is solved by stable families in work, and that has always been the Conservative priority.
£3 billion isn't a drop in the ocean. It doesn't support the case of people like myself, who think the two child cap is an iniquitous punishment of children for presuming to exist, to pretend it is a drop in the ocean.
It comes down to priorities. Do you think child poverty is a blight on society? Do you think the government should take practical steps to alleviate it? If the answer to both those questions is yes, then removing the two child cap is by far the most cost effective step the government can take. After that it comes down to priorities. If government spending is constrained, and it always is, what do you rank lower and dispense with?
I think the two-child cap is bad policy and results in bad outcomes. But I also think that fiscal transfers are a bad way to combat poverty, and yet another example of a failure of Blairite ideology.
Firstly, it's founded on the idea that inequality as a result of economic outcomes doesn't matter, because the government can even up the balance a bit after the fact. Something along the lines of, "we don't care if people get filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes." But rich people are increasingly not willing to pay their taxes, and especially not to pay for fiscal transfers, and so the policy is a failure in its own terms.
Secondly, the policy has unintended consequences. It results in subsidising unproductive low-wage work, reducing the competitive pressure to invest in productivity, making the country as a whole poorer in the long-term.
A better policy mix would be to improve the incentives for businesses to invest to improve productivity and to strengthen the ability of workers to bargain for higher pay, so that the benefit from improved productivity is shared with workers.
The country as a whole becomes richer, inequality is reduced, and poverty is reduced without the reliance on government fiscal transfers that are ever vulnerable to the next Chancellor Osborne.
I wouldn't say this is an either/or. Safety nets exist to catch people when desirable outcomes like the one you mention don't apply. This is the principle behind any welfare. I don't think it's fair to say the principle uniquely doesn't apply to child number 3 in a family.
Yes, the welfare safety net should apply to child 3, and 4, etc. But the main problem we have here is that the majority of people in receipt of the welfare safety net are in work. That's no longer a welfare safety net. That's subsidising employers to pay poverty wages.
We need to address that problem at source.
Alternatively reduce the cliff edges that mean people only want to work a set amount of hours to ensure they don’t lose their benefits.
I was looking at doing a shop job over Xmas at one of the retailers on the Arnison, couldn’t be bothered in the end,
All of them had 16 hour and full time opportunities.
It’s easy to claim it is just poor paying employers but the system is also geared up to encourage it.
I think it is 90% poor paying employers.
The system has to somehow force people into crap work with crap wages while not starving too many people who don't cooperate, and not costing an absolute fortune. It's balancing all those imperatives that produces the mess we have.
Improve productivity and improve pay and a lot of those problems fall away.
A single person working in a entry level job (the lowest of the low) can pull in over £22k working full-time.
That's enough to live on, rent a decent room, or houseshare, and start to build a career on.
I started on less.
Take home on £22K is £ 1,600pcm ish. Yes it is enough, but it's just enough: you're not going to be able to quickly save a deposit and get a mortgage on that. It's at this point that life choices really kick in: if you marry somebody your combined salaries might be enough to buy a property somewhere, if you have wealthy parents they can gift you the deposit and guarantee the mortgage, and things start to diverge.
Nobody on bottom level jobs has ever ever been able to save a deposit and get a mortgage.
That's not true - my house was previously owned by a Teaching Assistant, one of the lowest paid jobs there is (salary is term time only). She bought in the era of 0.5% mortgages though.
Have you forgotten the 00s era of no deposit mortgages/self cert mortgages/110% Northern Rock mortgages?
Don’t. My
I got 1.69% fixed for five years in February 2022, which officially started in April of that year. 16 months left to go.
I'm cursing that I didn't fix for seven years even though it was very slightly more expensive.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Could you get one for £175 a day? Serious question.
Your Party has announced that they will not be fielding any candidates in the 2026 English local elections, but will be endorsing selected independents. Your Party in Wales and Scotland will be independently decided their strategies.
Your Party's inability to actually function as a political party remains a godsend for the Greens and Labour.
Wow. All the money they raised. All the trouble they went to organising a founding conference and choosing a name, and they aren't going to stand candidates in elections?
What an absolute shambles.
This is precisely the sort of ineptness that has discouraged the Greens from doing deals with any of the other left of Labour parties in the past.
The morning after the night before. Starmer is a worm.
I don't envy his position, he is boxed in from all sides.
No, he isn't. Grow a pair and align as a European block against the axis forces of Russia and America. Why delay? Lets assume Greenland really is next to get invaded - America departs from NATO as Article 5 is triggered against them. As America's new security policy declares us the enemy why are we even pretending these fascist fucks are our allies? They're not.
Haul America up before the Security Council. Get a NATO meeting called and let America boycott or walk out if it chooses to. Put pressure on them.
Trump and his cronies believe they can do what they like and we will just acquiesce. We need to show that isn't true.
Back in the real world, America is too rich and too powerful for any fantasies about punching the school bully on the nose. America controls everything including world trade. How will the French buy English Sparkling Wine if America shuts us out of the banking system? How will we pay income tax if 90 per cent of the government is hosted on American cloud systems? How will your YouTube channel survive if America shuts us out of the internet or disables all Teslas with over-the-air software updates (as we fear China might)?
The banking system point is one I have made - we are totally exposed to the Orange one directing the industry to shut people out - and have trialled this with a few individuals.
Europe has SEPA which needs to expanded quickly.
As for standing up to tyranny, do we have a choice? Who is next? Gilead to seize Panama? Greenland? Canada? And what about the people inspired by this? Argentina launches a war to liberate Las Malvinas. China takes Taiwan etc. This needs to be stopped before the world gets seriously fucked up.
The U.S. attempting to freeze the U.K. and EU out of the global banking system would have deeply painful consequences for the U.S. Those links are not a one way street. Swift ain’t American, and pushing the need for the dollar too far is unwise when other countries hold your debt.
But "pushing the need for the dollar" is the reason for annexing Venezuela. Countries have started trading oil in Yuan. If that spreads then the petrdollar is over and America is crushed by the weight of its debts.
Invade Venezuela, cut a deal with a general, send in Exxon to reappropriate its oil, get the taps turned on, the world dances to American oil again.
Apart from the fact that the rest of the world is rapidly weaning itself off oil.
Yeah, Trump is an analogue US imperialist in an increasingly green powered digital world. Insofar as he’s capable of strategic thinking he sees the future covered in sticky black crude.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
The 'Long Seventies' (1968-1982) was by far the best era of music. It has been all downhill since then even if there have been rare hummocks of decent music.
Two reasons: Radio One and Top of the Pops meant everyone listened to the same things, and playlists were eclectic. Nowadays you can go through the day never being exposed to any song you do not already like.
Used to watch TOTP almost religiously every Thursday night during the 1980s
Youtube recently started recommending me John Peel's "Festive Fifty" episodes - which have taken me right back to sitting with my big bundle of C90 tapes :-)
I'm surprised the BBC has never made a big thing commercially of the festive 50, especially after Peel died. They got played to death by me. I would have bought them.
They seem to have run out of old #TOTP not hosted by sex offenders, but must have a vast collection of Old Grey Whistle Tests worthy of Friday night on BBC4.
My favourite OGWT moment was Meat Loaf doing a fabulously loud and lewd studio performance of Paradise By The Dashboard Light and when it finally finished the cut back to Bob Harris who sheepishly mumbled, "mmm, hot fun in the city".
Mine was Link Wray and Robert Gordon, all leather and quiffs. They seemed punker than punk rock to which I was already attracted to. Just checked and The Only Ones were on as well, what a banger of an episode that was.
The 'Long Seventies' (1968-1982) was by far the best era of music. It has been all downhill since then even if there have been rare hummocks of decent music.
Disagree.
Looking at my Spotify fav list hardly any bands were from that window: The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Faithless, Primal Scream, Daft Punk, Leftfield, Underworld, David Guetta. A couple creep in admittedly: The Fall and Joy Division.
Your Party has announced that they will not be fielding any candidates in the 2026 English local elections, but will be endorsing selected independents. Your Party in Wales and Scotland will be independently decided their strategies.
Your Party's inability to actually function as a political party remains a godsend for the Greens and Labour.
I suspect that many of these so-called Independents will actually be YP members not declaring their party affiliation on the ballot paper.
I'm against this whichever party does it - which includes Labour at very local level.
Your Party has announced that they will not be fielding any candidates in the 2026 English local elections, but will be endorsing selected independents. Your Party in Wales and Scotland will be independently decided their strategies.
Your Party's inability to actually function as a political party remains a godsend for the Greens and Labour.
I suspect that many of these so-called Independents will actually be YP members not declaring their party affiliation on the ballot paper.
I'm against this whichever party does it - which includes Labour at very local level.
I expect that the reason for it is a factional dispute about who gets to select candidates and which areas/candidates receive financial campaigning support. So it's a truce in which each faction can do what they like with candidates, but no-one gets to use the Your Party campaigning funds.
The morning after the night before. Starmer is a worm.
I don't envy his position, he is boxed in from all sides.
No, he isn't. Grow a pair and align as a European block against the axis forces of Russia and America. Why delay? Lets assume Greenland really is next to get invaded - America departs from NATO as Article 5 is triggered against them. As America's new security policy declares us the enemy why are we even pretending these fascist fucks are our allies? They're not.
Haul America up before the Security Council. Get a NATO meeting called and let America boycott or walk out if it chooses to. Put pressure on them.
Trump and his cronies believe they can do what they like and we will just acquiesce. We need to show that isn't true.
Back in the real world, America is too rich and too powerful for any fantasies about punching the school bully on the nose. America controls everything including world trade. How will the French buy English Sparkling Wine if America shuts us out of the banking system? How will we pay income tax if 90 per cent of the government is hosted on American cloud systems? How will your YouTube channel survive if America shuts us out of the internet or disables all Teslas with over-the-air software updates (as we fear China might)?
The banking system point is one I have made - we are totally exposed to the Orange one directing the industry to shut people out - and have trialled this with a few individuals.
Europe has SEPA which needs to expanded quickly.
As for standing up to tyranny, do we have a choice? Who is next? Gilead to seize Panama? Greenland? Canada? And what about the people inspired by this? Argentina launches a war to liberate Las Malvinas. China takes Taiwan etc. This needs to be stopped before the world gets seriously fucked up.
The U.S. attempting to freeze the U.K. and EU out of the global banking system would have deeply painful consequences for the U.S. Those links are not a one way street. Swift ain’t American, and pushing the need for the dollar too far is unwise when other countries hold your debt.
But "pushing the need for the dollar" is the reason for annexing Venezuela. Countries have started trading oil in Yuan. If that spreads then the petrdollar is over and America is crushed by the weight of its debts.
Invade Venezuela, cut a deal with a general, send in Exxon to reappropriate its oil, get the taps turned on, the world dances to American oil again.
Apart from the fact that the rest of the world is rapidly weaning itself off oil.
Also,given what RCS and others in the oil industry on social media have said that scenario, just get the taps turned on, really is not as simple as it sounds.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Could you get one for £175 a day? Serious question.
The morning after the night before. Starmer is a worm.
I don't envy his position, he is boxed in from all sides.
No, he isn't. Grow a pair and align as a European block against the axis forces of Russia and America. Why delay? Lets assume Greenland really is next to get invaded - America departs from NATO as Article 5 is triggered against them. As America's new security policy declares us the enemy why are we even pretending these fascist fucks are our allies? They're not.
Haul America up before the Security Council. Get a NATO meeting called and let America boycott or walk out if it chooses to. Put pressure on them.
Trump and his cronies believe they can do what they like and we will just acquiesce. We need to show that isn't true.
Back in the real world, America is too rich and too powerful for any fantasies about punching the school bully on the nose. America controls everything including world trade. How will the French buy English Sparkling Wine if America shuts us out of the banking system? How will we pay income tax if 90 per cent of the government is hosted on American cloud systems? How will your YouTube channel survive if America shuts us out of the internet or disables all Teslas with over-the-air software updates (as we fear China might)?
The banking system point is one I have made - we are totally exposed to the Orange one directing the industry to shut people out - and have trialled this with a few individuals.
Europe has SEPA which needs to expanded quickly.
As for standing up to tyranny, do we have a choice? Who is next? Gilead to seize Panama? Greenland? Canada? And what about the people inspired by this? Argentina launches a war to liberate Las Malvinas. China takes Taiwan etc. This needs to be stopped before the world gets seriously fucked up.
The U.S. attempting to freeze the U.K. and EU out of the global banking system would have deeply painful consequences for the U.S. Those links are not a one way street. Swift ain’t American, and pushing the need for the dollar too far is unwise when other countries hold your debt.
But "pushing the need for the dollar" is the reason for annexing Venezuela. Countries have started trading oil in Yuan. If that spreads then the petrdollar is over and America is crushed by the weight of its debts.
Invade Venezuela, cut a deal with a general, send in Exxon to reappropriate its oil, get the taps turned on, the world dances to American oil again.
Apart from the fact that the rest of the world is rapidly weaning itself off oil.
Also,given what RCS and others in the oil industry on social media have said that scenario, just get the taps turned on, really is not as simple as it sounds.
The morning after the night before. Starmer is a worm.
I don't envy his position, he is boxed in from all sides.
No, he isn't. Grow a pair and align as a European block against the axis forces of Russia and America. Why delay? Lets assume Greenland really is next to get invaded - America departs from NATO as Article 5 is triggered against them. As America's new security policy declares us the enemy why are we even pretending these fascist fucks are our allies? They're not.
Haul America up before the Security Council. Get a NATO meeting called and let America boycott or walk out if it chooses to. Put pressure on them.
Trump and his cronies believe they can do what they like and we will just acquiesce. We need to show that isn't true.
Back in the real world, America is too rich and too powerful for any fantasies about punching the school bully on the nose. America controls everything including world trade. How will the French buy English Sparkling Wine if America shuts us out of the banking system? How will we pay income tax if 90 per cent of the government is hosted on American cloud systems? How will your YouTube channel survive if America shuts us out of the internet or disables all Teslas with over-the-air software updates (as we fear China might)?
The banking system point is one I have made - we are totally exposed to the Orange one directing the industry to shut people out - and have trialled this with a few individuals.
Europe has SEPA which needs to expanded quickly.
As for standing up to tyranny, do we have a choice? Who is next? Gilead to seize Panama? Greenland? Canada? And what about the people inspired by this? Argentina launches a war to liberate Las Malvinas. China takes Taiwan etc. This needs to be stopped before the world gets seriously fucked up.
The U.S. attempting to freeze the U.K. and EU out of the global banking system would have deeply painful consequences for the U.S. Those links are not a one way street. Swift ain’t American, and pushing the need for the dollar too far is unwise when other countries hold your debt.
But "pushing the need for the dollar" is the reason for annexing Venezuela. Countries have started trading oil in Yuan. If that spreads then the petrdollar is over and America is crushed by the weight of its debts.
Invade Venezuela, cut a deal with a general, send in Exxon to reappropriate its oil, get the taps turned on, the world dances to American oil again.
Apart from the fact that the rest of the world is rapidly weaning itself off oil.
Also,given what RCS and others in the oil industry on social media have said that scenario, just get the taps turned on, really is not as simple as it sounds.
But do Trump and the team around him understand that? (Isn't it also the sort of oil that's almost more trouble than it's worth to process?)
El Presidente at least has the excuse of being gaga.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
The morning after the night before. Starmer is a worm.
I don't envy his position, he is boxed in from all sides.
No, he isn't. Grow a pair and align as a European block against the axis forces of Russia and America. Why delay? Lets assume Greenland really is next to get invaded - America departs from NATO as Article 5 is triggered against them. As America's new security policy declares us the enemy why are we even pretending these fascist fucks are our allies? They're not.
Haul America up before the Security Council. Get a NATO meeting called and let America boycott or walk out if it chooses to. Put pressure on them.
Trump and his cronies believe they can do what they like and we will just acquiesce. We need to show that isn't true.
Back in the real world, America is too rich and too powerful for any fantasies about punching the school bully on the nose. America controls everything including world trade. How will the French buy English Sparkling Wine if America shuts us out of the banking system? How will we pay income tax if 90 per cent of the government is hosted on American cloud systems? How will your YouTube channel survive if America shuts us out of the internet or disables all Teslas with over-the-air software updates (as we fear China might)?
The banking system point is one I have made - we are totally exposed to the Orange one directing the industry to shut people out - and have trialled this with a few individuals.
Europe has SEPA which needs to expanded quickly.
As for standing up to tyranny, do we have a choice? Who is next? Gilead to seize Panama? Greenland? Canada? And what about the people inspired by this? Argentina launches a war to liberate Las Malvinas. China takes Taiwan etc. This needs to be stopped before the world gets seriously fucked up.
Our own banking system is very happy to debank people. Often for the most spurious of reasons,
Probably need to sort that out too.
The world is already seriously fucked up.
Excessive hyperbole does no one any favours.
What hyperbole:
Trump has declared that America MUST take Greenland. Canada. Panama.
Rubio yesterday said that we have a President who does what he says.
Oh, that makes it a certainty then if Marco Rubio said so 🙄
As for hyperbole, the whole post in reply to Francis for one. Axis Powers 🙄 align against the USA.
I know you Lib Dem’s are Trump and EU obsessives but if that happened we’d have numerous committees and working parties to scope it all out and trade off deals over the next decade trying to sort it out.
We will carry on as we are and hope for some sanity after the mid terms and the Supreme Court judgement on tariffs.
As for what Trump has done in Venezuela well so what. No different to what other US presidents have done, aside from the approach.
"Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK should move towards closer alignment with EU markets "if it's in our national interest". The prime minister told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg it would be "better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment", in order to protect trade deals with India and the US.
But he ruled out revisiting manifesto promises not to rejoin the EU single market or customs union, or to end freedom of movement."
Starmer understands the customs union stuff is silly.
"Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK should move towards closer alignment with EU markets "if it's in our national interest". The prime minister told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg it would be "better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment", in order to protect trade deals with India and the US.
But he ruled out revisiting manifesto promises not to rejoin the EU single market or customs union, or to end freedom of movement."
Starmer understands the customs union stuff is silly.
Your Party has announced that they will not be fielding any candidates in the 2026 English local elections, but will be endorsing selected independents. Your Party in Wales and Scotland will be independently decided their strategies.
Your Party's inability to actually function as a political party remains a godsend for the Greens and Labour.
Wow. All the money they raised. All the trouble they went to organising a founding conference and choosing a name, and they aren't going to stand candidates in elections?
What an absolute shambles.
This is precisely the sort of ineptness that has discouraged the Greens from doing deals with any of the other left of Labour parties in the past.
At this rate they will end up promising to get their 2029 GE manifesto signed off ready for publication by 2035.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Yet this govt seems totally hamstrung in doing something to get the market and building going. Be it tackling NIMBY groups, looking at excessive regulatory burden or whatever else they need to do. It’s one step forward two steps back.
Also, in terms of the public's willingness to support increased Defence spending I think people underestimate the public and excuse the politicians. We can see other European countries, not just Poland and the Baltic States who are on the front line, but countries like Germany and Denmark who are doing a lot more to increase defence spending than the UK.
Yes, quite - we have a problem of political leadership.
If politicians won't lead us there then why wouldn't many voters prioritise benefits that matter to them personally?
All NATO nations committed to spend 5% of gdp on defence by 2035, even if Labour backbenchers have voted to prioritise welfare spending
Well, that will be the challenge for the next Conservative Government, presumably in 2029. How will they reach the 5% GDP figure in the course of a Parliament - I suppose they could keep defence spending and hope GDP falls to meet the targer but, more realistically, how will they increase the number assuming it can't all be done with growth concurrent with, what I imagine, will be commitments to lower taxes such as stamp duty?
Well they would restore the two child benefit cap for starters Labour have abandoned and reform the likes of PiP Labour also rejected reforms too
Cheap jibes aside, let's get serious on numbers.
I've seen the UK is spending £83 billion on defence this year - defence ranks fifth behind Social Care/Welfare (£379 billion), Health (£277 billion), Education (£146 billion) and Debt Interest Payments (£123 billion).
Instead of wittering on about GDP percentages, what amount would you like the UK to spend on defence and from where does that extra funding originate?
Looking at the income side, £329 billion from Income Tax, £214 billion from VAT, £199 billion from National Insurance.
If you want to double the amount spent on defence to sorry £160 billion, how do you get there? What elements of the other budgets would you reduce or how much additional tax would you seek to raise?
Well you could cut the welfare budget to £290 million for starters
How? What are you going to cut and by how much?
Restore the 2 child benefit cap for starters
From what I've read, restoring the cap would save between £2 billion and £3.5 billion so it's a drop in the ocean as well as a cheap political slogan. Do the Conservatives have any answers or policies on child poverty?
Don't bother - let's get to the substantive. Kemi Badenoch wants to "slash" "welfare". What does she mean by "slash" and, more important, what does she mean by "welfare" - funding for social care for vulnerable adults and children, pensions or, as I expect, Universal Credit and other allowances - what about Carers Allowance, by the way, would you advocate reducing that?
Presumably based on the perception there are millions of "scroungers" all enjoying the best of life thanks to Universal Credit, the plan will be to demonise these people and use that as an argument to carry forward a broad reduction of welfare payments.
Will the age at which individuals can collect the State pension be increased - to what and when? What measures will be taken to cajole people from living on Universal Credit back into work - will the levels of benefit be reduced to the point at which it becomes unviable to have them as your sole source of income? Will the levels of testing be enhanced to weed out the "scroungers" from those in genuine need ?
What of the infamous "Triple Lock" - will the Conservatives be committed to that for the life of the next Parliament or will they challenge what has become the orthodoxy in recent times?
£2billion and £3.5 billion is not a drop in the ocean; government budgets are made up of spending like this, and such attitudes are what leads to chronic waste in public spending.
Child poverty is not solved by dribbling out an extra giro allowance at great cost to working taxpayers; it is solved by stable families in work, and that has always been the Conservative priority.
£3 billion isn't a drop in the ocean. It doesn't support the case of people like myself, who think the two child cap is an iniquitous punishment of children for presuming to exist, to pretend it is a drop in the ocean.
It comes down to priorities. Do you think child poverty is a blight on society? Do you think the government should take practical steps to alleviate it? If the answer to both those questions is yes, then removing the two child cap is by far the most cost effective step the government can take. After that it comes down to priorities. If government spending is constrained, and it always is, what do you rank lower and dispense with?
I think the two-child cap is bad policy and results in bad outcomes. But I also think that fiscal transfers are a bad way to combat poverty, and yet another example of a failure of Blairite ideology.
Firstly, it's founded on the idea that inequality as a result of economic outcomes doesn't matter, because the government can even up the balance a bit after the fact. Something along the lines of, "we don't care if people get filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes." But rich people are increasingly not willing to pay their taxes, and especially not to pay for fiscal transfers, and so the policy is a failure in its own terms.
Secondly, the policy has unintended consequences. It results in subsidising unproductive low-wage work, reducing the competitive pressure to invest in productivity, making the country as a whole poorer in the long-term.
A better policy mix would be to improve the incentives for businesses to invest to improve productivity and to strengthen the ability of workers to bargain for higher pay, so that the benefit from improved productivity is shared with workers.
The country as a whole becomes richer, inequality is reduced, and poverty is reduced without the reliance on government fiscal transfers that are ever vulnerable to the next Chancellor Osborne.
I wouldn't say this is an either/or. Safety nets exist to catch people when desirable outcomes like the one you mention don't apply. This is the principle behind any welfare. I don't think it's fair to say the principle uniquely doesn't apply to child number 3 in a family.
Yes, the welfare safety net should apply to child 3, and 4, etc. But the main problem we have here is that the majority of people in receipt of the welfare safety net are in work. That's no longer a welfare safety net. That's subsidising employers to pay poverty wages.
We need to address that problem at source.
Alternatively reduce the cliff edges that mean people only want to work a set amount of hours to ensure they don’t lose their benefits.
I was looking at doing a shop job over Xmas at one of the retailers on the Arnison, couldn’t be bothered in the end,
All of them had 16 hour and full time opportunities.
It’s easy to claim it is just poor paying employers but the system is also geared up to encourage it.
I think it is 90% poor paying employers.
The system has to somehow force people into crap work with crap wages while not starving too many people who don't cooperate, and not costing an absolute fortune. It's balancing all those imperatives that produces the mess we have.
Improve productivity and improve pay and a lot of those problems fall away.
A single person working in a entry level job (the lowest of the low) can pull in over £22k working full-time.
That's enough to live on, rent a decent room, or houseshare, and start to build a career on.
I started on less.
Take home on £22K is £ 1,600pcm ish. Yes it is enough, but it's just enough: you're not going to be able to quickly save a deposit and get a mortgage on that. It's at this point that life choices really kick in: if you marry somebody your combined salaries might be enough to buy a property somewhere, if you have wealthy parents they can gift you the deposit and guarantee the mortgage, and things start to diverge.
Nobody on bottom level jobs has ever ever been able to save a deposit and get a mortgage.
That's not true - my house was previously owned by a Teaching Assistant, one of the lowest paid jobs there is (salary is term time only). She bought in the era of 0.5% mortgages though.
Have you forgotten the 00s era of no deposit mortgages/self cert mortgages/110% Northern Rock mortgages?
Don’t. My
I got 1.69% fixed for five years in February 2022, which officially started in April of that year. 16 months left to go.
I'm cursing that I didn't fix for seven years even though it was very slightly more expensive.
Same regrets here (2021 and five year fix). My rational brain knew it couldn’t get much better so why didn’t I go longer?
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Yet this govt seems totally hamstrung in doing something to get the market and building going. Be it tackling NIMBY groups, looking at excessive regulatory burden or whatever else they need to do. It’s one step forward two steps back.
They talk the talk. That’s it so far.
This is, verbatim what a chap called Starmer has to say on the matter in mid December last year, three weeks ago:
My experience now as prime minister is of frustration that every time I go to pull a lever there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arm’s-length bodies that mean that the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be, which is among the reasons why I want to cut down on regulation, generally and within government
Now this is great, but he is nearly 6 years into being Labour leader and 18 months into being PM. By the time he was elected he (and we) should know the plan, and by now it should be rolling out fast and we should have at our fingertips the timetable for action and implementation.
As it is he is acting as if every single thing he knows he has has to work out since becoming PM, including every single thing that all PB posters know.
Does he know it can be hard to get a GP appointment and that the HMRC doesn't answer the phone?
The 'Long Seventies' (1968-1982) was by far the best era of music. It has been all downhill since then even if there have been rare hummocks of decent music.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Yet this govt seems totally hamstrung in doing something to get the market and building going. Be it tackling NIMBY groups, looking at excessive regulatory burden or whatever else they need to do. It’s one step forward two steps back.
They talk the talk. That’s it so far.
This is, verbatim what a chap called Starmer has to say on the matter in mid December last year, three weeks ago:
My experience now as prime minister is of frustration that every time I go to pull a lever there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arm’s-length bodies that mean that the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be, which is among the reasons why I want to cut down on regulation, generally and within government
Now this is great, but he is nearly 6 years into being Labour leader and 18 months into being PM. By the time he was elected he (and we) should know the plan, and by now it should be rolling out fast and we should have at our fingertips the timetable for action and implementation.
As it is he is acting as if every single thing he knows he has has to work out since becoming PM, including every single thing that all PB posters know.
Does he know it can be hard to get a GP appointment and that the HMRC doesn't answer the phone?
HMRC eventually answer the phone and in some cases they do answer it almost instantly. The problem is a common one that everyone is overworked with a backlog to deal with and no government has invested the money in tackling the backlog.
The 'Long Seventies' (1968-1982) was by far the best era of music. It has been all downhill since then even if there have been rare hummocks of decent music.
Two reasons: Radio One and Top of the Pops meant everyone listened to the same things, and playlists were eclectic. Nowadays you can go through the day never being exposed to any song you do not already like.
Used to watch TOTP almost religiously every Thursday night during the 1980s
Youtube recently started recommending me John Peel's "Festive Fifty" episodes - which have taken me right back to sitting with my big bundle of C90 tapes :-)
Nice, also, going up through the nested comments, I would put the golden age age of chart music only slightly later - 1977-1984. Also, on thread: I have a bugbear - I always have had - about quite such a large proportion of popular music being on the subject of romantic love and/or lust. A worthwhile subject, sure, but surely not to the extent that 75%+ of popular music is about it? In any case, I always rather like songs which cover other matters. The Pixies, for example, who deal largely with aliens and space travel.
Depeche Mode - Everything Counts = capitalism Depeche Mode - People Are People = racism Specials - Ghost Town = urban decay
OMD and Nena - nuclear war.
The Stranglers - Golden Brown The Las - There she goes.
The Thatcher and Major governments were excellent for the creative arts and popular culture in this country.
A potted history of the 60s to 90s music is kids went to college (often art school) on free grants and formed bands, then claimed the dole while trying to get signed. Nowadays there's no free college and no unconstrained dole.
Suspect there was also a lot more grotty-but-very-cheap housing in the edgy bits of big cities.
If you want to move to London with nothing but youth, talent and a dream, where the heck do you try to live these days?
(Not quite Housing Theory Of Everything, but pretty close.)
Southend, Crawley, Slough, Luton and other similar shit towns.
Southend is a decent spot; faded resort towns have an absolute excess of accommodation and mostly have two options. One is to become a funky artists' retreat, the other is to become a Reform hotbed.
Suspect that big city commuters squeeze out penniless artists out of anywhere close to the big city scene, though.
That’s where my brother’s youngest ended up, for the reasons set out above, and now he’s met an Essex girl whose occupation is giving women false eyelashes, she’s pregnant, and within a few weeks I will be a Great Uncle….
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Yet this govt seems totally hamstrung in doing something to get the market and building going. Be it tackling NIMBY groups, looking at excessive regulatory burden or whatever else they need to do. It’s one step forward two steps back.
They talk the talk. That’s it so far.
This is, verbatim what a chap called Starmer has to say on the matter in mid December last year, three weeks ago:
My experience now as prime minister is of frustration that every time I go to pull a lever there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arm’s-length bodies that mean that the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be, which is among the reasons why I want to cut down on regulation, generally and within government
Now this is great, but he is nearly 6 years into being Labour leader and 18 months into being PM. By the time he was elected he (and we) should know the plan, and by now it should be rolling out fast and we should have at our fingertips the timetable for action and implementation.
As it is he is acting as if every single thing he knows he has has to work out since becoming PM, including every single thing that all PB posters know.
Does he know it can be hard to get a GP appointment and that the HMRC doesn't answer the phone?
I get the distinct impression they simply thought that not being the Tories was sufficient for them and I doubt he knows either of those.
The Thatcher and Major governments were excellent for the creative arts and popular culture in this country.
In an alternative universe maybe.
Of course the Wilson Government heralded the British invasion of America and punk was a product of antithesis towards the Callaghan government and authority in general. What did Heath bring to the party? Glam rock!
Well yes, but the Thatcher years were great for pop music, albeit despite or in reaction against her, not because of her, if you see what I mean. Would we have had The Specials, Talk Talk, Wham, The Pet Shop Boys, Happy Mondays if the times and social changes had been different?
Bucks Fizz's "Land of Make Believe" was written as a critique of Thatcherism, not that this is very obvious...
And what about the sociopolitical implications of "Agadoo"? Not everybody has a pineapple or can grind coffee. Should there be a Universal Basic Pineapple? We ignore these at our peril.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
The Thatcher and Major governments were excellent for the creative arts and popular culture in this country.
In an alternative universe maybe.
Of course the Wilson Government heralded the British invasion of America and punk was a product of antithesis towards the Callaghan government and authority in general. What did Heath bring to the party? Glam rock!
Well yes, but the Thatcher years were great for pop music, albeit despite or in reaction against her, not because of her, if you see what I mean. Would we have had The Specials, Talk Talk, Wham, The Pet Shop Boys, Happy Mondays if the times and social changes had been different?
Bucks Fizz's "Land of Make Believe" was written as a critique of Thatcherism, not that this is very obvious...
And what about the sociopolitical implications of "Agadoo"? Not everybody has a pineapple or can grind coffee. Should there be a Universal Basic Pineapple? We ignore these at our peril.
Shirley any proper, red-blooded Socialist should be demanding a National Pineapple Service?
Complete with a 6 month waiting list for getting a pineapple.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
And yet, on average, housing costs are the lowest they have been since the 80s. The cost of housing is a significant issue for only a minority of households.
The Thatcher and Major governments were excellent for the creative arts and popular culture in this country.
In an alternative universe maybe.
Of course the Wilson Government heralded the British invasion of America and punk was a product of antithesis towards the Callaghan government and authority in general. What did Heath bring to the party? Glam rock!
Well yes, but the Thatcher years were great for pop music, albeit despite or in reaction against her, not because of her, if you see what I mean. Would we have had The Specials, Talk Talk, Wham, The Pet Shop Boys, Happy Mondays if the times and social changes had been different?
Bucks Fizz's "Land of Make Believe" was written as a critique of Thatcherism, not that this is very obvious...
And what about the sociopolitical implications of "Agadoo"? Not everybody has a pineapple or can grind coffee. Should there be a Universal Basic Pineapple? We ignore these at our peril.
Agadoo was the very song spoofed by Spitting Image for their "Chicken Song"!
The morning after the night before. Starmer is a worm.
I don't envy his position, he is boxed in from all sides.
No, he isn't. Grow a pair and align as a European block against the axis forces of Russia and America. Why delay? Lets assume Greenland really is next to get invaded - America departs from NATO as Article 5 is triggered against them. As America's new security policy declares us the enemy why are we even pretending these fascist fucks are our allies? They're not.
Haul America up before the Security Council. Get a NATO meeting called and let America boycott or walk out if it chooses to. Put pressure on them.
Trump and his cronies believe they can do what they like and we will just acquiesce. We need to show that isn't true.
Back in the real world, America is too rich and too powerful for any fantasies about punching the school bully on the nose. America controls everything including world trade. How will the French buy English Sparkling Wine if America shuts us out of the banking system? How will we pay income tax if 90 per cent of the government is hosted on American cloud systems? How will your YouTube channel survive if America shuts us out of the internet or disables all Teslas with over-the-air software updates (as we fear China might)?
The banking system point is one I have made - we are totally exposed to the Orange one directing the industry to shut people out - and have trialled this with a few individuals.
Europe has SEPA which needs to expanded quickly.
As for standing up to tyranny, do we have a choice? Who is next? Gilead to seize Panama? Greenland? Canada? And what about the people inspired by this? Argentina launches a war to liberate Las Malvinas. China takes Taiwan etc. This needs to be stopped before the world gets seriously fucked up.
The U.S. attempting to freeze the U.K. and EU out of the global banking system would have deeply painful consequences for the U.S. Those links are not a one way street. Swift ain’t American, and pushing the need for the dollar too far is unwise when other countries hold your debt.
But "pushing the need for the dollar" is the reason for annexing Venezuela. Countries have started trading oil in Yuan. If that spreads then the petrdollar is over and America is crushed by the weight of its debts.
Invade Venezuela, cut a deal with a general, send in Exxon to reappropriate its oil, get the taps turned on, the world dances to American oil again.
Apart from the fact that the rest of the world is rapidly weaning itself off oil.
Also,given what RCS and others in the oil industry on social media have said that scenario, just get the taps turned on, really is not as simple as it sounds.
But do Trump and the team around him understand that? (Isn't it also the sort of oil that's almost more trouble than it's worth to process?)
El Presidente at least has the excuse of being gaga.
An after the fact justification for the SMO I think. While people in the US aren't particularly bothered about the blatant breach of international and domestic law they don't even know how to spell Venezuela and haven't heard of Maduro. Why should they give two shits about either? But they know about oil. It's what they put into their tank each week.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Also, in terms of the public's willingness to support increased Defence spending I think people underestimate the public and excuse the politicians. We can see other European countries, not just Poland and the Baltic States who are on the front line, but countries like Germany and Denmark who are doing a lot more to increase defence spending than the UK.
Yes, quite - we have a problem of political leadership.
If politicians won't lead us there then why wouldn't many voters prioritise benefits that matter to them personally?
All NATO nations committed to spend 5% of gdp on defence by 2035, even if Labour backbenchers have voted to prioritise welfare spending
Well, that will be the challenge for the next Conservative Government, presumably in 2029. How will they reach the 5% GDP figure in the course of a Parliament - I suppose they could keep defence spending and hope GDP falls to meet the targer but, more realistically, how will they increase the number assuming it can't all be done with growth concurrent with, what I imagine, will be commitments to lower taxes such as stamp duty?
Well they would restore the two child benefit cap for starters Labour have abandoned and reform the likes of PiP Labour also rejected reforms too
Cheap jibes aside, let's get serious on numbers.
I've seen the UK is spending £83 billion on defence this year - defence ranks fifth behind Social Care/Welfare (£379 billion), Health (£277 billion), Education (£146 billion) and Debt Interest Payments (£123 billion).
Instead of wittering on about GDP percentages, what amount would you like the UK to spend on defence and from where does that extra funding originate?
Looking at the income side, £329 billion from Income Tax, £214 billion from VAT, £199 billion from National Insurance.
If you want to double the amount spent on defence to sorry £160 billion, how do you get there? What elements of the other budgets would you reduce or how much additional tax would you seek to raise?
Well you could cut the welfare budget to £290 million for starters
How? What are you going to cut and by how much?
Restore the 2 child benefit cap for starters
From what I've read, restoring the cap would save between £2 billion and £3.5 billion so it's a drop in the ocean as well as a cheap political slogan. Do the Conservatives have any answers or policies on child poverty?
Don't bother - let's get to the substantive. Kemi Badenoch wants to "slash" "welfare". What does she mean by "slash" and, more important, what does she mean by "welfare" - funding for social care for vulnerable adults and children, pensions or, as I expect, Universal Credit and other allowances - what about Carers Allowance, by the way, would you advocate reducing that?
Presumably based on the perception there are millions of "scroungers" all enjoying the best of life thanks to Universal Credit, the plan will be to demonise these people and use that as an argument to carry forward a broad reduction of welfare payments.
Will the age at which individuals can collect the State pension be increased - to what and when? What measures will be taken to cajole people from living on Universal Credit back into work - will the levels of benefit be reduced to the point at which it becomes unviable to have them as your sole source of income? Will the levels of testing be enhanced to weed out the "scroungers" from those in genuine need ?
What of the infamous "Triple Lock" - will the Conservatives be committed to that for the life of the next Parliament or will they challenge what has become the orthodoxy in recent times?
£2billion and £3.5 billion is not a drop in the ocean; government budgets are made up of spending like this, and such attitudes are what leads to chronic waste in public spending.
Child poverty is not solved by dribbling out an extra giro allowance at great cost to working taxpayers; it is solved by stable families in work, and that has always been the Conservative priority.
That's nice rhetoric but in-work poverty increased significantly under the Conservatives, despite a strong record on employment, and is significantly higher than our counterparts elsewhere.
So no, child poverty is not solved by getting people into work. You have to pay them properly too - the kind of wage that allows them to support a family, not make us a cheap cup of coffee.
No, child poverty is absolutely solved by getting people into work. That's precisely how everyone else supports their families - by earning a wage. I agree benefits should provide a basic safety net; I do not agree they should subsidise lifestyles.
Public policy should not be led by the nose by lobby groups like the Rowntree Foundation, nor major spending decisions made on the basis of moving hundreds of thousands of people above or below an arbitrary line on a spreadsheet and then declaring the problem "solved". They will continue to sit wasting away on low incomes with a limited lifestyle and their potential totally unrealised. That's absolutely mad, especially whilst we face one of the biggest geopolitical challenges of the century.
I fundamentally disagree with you.
FPT you can't really disagree with the maths though - if you have millions of people in-work but on low wages, poverty will be high.
People in work have much higher incomes than those on benefits, as well as a career path.
Many on benefits get load more on benefits than they would working, that is the main issue. By the time they have rent paid, buttons for council tax , and then a list of benefits , ailments , no tax to pay , all hte child and carer allowances, etc then they are well above minimum wage and often well above median wage
You seem to know a lot about benefits. Have you been a benefits advisor? Which system did you use as usually we standardised on EntitledTo or Turn2Us. You'll also know that the Benefits system is very granular so each person, each health condition, each child, each rental contract (varying regionally) is measured to the penny. Then if you earn, you can keep some of it or not all.
If you are on the max, as you suggest everyone is, then we have a lot of very, very sick people in poor accommodation paying landlords exorbitant rents. There is a lot of 'welfare' that gets diverted to the Private Rented Sector that we should be trying to limit. So to make a big, big dent in welfare would be to go after the rapacious private sector - which I hope someone of your experience would have concluded by now.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
Also... Canada's net migration has not gone negative. What went negative in Q3 was the number of non-permanent residents. Overall net migration - including permanent residents - was still positive.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
In Scotland our population has grown by 3.7% in the last 10 years, the number of dwellings by 6.1% - and rents by about 55%.
The morning after the night before. Starmer is a worm.
I don't envy his position, he is boxed in from all sides.
No, he isn't. Grow a pair and align as a European block against the axis forces of Russia and America. Why delay? Lets assume Greenland really is next to get invaded - America departs from NATO as Article 5 is triggered against them. As America's new security policy declares us the enemy why are we even pretending these fascist fucks are our allies? They're not.
Haul America up before the Security Council. Get a NATO meeting called and let America boycott or walk out if it chooses to. Put pressure on them.
Trump and his cronies believe they can do what they like and we will just acquiesce. We need to show that isn't true.
Back in the real world, America is too rich and too powerful for any fantasies about punching the school bully on the nose. America controls everything including world trade. How will the French buy English Sparkling Wine if America shuts us out of the banking system? How will we pay income tax if 90 per cent of the government is hosted on American cloud systems? How will your YouTube channel survive if America shuts us out of the internet or disables all Teslas with over-the-air software updates (as we fear China might)?
The banking system point is one I have made - we are totally exposed to the Orange one directing the industry to shut people out - and have trialled this with a few individuals.
Europe has SEPA which needs to expanded quickly.
As for standing up to tyranny, do we have a choice? Who is next? Gilead to seize Panama? Greenland? Canada? And what about the people inspired by this? Argentina launches a war to liberate Las Malvinas. China takes Taiwan etc. This needs to be stopped before the world gets seriously fucked up.
The U.S. attempting to freeze the U.K. and EU out of the global banking system would have deeply painful consequences for the U.S. Those links are not a one way street. Swift ain’t American, and pushing the need for the dollar too far is unwise when other countries hold your debt.
But "pushing the need for the dollar" is the reason for annexing Venezuela. Countries have started trading oil in Yuan. If that spreads then the petrdollar is over and America is crushed by the weight of its debts.
Invade Venezuela, cut a deal with a general, send in Exxon to reappropriate its oil, get the taps turned on, the world dances to American oil again.
Apart from the fact that the rest of the world is rapidly weaning itself off oil.
Also,given what RCS and others in the oil industry on social media have said that scenario, just get the taps turned on, really is not as simple as it sounds.
But do Trump and the team around him understand that? (Isn't it also the sort of oil that's almost more trouble than it's worth to process?)
El Presidente at least has the excuse of being gaga.
An after the fact justification for the SMO I think. While people in the US aren't particularly bothered about the blatant breach of international and domestic law they don't even know how to spell Venezuela and haven't heard of Maduro. Why should they give two shits about either? But they know about oil. It's what they put into their tank each week.
Will the US public notice that much of what Trump said in his press conference yesterday, about the US being in control of Venezuela, is simply not true?
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
And yet, on average, housing costs are the lowest they have been since the 80s. The cost of housing is a significant issue for only a minority of households.
But its all front loaded hurting those who are at their most economically precarious. You can't have an economically vibrant society if your most flexible generations are pinned down by huge housing costs.
Will the US public notice that much of what Trump said in his press conference yesterday, about the US being in control of Venezuela, is simply not true?
What they might notice (as others already have) is that invading Venezuela doesn't bring any US jobs back...
Also, in terms of the public's willingness to support increased Defence spending I think people underestimate the public and excuse the politicians. We can see other European countries, not just Poland and the Baltic States who are on the front line, but countries like Germany and Denmark who are doing a lot more to increase defence spending than the UK.
Yes, quite - we have a problem of political leadership.
If politicians won't lead us there then why wouldn't many voters prioritise benefits that matter to them personally?
All NATO nations committed to spend 5% of gdp on defence by 2035, even if Labour backbenchers have voted to prioritise welfare spending
Well, that will be the challenge for the next Conservative Government, presumably in 2029. How will they reach the 5% GDP figure in the course of a Parliament - I suppose they could keep defence spending and hope GDP falls to meet the targer but, more realistically, how will they increase the number assuming it can't all be done with growth concurrent with, what I imagine, will be commitments to lower taxes such as stamp duty?
Well they would restore the two child benefit cap for starters Labour have abandoned and reform the likes of PiP Labour also rejected reforms too
Cheap jibes aside, let's get serious on numbers.
I've seen the UK is spending £83 billion on defence this year - defence ranks fifth behind Social Care/Welfare (£379 billion), Health (£277 billion), Education (£146 billion) and Debt Interest Payments (£123 billion).
Instead of wittering on about GDP percentages, what amount would you like the UK to spend on defence and from where does that extra funding originate?
Looking at the income side, £329 billion from Income Tax, £214 billion from VAT, £199 billion from National Insurance.
If you want to double the amount spent on defence to sorry £160 billion, how do you get there? What elements of the other budgets would you reduce or how much additional tax would you seek to raise?
Well you could cut the welfare budget to £290 million for starters
How? What are you going to cut and by how much?
Restore the 2 child benefit cap for starters
From what I've read, restoring the cap would save between £2 billion and £3.5 billion so it's a drop in the ocean as well as a cheap political slogan. Do the Conservatives have any answers or policies on child poverty?
Don't bother - let's get to the substantive. Kemi Badenoch wants to "slash" "welfare". What does she mean by "slash" and, more important, what does she mean by "welfare" - funding for social care for vulnerable adults and children, pensions or, as I expect, Universal Credit and other allowances - what about Carers Allowance, by the way, would you advocate reducing that?
Presumably based on the perception there are millions of "scroungers" all enjoying the best of life thanks to Universal Credit, the plan will be to demonise these people and use that as an argument to carry forward a broad reduction of welfare payments.
Will the age at which individuals can collect the State pension be increased - to what and when? What measures will be taken to cajole people from living on Universal Credit back into work - will the levels of benefit be reduced to the point at which it becomes unviable to have them as your sole source of income? Will the levels of testing be enhanced to weed out the "scroungers" from those in genuine need ?
What of the infamous "Triple Lock" - will the Conservatives be committed to that for the life of the next Parliament or will they challenge what has become the orthodoxy in recent times?
£2billion and £3.5 billion is not a drop in the ocean; government budgets are made up of spending like this, and such attitudes are what leads to chronic waste in public spending.
Child poverty is not solved by dribbling out an extra giro allowance at great cost to working taxpayers; it is solved by stable families in work, and that has always been the Conservative priority.
£3 billion isn't a drop in the ocean. It doesn't support the case of people like myself, who think the two child cap is an iniquitous punishment of children for presuming to exist, to pretend it is a drop in the ocean.
It comes down to priorities. Do you think child poverty is a blight on society? Do you think the government should take practical steps to alleviate it? If the answer to both those questions is yes, then removing the two child cap is by far the most cost effective step the government can take. After that it comes down to priorities. If government spending is constrained, and it always is, what do you rank lower and dispense with?
I think the two-child cap is bad policy and results in bad outcomes. But I also think that fiscal transfers are a bad way to combat poverty, and yet another example of a failure of Blairite ideology.
Firstly, it's founded on the idea that inequality as a result of economic outcomes doesn't matter, because the government can even up the balance a bit after the fact. Something along the lines of, "we don't care if people get filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes." But rich people are increasingly not willing to pay their taxes, and especially not to pay for fiscal transfers, and so the policy is a failure in its own terms.
Secondly, the policy has unintended consequences. It results in subsidising unproductive low-wage work, reducing the competitive pressure to invest in productivity, making the country as a whole poorer in the long-term.
A better policy mix would be to improve the incentives for businesses to invest to improve productivity and to strengthen the ability of workers to bargain for higher pay, so that the benefit from improved productivity is shared with workers.
The country as a whole becomes richer, inequality is reduced, and poverty is reduced without the reliance on government fiscal transfers that are ever vulnerable to the next Chancellor Osborne.
I wouldn't say this is an either/or. Safety nets exist to catch people when desirable outcomes like the one you mention don't apply. This is the principle behind any welfare. I don't think it's fair to say the principle uniquely doesn't apply to child number 3 in a family.
Yes, the welfare safety net should apply to child 3, and 4, etc. But the main problem we have here is that the majority of people in receipt of the welfare safety net are in work. That's no longer a welfare safety net. That's subsidising employers to pay poverty wages.
We need to address that problem at source.
Alternatively reduce the cliff edges that mean people only want to work a set amount of hours to ensure they don’t lose their benefits.
I was looking at doing a shop job over Xmas at one of the retailers on the Arnison, couldn’t be bothered in the end,
All of them had 16 hour and full time opportunities.
It’s easy to claim it is just poor paying employers but the system is also geared up to encourage it.
I think it is 90% poor paying employers.
The system has to somehow force people into crap work with crap wages while not starving too many people who don't cooperate, and not costing an absolute fortune. It's balancing all those imperatives that produces the mess we have.
Improve productivity and improve pay and a lot of those problems fall away.
A single person working in a entry level job (the lowest of the low) can pull in over £22k working full-time.
That's enough to live on, rent a decent room, or houseshare, and start to build a career on.
I started on less.
Take home on £22K is £ 1,600pcm ish. Yes it is enough, but it's just enough: you're not going to be able to quickly save a deposit and get a mortgage on that. It's at this point that life choices really kick in: if you marry somebody your combined salaries might be enough to buy a property somewhere, if you have wealthy parents they can gift you the deposit and guarantee the mortgage, and things start to diverge.
Nobody on bottom level jobs has ever ever been able to save a deposit and get a mortgage.
That's not true - my house was previously owned by a Teaching Assistant, one of the lowest paid jobs there is (salary is term time only). She bought in the era of 0.5% mortgages though.
Have you forgotten the 00s era of no deposit mortgages/self cert mortgages/110% Northern Rock mortgages?
there were still limits and your example must have got the deposit from somewhere or lived in a tent eating pot noodles whilst saving it up.
Yes, she lived with her parents, like a lot of people who didn't move away for university.
What you're saying may be true of overheated property markets like London/SE but in the north/midlands getting started with a 2/3 bed terraced house has always been within reach, although it is getting more challenging.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Yougov USA poll taken yesterday has 41% of Americans opposed to the US running Venezuela after the US military's capture of President Maduro and only 34% in favour.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
The Saturday job is going the way of the dodo for a number of reasons beyond immigration and how expensive it is to hire. Paper round, sorry what are newspapers. Working in a shop on the high street, what are those? Work doing the dishes in a TFI Fridays, what's a TFI Fridays and there is the automated dishwasher in the corner....
Its really bad long term though. Its a really useful experience for many, you can meet new mates outside of your tight school network, you have to do a little bit of growing up as you have to deal with adults who expect product or service to be delivered efficiently, and you get some concept for the value of money, as you learn quickly it can be spent far faster and more easily than it took to earn it.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
And yet, on average, housing costs are the lowest they have been since the 80s. The cost of housing is a significant issue for only a minority of households.
But its all front loaded hurting those who are at their most economically precarious. You can't have an economically vibrant society if your most flexible generations are pinned down by huge housing costs.
I fervently agree. I'm just pointing out that there is an underlying issue here where housing costs, for most people, simply isn't a big problem - and therefore holding onto property has no downsides and many upsides. I think that is what underpins the problem we have - housing transactions have collapsed to less than half what we had 2008, so our use of the existing housing stock is spectacularly inefficient - whether that's spare bedrooms or pensioners still living in our cities and dormitory towns.
In extremis, buildings tens of millions of new homes would bring prices down - a bit. But it would require massive subsidy in most of the country, take decades, and we know from our current experience that most of the benefits would not accrue to renters and first-time buyers.
Corbyn is a Negative Western Nationalist (see Orwell).
The tendency to excuse anything Russian on the Hard Left, even post Cold War and even with the current fascist state, has long been noted.
See the attempts to whitewash Serb atrocities in the Yugoslav Wars - Serbia was Russia’s ally, therefore DoublePlusGood. So you got SWPies praise Arkan….
Yougov USA poll taken yesterday has 41% of Americans opposed to the US running Venezuela after the US military's capture of President Maduro and only 34% in favour.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
The Saturday job is going the way of the dodo for a number of reasons beyond immigration and how expensive it is to hire. Paper round, sorry what are newspapers. Working in a shop on the high street, what are those? Work doing the dishes in a TFI Fridays, what's a TFI Fridays and there is the automated dishwasher in the corner....
Its really bad long term though. Its a really usual experience, you meet new mates and you have to do a little bit of growing up.
On the other hand, eating out is now ubiquitous rather than a luxury that few could afford and people spend a fortune on coffee, so there should be no shortage of casual work for young people.
Will the US public notice that much of what Trump said in his press conference yesterday, about the US being in control of Venezuela, is simply not true?
What they might notice (as others already have) is that invading Venezuela doesn't bring any US jobs back...
This came across to me like the pleading of a man whose wife has said she’s about to leave him
I know people are frustrated about the pace of change. I am too.
Getting our country back on track will take time, but despite the chaos we inherited, we're making progress.
Wages are rising faster than prices. Waiting lists are down. Inflation and interest rates are falling.
This year, Britain will turn the corner, and you will start to feel the change we promised – in your bills, in your community and in your public services.
Starmer might have a point. There are still three and a half years before a general election is likely, and it is entirely plausible that things might be better by then. The natural state of the economy is growth, albeit sluggish growth, and there do not seem to be as many complaints about GP appointments. England will be well on the way to qualification for the 2030 World Cup after the frustration of losing the 2026 final to Germany. On penalties. And the minor countries will still be in with a shout if Denmark can beat Estonia by a clear eight goals. President Trump ending all wars will mean normalisation of world trade, so food, energy and manufactured goods should fall in price.
As to who will lead Labour into the election...
Hundreds of thousands more people are facing waits of over a month for GP appointments since Labour got into power, new analysis has found.
Around 1.7 million people had to wait over a month for an appointment in November, the analysis from the Liberal Democrats claims, 246,625 higher than when Labour took office in July last year.
The research also finds that 7.6 million patients had to wait more than four weeks to see a GP over the autumn (between September and November), up by over 300,000 since the same period last year.
My GP has been busy texting me for the last month or two basically saying don't bother trying to book appointments (luckily I haven't needed to).
FPT:
The Government should force through the online booking systems that are being opposed by the BMA. As I have said many times before our GP surgery uses the 'Ask My GP' system and it works brilliantly. I have never had to wait more than 1 working day for an appointment if necessary and generally get a response from the GP well before midday with arrangements - pharmacy, phone diagnosis or in person appointment. And this is for a GP surgery which has seen a 60% increase in patients in the last decade.
These systems are not perfect but generally they work very well. The BMA should be ashamed for leading resistance to them.
Its laughable in 2025 that online booking is seen as some complicated contriversial system to deploy by the BMA / NHS. Its not 2005.
I'm about (well, tomorrow) to try my local surgery's new system for a non-urgent but unpleasant problem.
OKC. Sounds like a you may have a case of 'Faragitis'. Hope things settle down.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
The Saturday job is going the way of the dodo for a number of reasons beyond immigration and how expensive it is to hire. Paper round, sorry what are newspapers. Working in a shop on the high street, what are those? Work doing the dishes in a TFI Fridays, what's a TFI Fridays and there is the automated dishwasher in the corner....
Its really bad long term though. Its a really usual experience, you meet new mates and you have to do a little bit of growing up.
On the other hand, eating out is now ubiquitous rather than a luxury that few could afford and people spend a fortune on coffee, so there should be no shortage of casual work for young people.
It is at moment. I think restaurants are really really struggling and running much reduced hours.
Another factor into the mix, this massive increase in people going to uni and very high cost of acccomodation and living, it is now very very common for students to work a lot during term time.
In my day most people didn't work during term time or if they did it was say a shift a week at the boozer to pay for their nights out not 3 days a week working at Costa. Now many students its the only way they can make ends meet to make the rent and buy food.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
In Scotland our population has grown by 3.7% in the last 10 years, the number of dwellings by 6.1% - and rents by about 55%.
Not surprising if the 6.1% of dwellings are second homes.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
My grotty one bedroom bedsit in Slough cost £5 a week in October 1965. My first job with ICI Paints after leaving University had a gross salary of less than £20 per week. It's all relative.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
In Scotland our population has grown by 3.7% in the last 10 years, the number of dwellings by 6.1% - and rents by about 55%.
Not surprising if the 6.1% of dwellings are second homes.
More that you are seeing a combination of catching up with a previous deficit in housing and “unwind”.
Unwind has been seen a lot in parts of the UK, where new housing is immediately occupied by people who were house sharing. And despite the “efficiency” of HMOs, most people don’t want to live 8 to a 4 bed house.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
My grotty one bedroom bedsit in Slough cost £5 a week in October 1965. My first job with ICI Paints after leaving University had a gross salary of less than £20 per week. It's all relative.
In 1997, I paid 125 quid a week for a small room in a house share in East London, not far from Brick Lane. There were five of us sharing the house and only one working shower. Fortunately, I was the first to work in the morning, and therefore usually didn't have to wait.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
In Scotland our population has grown by 3.7% in the last 10 years, the number of dwellings by 6.1% - and rents by about 55%.
Not surprising if the 6.1% of dwellings are second homes.
More that you are seeing a combination of catching up with a previous deficit in housing and “unwind”.
Unwind has been seen a lot in parts of the UK, where new housing is immediately occupied by people who were house sharing. And despite the “efficiency” of HMOs, most people don’t want to live 8 to a 4 bed house.
If that was true, you'd expect the pressure on rents to fall as a result. But rents keep climbing, and much faster than inflation or wages.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
My grotty one bedroom bedsit in Slough cost £5 a week in October 1965. My first job with ICI Paints after leaving University had a gross salary of less than £20 per week. It's all relative.
25% of salary for rent is pretty good these days. Mind you, you don't say how much tax you paid.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
What was immigration trying to fix? Was it less output? Output per worker not increasing as much as the number of workers exiting?
Was it investment in trying to reduce the output gap by using the large amounts of cheap credit available e.g. Quantitive Easing.
Was it the lack of business friendly policies emerging from the dominant party of government in the last 50 years. If it was the latter, then perhaps that party should STFU about how others are trying to remedy their legacy.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
The Saturday job is going the way of the dodo for a number of reasons beyond immigration and how expensive it is to hire. Paper round, sorry what are newspapers. Working in a shop on the high street, what are those? Work doing the dishes in a TFI Fridays, what's a TFI Fridays and there is the automated dishwasher in the corner....
Its really bad long term though. Its a really usual experience, you meet new mates and you have to do a little bit of growing up.
On the other hand, eating out is now ubiquitous rather than a luxury that few could afford and people spend a fortune on coffee, so there should be no shortage of casual work for young people.
Not true, that was the case a while back but the minimum wage increases alongside other items means a reasonable main course is now £20+ so it's turning back into a luxury occasional purchase.
"Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK should move towards closer alignment with EU markets "if it's in our national interest". The prime minister told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg it would be "better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment", in order to protect trade deals with India and the US.
But he ruled out revisiting manifesto promises not to rejoin the EU single market or customs union, or to end freedom of movement."
Starmer understands the customs union stuff is silly.
It must be. Ed Davey supports it.
The same Ed Davey that spent the last 24 hours on the same side as China, Russia, Iran, and Jeremy Corbyn, on the subject of Venezuela.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
The countries with the highest GDP growth since 1980 tend to be the ex-Communist states. If we stick to 1st world countries, depending on what you include, you have.
Israel 3.4% p.a. Cyprus 3% Ireland 2.3% Australia 2.3% New Zealand 2.2% Luxembourg 2.1%
Most of those have seen high immigration, except for NZ, which has high net emigration, doesn't it? But, of course, GDP growth isn't the only metric that matters.
Also, in terms of the public's willingness to support increased Defence spending I think people underestimate the public and excuse the politicians. We can see other European countries, not just Poland and the Baltic States who are on the front line, but countries like Germany and Denmark who are doing a lot more to increase defence spending than the UK.
Yes, quite - we have a problem of political leadership.
If politicians won't lead us there then why wouldn't many voters prioritise benefits that matter to them personally?
All NATO nations committed to spend 5% of gdp on defence by 2035, even if Labour backbenchers have voted to prioritise welfare spending
Well, that will be the challenge for the next Conservative Government, presumably in 2029. How will they reach the 5% GDP figure in the course of a Parliament - I suppose they could keep defence spending and hope GDP falls to meet the targer but, more realistically, how will they increase the number assuming it can't all be done with growth concurrent with, what I imagine, will be commitments to lower taxes such as stamp duty?
Well they would restore the two child benefit cap for starters Labour have abandoned and reform the likes of PiP Labour also rejected reforms too
Cheap jibes aside, let's get serious on numbers.
I've seen the UK is spending £83 billion on defence this year - defence ranks fifth behind Social Care/Welfare (£379 billion), Health (£277 billion), Education (£146 billion) and Debt Interest Payments (£123 billion).
Instead of wittering on about GDP percentages, what amount would you like the UK to spend on defence and from where does that extra funding originate?
Looking at the income side, £329 billion from Income Tax, £214 billion from VAT, £199 billion from National Insurance.
If you want to double the amount spent on defence to sorry £160 billion, how do you get there? What elements of the other budgets would you reduce or how much additional tax would you seek to raise?
Well you could cut the welfare budget to £290 million for starters
How? What are you going to cut and by how much?
Restore the 2 child benefit cap for starters
From what I've read, restoring the cap would save between £2 billion and £3.5 billion so it's a drop in the ocean as well as a cheap political slogan. Do the Conservatives have any answers or policies on child poverty?
Don't bother - let's get to the substantive. Kemi Badenoch wants to "slash" "welfare". What does she mean by "slash" and, more important, what does she mean by "welfare" - funding for social care for vulnerable adults and children, pensions or, as I expect, Universal Credit and other allowances - what about Carers Allowance, by the way, would you advocate reducing that?
Presumably based on the perception there are millions of "scroungers" all enjoying the best of life thanks to Universal Credit, the plan will be to demonise these people and use that as an argument to carry forward a broad reduction of welfare payments.
Will the age at which individuals can collect the State pension be increased - to what and when? What measures will be taken to cajole people from living on Universal Credit back into work - will the levels of benefit be reduced to the point at which it becomes unviable to have them as your sole source of income? Will the levels of testing be enhanced to weed out the "scroungers" from those in genuine need ?
What of the infamous "Triple Lock" - will the Conservatives be committed to that for the life of the next Parliament or will they challenge what has become the orthodoxy in recent times?
£2billion and £3.5 billion is not a drop in the ocean; government budgets are made up of spending like this, and such attitudes are what leads to chronic waste in public spending.
Child poverty is not solved by dribbling out an extra giro allowance at great cost to working taxpayers; it is solved by stable families in work, and that has always been the Conservative priority.
That's nice rhetoric but in-work poverty increased significantly under the Conservatives, despite a strong record on employment, and is significantly higher than our counterparts elsewhere.
So no, child poverty is not solved by getting people into work. You have to pay them properly too - the kind of wage that allows them to support a family, not make us a cheap cup of coffee.
No, child poverty is absolutely solved by getting people into work. That's precisely how everyone else supports their families - by earning a wage. I agree benefits should provide a basic safety net; I do not agree they should subsidise lifestyles.
Public policy should not be led by the nose by lobby groups like the Rowntree Foundation, nor major spending decisions made on the basis of moving hundreds of thousands of people above or below an arbitrary line on a spreadsheet and then declaring the problem "solved". They will continue to sit wasting away on low incomes with a limited lifestyle and their potential totally unrealised. That's absolutely mad, especially whilst we face one of the biggest geopolitical challenges of the century.
I fundamentally disagree with you.
FPT you can't really disagree with the maths though - if you have millions of people in-work but on low wages, poverty will be high.
People in work have much higher incomes than those on benefits, as well as a career path.
Many on benefits get load more on benefits than they would working, that is the main issue. By the time they have rent paid, buttons for council tax , and then a list of benefits , ailments , no tax to pay , all hte child and carer allowances, etc then they are well above minimum wage and often well above median wage
You seem to know a lot about benefits. Have you been a benefits advisor? Which system did you use as usually we standardised on EntitledTo or Turn2Us. You'll also know that the Benefits system is very granular so each person, each health condition, each child, each rental contract (varying regionally) is measured to the penny. Then if you earn, you can keep some of it or not all.
If you are on the max, as you suggest everyone is, then we have a lot of very, very sick people in poor accommodation paying landlords exorbitant rents. There is a lot of 'welfare' that gets diverted to the Private Rented Sector that we should be trying to limit. So to make a big, big dent in welfare would be to go after the rapacious private sector - which I hope someone of your experience would have concluded by now.
Certainly not , I have seen some who get benefits and they do not get checked often etc and some of the numbers you see available for next to nothing are crazy, assume not all get cushy life on it , but many do. You are correct that any fool would be able to work out that they should be building houses for rent instead of funding landlords, a caper started by Thatcher and continued ad infinitum by successive useless twats.
"Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK should move towards closer alignment with EU markets "if it's in our national interest". The prime minister told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg it would be "better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment", in order to protect trade deals with India and the US.
But he ruled out revisiting manifesto promises not to rejoin the EU single market or customs union, or to end freedom of movement."
Starmer understands the customs union stuff is silly.
It must be. Ed Davey supports it.
The same Ed Davey that spent the last 24 hours on the same side as China, Russia, Iran, and Jeremy Corbyn, on the subject of Venezuela.
As far as I can see, the Trump administration is happy to leave an authoritarian regime in charge of Venezuela, with Trump dismissing the opposition (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Machado as not viable. So, what exactly has Trump delivered for the Venezuelan people?
"Venezuela looks nothing like Libya,Irak,Afghanistan."
I might be wrong, but I suspect that is going to look really fucking stupid in hindsight
It looks nothing like Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, because in those cases US boots on the ground effected regime change, whereas with Venezuela, they've snatched Maduro, but left the old regime in control.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
My grotty one bedroom bedsit in Slough cost £5 a week in October 1965. My first job with ICI Paints after leaving University had a gross salary of less than £20 per week. It's all relative.
25% of salary for rent is pretty good these days. Mind you, you don't say how much tax you paid.
I'm embarrassed to admit that I have daily financial records back to October 1962 when I opened my bank account with Lloyds which I still have. My records start in £sd. My net salary was £17 a week.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
What was immigration trying to fix? Was it less output? Output per worker not increasing as much as the number of workers exiting?
Was it investment in trying to reduce the output gap by using the large amounts of cheap credit available e.g. Quantitive Easing.
Was it the lack of business friendly policies emerging from the dominant party of government in the last 50 years. If it was the latter, then perhaps that party should STFU about how others are trying to remedy their legacy.
Well, there are different types of immigration.
Some is people who met a partner overseas and married them, and want them to live in the UK with them. Not an unreasonable ask, one would think.
Some is people on inter-coroporate transfers: we're setting up a London, you're in charge. Some of this is temporary, some permanent. Often it is expected to be one type, and ends up another.
Some is people who come here via visas for specific job types where there is considered to be a shortage, or because they command a certain salary.
One of the things the UK does poorly, I think, is not having the sharp distinction between immigrant and non-immigrant visas. I'm in the US on a non-immigrant visa, and have no path to a Green Card or citizenship. I can apply for an immigrant visa (with Green Card), but that is an entirely separate process.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
This is an odd use of the word "highest" that I haven't encountered before... Switzerland (with very high immigration), Ireland (high immigration) and all of eastern Europe (a mix, many with high emigration) are higher.
Also, in terms of the public's willingness to support increased Defence spending I think people underestimate the public and excuse the politicians. We can see other European countries, not just Poland and the Baltic States who are on the front line, but countries like Germany and Denmark who are doing a lot more to increase defence spending than the UK.
Yes, quite - we have a problem of political leadership.
If politicians won't lead us there then why wouldn't many voters prioritise benefits that matter to them personally?
All NATO nations committed to spend 5% of gdp on defence by 2035, even if Labour backbenchers have voted to prioritise welfare spending
Well, that will be the challenge for the next Conservative Government, presumably in 2029. How will they reach the 5% GDP figure in the course of a Parliament - I suppose they could keep defence spending and hope GDP falls to meet the targer but, more realistically, how will they increase the number assuming it can't all be done with growth concurrent with, what I imagine, will be commitments to lower taxes such as stamp duty?
Well they would restore the two child benefit cap for starters Labour have abandoned and reform the likes of PiP Labour also rejected reforms too
Cheap jibes aside, let's get serious on numbers.
I've seen the UK is spending £83 billion on defence this year - defence ranks fifth behind Social Care/Welfare (£379 billion), Health (£277 billion), Education (£146 billion) and Debt Interest Payments (£123 billion).
Instead of wittering on about GDP percentages, what amount would you like the UK to spend on defence and from where does that extra funding originate?
Looking at the income side, £329 billion from Income Tax, £214 billion from VAT, £199 billion from National Insurance.
If you want to double the amount spent on defence to sorry £160 billion, how do you get there? What elements of the other budgets would you reduce or how much additional tax would you seek to raise?
Well you could cut the welfare budget to £290 million for starters
How? What are you going to cut and by how much?
Restore the 2 child benefit cap for starters
From what I've read, restoring the cap would save between £2 billion and £3.5 billion so it's a drop in the ocean as well as a cheap political slogan. Do the Conservatives have any answers or policies on child poverty?
Don't bother - let's get to the substantive. Kemi Badenoch wants to "slash" "welfare". What does she mean by "slash" and, more important, what does she mean by "welfare" - funding for social care for vulnerable adults and children, pensions or, as I expect, Universal Credit and other allowances - what about Carers Allowance, by the way, would you advocate reducing that?
Presumably based on the perception there are millions of "scroungers" all enjoying the best of life thanks to Universal Credit, the plan will be to demonise these people and use that as an argument to carry forward a broad reduction of welfare payments.
Will the age at which individuals can collect the State pension be increased - to what and when? What measures will be taken to cajole people from living on Universal Credit back into work - will the levels of benefit be reduced to the point at which it becomes unviable to have them as your sole source of income? Will the levels of testing be enhanced to weed out the "scroungers" from those in genuine need ?
What of the infamous "Triple Lock" - will the Conservatives be committed to that for the life of the next Parliament or will they challenge what has become the orthodoxy in recent times?
£2billion and £3.5 billion is not a drop in the ocean; government budgets are made up of spending like this, and such attitudes are what leads to chronic waste in public spending.
Child poverty is not solved by dribbling out an extra giro allowance at great cost to working taxpayers; it is solved by stable families in work, and that has always been the Conservative priority.
£3 billion isn't a drop in the ocean. It doesn't support the case of people like myself, who think the two child cap is an iniquitous punishment of children for presuming to exist, to pretend it is a drop in the ocean.
It comes down to priorities. Do you think child poverty is a blight on society? Do you think the government should take practical steps to alleviate it? If the answer to both those questions is yes, then removing the two child cap is by far the most cost effective step the government can take. After that it comes down to priorities. If government spending is constrained, and it always is, what do you rank lower and dispense with?
I think the two-child cap is bad policy and results in bad outcomes. But I also think that fiscal transfers are a bad way to combat poverty, and yet another example of a failure of Blairite ideology.
Firstly, it's founded on the idea that inequality as a result of economic outcomes doesn't matter, because the government can even up the balance a bit after the fact. Something along the lines of, "we don't care if people get filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes." But rich people are increasingly not willing to pay their taxes, and especially not to pay for fiscal transfers, and so the policy is a failure in its own terms.
Secondly, the policy has unintended consequences. It results in subsidising unproductive low-wage work, reducing the competitive pressure to invest in productivity, making the country as a whole poorer in the long-term.
A better policy mix would be to improve the incentives for businesses to invest to improve productivity and to strengthen the ability of workers to bargain for higher pay, so that the benefit from improved productivity is shared with workers.
The country as a whole becomes richer, inequality is reduced, and poverty is reduced without the reliance on government fiscal transfers that are ever vulnerable to the next Chancellor Osborne.
I wouldn't say this is an either/or. Safety nets exist to catch people when desirable outcomes like the one you mention don't apply. This is the principle behind any welfare. I don't think it's fair to say the principle uniquely doesn't apply to child number 3 in a family.
Yes, the welfare safety net should apply to child 3, and 4, etc. But the main problem we have here is that the majority of people in receipt of the welfare safety net are in work. That's no longer a welfare safety net. That's subsidising employers to pay poverty wages.
We need to address that problem at source.
Alternatively reduce the cliff edges that mean people only want to work a set amount of hours to ensure they don’t lose their benefits.
I was looking at doing a shop job over Xmas at one of the retailers on the Arnison, couldn’t be bothered in the end,
All of them had 16 hour and full time opportunities.
It’s easy to claim it is just poor paying employers but the system is also geared up to encourage it.
I think it is 90% poor paying employers.
The system has to somehow force people into crap work with crap wages while not starving too many people who don't cooperate, and not costing an absolute fortune. It's balancing all those imperatives that produces the mess we have.
Improve productivity and improve pay and a lot of those problems fall away.
A single person working in a entry level job (the lowest of the low) can pull in over £22k working full-time.
That's enough to live on, rent a decent room, or houseshare, and start to build a career on.
I started on less.
Take home on £22K is £ 1,600pcm ish. Yes it is enough, but it's just enough: you're not going to be able to quickly save a deposit and get a mortgage on that. It's at this point that life choices really kick in: if you marry somebody your combined salaries might be enough to buy a property somewhere, if you have wealthy parents they can gift you the deposit and guarantee the mortgage, and things start to diverge.
Nobody on bottom level jobs has ever ever been able to save a deposit and get a mortgage.
That's not true - my house was previously owned by a Teaching Assistant, one of the lowest paid jobs there is (salary is term time only). She bought in the era of 0.5% mortgages though.
Have you forgotten the 00s era of no deposit mortgages/self cert mortgages/110% Northern Rock mortgages?
there were still limits and your example must have got the deposit from somewhere or lived in a tent eating pot noodles whilst saving it up.
Yes, she lived with her parents, like a lot of people who didn't move away for university.
What you're saying may be true of overheated property markets like London/SE but in the north/midlands getting started with a 2/3 bed terraced house has always been within reach, although it is getting more challenging.
For sure , certainly much easier and affordable further north you go, obviously some exceptional hotspots.
The morning after the night before. Starmer is a worm.
I don't envy his position, he is boxed in from all sides.
No, he isn't. Grow a pair and align as a European block against the axis forces of Russia and America. Why delay? Lets assume Greenland really is next to get invaded - America departs from NATO as Article 5 is triggered against them. As America's new security policy declares us the enemy why are we even pretending these fascist fucks are our allies? They're not.
Haul America up before the Security Council. Get a NATO meeting called and let America boycott or walk out if it chooses to. Put pressure on them.
Trump and his cronies believe they can do what they like and we will just acquiesce. We need to show that isn't true.
Back in the real world, America is too rich and too powerful for any fantasies about punching the school bully on the nose. America controls everything including world trade. How will the French buy English Sparkling Wine if America shuts us out of the banking system? How will we pay income tax if 90 per cent of the government is hosted on American cloud systems? How will your YouTube channel survive if America shuts us out of the internet or disables all Teslas with over-the-air software updates (as we fear China might)?
The banking system point is one I have made - we are totally exposed to the Orange one directing the industry to shut people out - and have trialled this with a few individuals.
Europe has SEPA which needs to expanded quickly.
As for standing up to tyranny, do we have a choice? Who is next? Gilead to seize Panama? Greenland? Canada? And what about the people inspired by this? Argentina launches a war to liberate Las Malvinas. China takes Taiwan etc. This needs to be stopped before the world gets seriously fucked up.
The U.S. attempting to freeze the U.K. and EU out of the global banking system would have deeply painful consequences for the U.S. Those links are not a one way street. Swift ain’t American, and pushing the need for the dollar too far is unwise when other countries hold your debt.
But "pushing the need for the dollar" is the reason for annexing Venezuela. Countries have started trading oil in Yuan. If that spreads then the petrdollar is over and America is crushed by the weight of its debts.
Invade Venezuela, cut a deal with a general, send in Exxon to reappropriate its oil, get the taps turned on, the world dances to American oil again.
Apart from the fact that the rest of the world is rapidly weaning itself off oil.
Also,given what RCS and others in the oil industry on social media have said that scenario, just get the taps turned on, really is not as simple as it sounds.
But do Trump and the team around him understand that? (Isn't it also the sort of oil that's almost more trouble than it's worth to process?)
El Presidente at least has the excuse of being gaga.
An after the fact justification for the SMO I think. While people in the US aren't particularly bothered about the blatant breach of international and domestic law they don't even know how to spell Venezuela and haven't heard of Maduro. Why should they give two shits about either? But they know about oil. It's what they put into their tank each week.
Will the US public notice that much of what Trump said in his press conference yesterday, about the US being in control of Venezuela, is simply not true?
My guess is that the project has little to no buy-in from Americans. If Trump can avoid any American casualties, financial commitments or long term involvement, I think he will be OK. Anything that goes wrong will be on him. No-one agreed to this adventure.
"Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK should move towards closer alignment with EU markets "if it's in our national interest". The prime minister told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg it would be "better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment", in order to protect trade deals with India and the US.
But he ruled out revisiting manifesto promises not to rejoin the EU single market or customs union, or to end freedom of movement."
Starmer understands the customs union stuff is silly.
It must be. Ed Davey supports it.
The same Ed Davey that spent the last 24 hours on the same side as China, Russia, Iran, and Jeremy Corbyn, on the subject of Venezuela.
And France and many others. The UN vote will be interesting.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
This is an odd use of the word "highest" that I haven't encountered before...
*In the region*
Finland - 101.9 Denmark - 98.1 Norway - 76.5 Sweden - 75.3
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
Umm.
Switzerland is highest at 122%, and has the highest proportion of the population being foreign born.
"Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK should move towards closer alignment with EU markets "if it's in our national interest". The prime minister told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg it would be "better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment", in order to protect trade deals with India and the US.
But he ruled out revisiting manifesto promises not to rejoin the EU single market or customs union, or to end freedom of movement."
Starmer understands the customs union stuff is silly.
It must be. Ed Davey supports it.
The same Ed Davey that spent the last 24 hours on the same side as China, Russia, Iran, and Jeremy Corbyn, on the subject of Venezuela.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
Umm.
Switzerland is highest at 122%, and has the highest proportion of the population being foreign born.
As I said, it's difficult to control for everything, but countries like Ireland and Switzerland have too many unique factors to make them useful reference points. The Nordic countries seem the most comparable.
Also, Britain is the lowest despite sustained high levels of immigration throughout that period, which is really atypical. In most other European countries there was significant fluctuation with some years of negative net migration.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
This is an odd use of the word "highest" that I haven't encountered before...
*In the region*
Finland - 101.9 Denmark - 98.1 Norway - 76.5 Sweden - 75.3
That's cherry-picking in the extreme. You're being laughable, William. Even here, Denmark, with higher immigration, is only just behind Finland.
Also, in terms of the public's willingness to support increased Defence spending I think people underestimate the public and excuse the politicians. We can see other European countries, not just Poland and the Baltic States who are on the front line, but countries like Germany and Denmark who are doing a lot more to increase defence spending than the UK.
Yes, quite - we have a problem of political leadership.
If politicians won't lead us there then why wouldn't many voters prioritise benefits that matter to them personally?
All NATO nations committed to spend 5% of gdp on defence by 2035, even if Labour backbenchers have voted to prioritise welfare spending
Well, that will be the challenge for the next Conservative Government, presumably in 2029. How will they reach the 5% GDP figure in the course of a Parliament - I suppose they could keep defence spending and hope GDP falls to meet the targer but, more realistically, how will they increase the number assuming it can't all be done with growth concurrent with, what I imagine, will be commitments to lower taxes such as stamp duty?
Well they would restore the two child benefit cap for starters Labour have abandoned and reform the likes of PiP Labour also rejected reforms too
Cheap jibes aside, let's get serious on numbers.
I've seen the UK is spending £83 billion on defence this year - defence ranks fifth behind Social Care/Welfare (£379 billion), Health (£277 billion), Education (£146 billion) and Debt Interest Payments (£123 billion).
Instead of wittering on about GDP percentages, what amount would you like the UK to spend on defence and from where does that extra funding originate?
Looking at the income side, £329 billion from Income Tax, £214 billion from VAT, £199 billion from National Insurance.
If you want to double the amount spent on defence to sorry £160 billion, how do you get there? What elements of the other budgets would you reduce or how much additional tax would you seek to raise?
Well you could cut the welfare budget to £290 million for starters
How? What are you going to cut and by how much?
Restore the 2 child benefit cap for starters
From what I've read, restoring the cap would save between £2 billion and £3.5 billion so it's a drop in the ocean as well as a cheap political slogan. Do the Conservatives have any answers or policies on child poverty?
Don't bother - let's get to the substantive. Kemi Badenoch wants to "slash" "welfare". What does she mean by "slash" and, more important, what does she mean by "welfare" - funding for social care for vulnerable adults and children, pensions or, as I expect, Universal Credit and other allowances - what about Carers Allowance, by the way, would you advocate reducing that?
Presumably based on the perception there are millions of "scroungers" all enjoying the best of life thanks to Universal Credit, the plan will be to demonise these people and use that as an argument to carry forward a broad reduction of welfare payments.
Will the age at which individuals can collect the State pension be increased - to what and when? What measures will be taken to cajole people from living on Universal Credit back into work - will the levels of benefit be reduced to the point at which it becomes unviable to have them as your sole source of income? Will the levels of testing be enhanced to weed out the "scroungers" from those in genuine need ?
What of the infamous "Triple Lock" - will the Conservatives be committed to that for the life of the next Parliament or will they challenge what has become the orthodoxy in recent times?
£2billion and £3.5 billion is not a drop in the ocean; government budgets are made up of spending like this, and such attitudes are what leads to chronic waste in public spending.
Child poverty is not solved by dribbling out an extra giro allowance at great cost to working taxpayers; it is solved by stable families in work, and that has always been the Conservative priority.
£3 billion isn't a drop in the ocean. It doesn't support the case of people like myself, who think the two child cap is an iniquitous punishment of children for presuming to exist, to pretend it is a drop in the ocean.
It comes down to priorities. Do you think child poverty is a blight on society? Do you think the government should take practical steps to alleviate it? If the answer to both those questions is yes, then removing the two child cap is by far the most cost effective step the government can take. After that it comes down to priorities. If government spending is constrained, and it always is, what do you rank lower and dispense with?
I think the two-child cap is bad policy and results in bad outcomes. But I also think that fiscal transfers are a bad way to combat poverty, and yet another example of a failure of Blairite ideology.
Firstly, it's founded on the idea that inequality as a result of economic outcomes doesn't matter, because the government can even up the balance a bit after the fact. Something along the lines of, "we don't care if people get filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes." But rich people are increasingly not willing to pay their taxes, and especially not to pay for fiscal transfers, and so the policy is a failure in its own terms.
Secondly, the policy has unintended consequences. It results in subsidising unproductive low-wage work, reducing the competitive pressure to invest in productivity, making the country as a whole poorer in the long-term.
A better policy mix would be to improve the incentives for businesses to invest to improve productivity and to strengthen the ability of workers to bargain for higher pay, so that the benefit from improved productivity is shared with workers.
The country as a whole becomes richer, inequality is reduced, and poverty is reduced without the reliance on government fiscal transfers that are ever vulnerable to the next Chancellor Osborne.
I wouldn't say this is an either/or. Safety nets exist to catch people when desirable outcomes like the one you mention don't apply. This is the principle behind any welfare. I don't think it's fair to say the principle uniquely doesn't apply to child number 3 in a family.
Yes, the welfare safety net should apply to child 3, and 4, etc. But the main problem we have here is that the majority of people in receipt of the welfare safety net are in work. That's no longer a welfare safety net. That's subsidising employers to pay poverty wages.
We need to address that problem at source.
Alternatively reduce the cliff edges that mean people only want to work a set amount of hours to ensure they don’t lose their benefits.
I was looking at doing a shop job over Xmas at one of the retailers on the Arnison, couldn’t be bothered in the end,
All of them had 16 hour and full time opportunities.
It’s easy to claim it is just poor paying employers but the system is also geared up to encourage it.
I think it is 90% poor paying employers.
The system has to somehow force people into crap work with crap wages while not starving too many people who don't cooperate, and not costing an absolute fortune. It's balancing all those imperatives that produces the mess we have.
Improve productivity and improve pay and a lot of those problems fall away.
A single person working in a entry level job (the lowest of the low) can pull in over £22k working full-time.
That's enough to live on, rent a decent room, or houseshare, and start to build a career on.
I started on less.
Take home on £22K is £ 1,600pcm ish. Yes it is enough, but it's just enough: you're not going to be able to quickly save a deposit and get a mortgage on that. It's at this point that life choices really kick in: if you marry somebody your combined salaries might be enough to buy a property somewhere, if you have wealthy parents they can gift you the deposit and guarantee the mortgage, and things start to diverge.
Nobody on bottom level jobs has ever ever been able to save a deposit and get a mortgage.
That's not true - my house was previously owned by a Teaching Assistant, one of the lowest paid jobs there is (salary is term time only). She bought in the era of 0.5% mortgages though.
Have you forgotten the 00s era of no deposit mortgages/self cert mortgages/110% Northern Rock mortgages?
Don’t. My
I got 1.69% fixed for five years in February 2022, which officially started in April of that year. 16 months left to go.
I'm cursing that I didn't fix for seven years even though it was very slightly more expensive.
Same regrets here (2021 and five year fix). My rational brain knew it couldn’t get much better so why didn’t I go longer?
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
Umm.
Switzerland is highest at 122%, and has the highest proportion of the population being foreign born.
As I said, it's difficult to control for everything, but countries like Ireland and Switzerland have too many unique factors to make them useful reference points. The Nordic countries seem the most comparable.
The success of Ireland and Switzerland is largely a result of their low tax rates.
The best recent success story in Europe in recent years in probably Poland. Significant growth for such a large country, thanks to leaving communism behind. I was there in the summer and the place is clearly booming.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
Umm.
Switzerland is highest at 122%, and has the highest proportion of the population being foreign born.
As I said, it's difficult to control for everything, but countries like Ireland and Switzerland have too many unique factors to make them useful reference points. The Nordic countries seem the most comparable.
The one country that stands out is the UK. Brexit perhaps? The countries that joined the EU in that period (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia) have done enormously well, except for Cyprus.
Also, in terms of the public's willingness to support increased Defence spending I think people underestimate the public and excuse the politicians. We can see other European countries, not just Poland and the Baltic States who are on the front line, but countries like Germany and Denmark who are doing a lot more to increase defence spending than the UK.
Yes, quite - we have a problem of political leadership.
If politicians won't lead us there then why wouldn't many voters prioritise benefits that matter to them personally?
All NATO nations committed to spend 5% of gdp on defence by 2035, even if Labour backbenchers have voted to prioritise welfare spending
Well, that will be the challenge for the next Conservative Government, presumably in 2029. How will they reach the 5% GDP figure in the course of a Parliament - I suppose they could keep defence spending and hope GDP falls to meet the targer but, more realistically, how will they increase the number assuming it can't all be done with growth concurrent with, what I imagine, will be commitments to lower taxes such as stamp duty?
Well they would restore the two child benefit cap for starters Labour have abandoned and reform the likes of PiP Labour also rejected reforms too
Cheap jibes aside, let's get serious on numbers.
I've seen the UK is spending £83 billion on defence this year - defence ranks fifth behind Social Care/Welfare (£379 billion), Health (£277 billion), Education (£146 billion) and Debt Interest Payments (£123 billion).
Instead of wittering on about GDP percentages, what amount would you like the UK to spend on defence and from where does that extra funding originate?
Looking at the income side, £329 billion from Income Tax, £214 billion from VAT, £199 billion from National Insurance.
If you want to double the amount spent on defence to sorry £160 billion, how do you get there? What elements of the other budgets would you reduce or how much additional tax would you seek to raise?
Well you could cut the welfare budget to £290 million for starters
How? What are you going to cut and by how much?
Restore the 2 child benefit cap for starters
From what I've read, restoring the cap would save between £2 billion and £3.5 billion so it's a drop in the ocean as well as a cheap political slogan. Do the Conservatives have any answers or policies on child poverty?
Don't bother - let's get to the substantive. Kemi Badenoch wants to "slash" "welfare". What does she mean by "slash" and, more important, what does she mean by "welfare" - funding for social care for vulnerable adults and children, pensions or, as I expect, Universal Credit and other allowances - what about Carers Allowance, by the way, would you advocate reducing that?
Presumably based on the perception there are millions of "scroungers" all enjoying the best of life thanks to Universal Credit, the plan will be to demonise these people and use that as an argument to carry forward a broad reduction of welfare payments.
Will the age at which individuals can collect the State pension be increased - to what and when? What measures will be taken to cajole people from living on Universal Credit back into work - will the levels of benefit be reduced to the point at which it becomes unviable to have them as your sole source of income? Will the levels of testing be enhanced to weed out the "scroungers" from those in genuine need ?
What of the infamous "Triple Lock" - will the Conservatives be committed to that for the life of the next Parliament or will they challenge what has become the orthodoxy in recent times?
£2billion and £3.5 billion is not a drop in the ocean; government budgets are made up of spending like this, and such attitudes are what leads to chronic waste in public spending.
Child poverty is not solved by dribbling out an extra giro allowance at great cost to working taxpayers; it is solved by stable families in work, and that has always been the Conservative priority.
£3 billion isn't a drop in the ocean. It doesn't support the case of people like myself, who think the two child cap is an iniquitous punishment of children for presuming to exist, to pretend it is a drop in the ocean.
It comes down to priorities. Do you think child poverty is a blight on society? Do you think the government should take practical steps to alleviate it? If the answer to both those questions is yes, then removing the two child cap is by far the most cost effective step the government can take. After that it comes down to priorities. If government spending is constrained, and it always is, what do you rank lower and dispense with?
I think the two-child cap is bad policy and results in bad outcomes. But I also think that fiscal transfers are a bad way to combat poverty, and yet another example of a failure of Blairite ideology.
Firstly, it's founded on the idea that inequality as a result of economic outcomes doesn't matter, because the government can even up the balance a bit after the fact. Something along the lines of, "we don't care if people get filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes." But rich people are increasingly not willing to pay their taxes, and especially not to pay for fiscal transfers, and so the policy is a failure in its own terms.
Secondly, the policy has unintended consequences. It results in subsidising unproductive low-wage work, reducing the competitive pressure to invest in productivity, making the country as a whole poorer in the long-term.
A better policy mix would be to improve the incentives for businesses to invest to improve productivity and to strengthen the ability of workers to bargain for higher pay, so that the benefit from improved productivity is shared with workers.
The country as a whole becomes richer, inequality is reduced, and poverty is reduced without the reliance on government fiscal transfers that are ever vulnerable to the next Chancellor Osborne.
I wouldn't say this is an either/or. Safety nets exist to catch people when desirable outcomes like the one you mention don't apply. This is the principle behind any welfare. I don't think it's fair to say the principle uniquely doesn't apply to child number 3 in a family.
Yes, the welfare safety net should apply to child 3, and 4, etc. But the main problem we have here is that the majority of people in receipt of the welfare safety net are in work. That's no longer a welfare safety net. That's subsidising employers to pay poverty wages.
We need to address that problem at source.
Alternatively reduce the cliff edges that mean people only want to work a set amount of hours to ensure they don’t lose their benefits.
I was looking at doing a shop job over Xmas at one of the retailers on the Arnison, couldn’t be bothered in the end,
All of them had 16 hour and full time opportunities.
It’s easy to claim it is just poor paying employers but the system is also geared up to encourage it.
I think it is 90% poor paying employers.
The system has to somehow force people into crap work with crap wages while not starving too many people who don't cooperate, and not costing an absolute fortune. It's balancing all those imperatives that produces the mess we have.
Improve productivity and improve pay and a lot of those problems fall away.
A single person working in a entry level job (the lowest of the low) can pull in over £22k working full-time.
That's enough to live on, rent a decent room, or houseshare, and start to build a career on.
I started on less.
Take home on £22K is £ 1,600pcm ish. Yes it is enough, but it's just enough: you're not going to be able to quickly save a deposit and get a mortgage on that. It's at this point that life choices really kick in: if you marry somebody your combined salaries might be enough to buy a property somewhere, if you have wealthy parents they can gift you the deposit and guarantee the mortgage, and things start to diverge.
Nobody on bottom level jobs has ever ever been able to save a deposit and get a mortgage.
That's not true - my house was previously owned by a Teaching Assistant, one of the lowest paid jobs there is (salary is term time only). She bought in the era of 0.5% mortgages though.
Have you forgotten the 00s era of no deposit mortgages/self cert mortgages/110% Northern Rock mortgages?
Don’t. My
I got 1.69% fixed for five years in February 2022, which officially started in April of that year. 16 months left to go.
I'm cursing that I didn't fix for seven years even though it was very slightly more expensive.
Same regrets here (2021 and five year fix). My rational brain knew it couldn’t get much better so why didn’t I go longer?
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
This is an odd use of the word "highest" that I haven't encountered before...
*In the region*
Finland - 101.9 Denmark - 98.1 Norway - 76.5 Sweden - 75.3
Demark has a 50% larger share of the population being foreign born than Finland, for a negligible difference in GDP per capita growth rate over the period.
At the very least, that doesn't suggest a strong correlation.
Also, Denmark has grown really quickly in the last five years, so if you extend the numbers, you will almost certainly see it having passed Finland. In fact, Finland's had a pretty miserable time of late:
2020: -2.49% (COVID contraction) 2021: 2.73% (modest recovery) 2022: 1.45% (slowing) 2023: -0.9% (contraction) 2024: 0.4% (minimal growth) 2025: Near stagnation (0.1% projected), with contractions in Q2 (-0.4%) and Q3 (-0.3%)
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
My grotty one bedroom bedsit in Slough cost £5 a week in October 1965. My first job with ICI Paints after leaving University had a gross salary of less than £20 per week. It's all relative.
In 1997, I paid 125 quid a week for a small room in a house share in East London, not far from Brick Lane. There were five of us sharing the house and only one working shower. Fortunately, I was the first to work in the morning, and therefore usually didn't have to wait.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
This is an odd use of the word "highest" that I haven't encountered before...
*In the region*
Finland - 101.9 Denmark - 98.1 Norway - 76.5 Sweden - 75.3
Demark has a 50% larger share of the population being foreign born than Finland, for a negligible difference in GDP per capita growth rate over the period.
At the very least, that doesn't suggest a strong correlation.
Also, Denmark has grown really quickly in the last five years, so if you extend the numbers, you will almost certainly see it having passed Finland. In fact, Finland's had a pretty miserable time of late:
2020: -2.49% (COVID contraction) 2021: 2.73% (modest recovery) 2022: 1.45% (slowing) 2023: -0.9% (contraction) 2024: 0.4% (minimal growth) 2025: Near stagnation (0.1% projected), with contractions in Q2 (-0.4%) and Q3 (-0.3%)
You need to be careful with figures for foreign born people in small European countries because it can just mean people moving between Malmo and Copenhagen, which is not really immigration.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
My grotty one bedroom bedsit in Slough cost £5 a week in October 1965. My first job with ICI Paints after leaving University had a gross salary of less than £20 per week. It's all relative.
In 1997, I paid 125 quid a week for a small room in a house share in East London, not far from Brick Lane. There were five of us sharing the house and only one working shower. Fortunately, I was the first to work in the morning, and therefore usually didn't have to wait.
I hope you left plenty of hot water for them!
We had one of those funny gas heaters on demand. It worked reasonably well, amazingly enough.
China weighs in— “We have never believed that any country can act as the world’s policeman, nor do we agree that any country can claim to be an international judge,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yitold his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar in Beijing today.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
And yet, on average, housing costs are the lowest they have been since the 80s. The cost of housing is a significant issue for only a minority of households.
The trouble with housing costs is that the average doesn't tell us much.
My goto example is the street where I live. Some of my neighbours are retired school secretaries who bought many decades ago and now have housing costs of zero. Some are people like me who moved here in the late 2000s and have housing costs of not-very-much. The kind of people who move here now are paying a fortune for similar boxes of bricks.
I can understand why long-standing Romford residents get pissed off about this, even before you start to consider the social changes that follow. But it's inevitable, given our veneration of the London Green Belt.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
Are people in Japan more optimistic and happy because their country chose not go the immigration route?
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
It's difficult to control for everything, but the fact that Finland has the highest cumulative GDP-per capita growth in the region and the lowest level of immigration stands out.
This is an odd use of the word "highest" that I haven't encountered before...
*In the region*
Finland - 101.9 Denmark - 98.1 Norway - 76.5 Sweden - 75.3
Demark has a 50% larger share of the population being foreign born than Finland, for a negligible difference in GDP per capita growth rate over the period.
At the very least, that doesn't suggest a strong correlation.
Also, Denmark has grown really quickly in the last five years, so if you extend the numbers, you will almost certainly see it having passed Finland. In fact, Finland's had a pretty miserable time of late:
2020: -2.49% (COVID contraction) 2021: 2.73% (modest recovery) 2022: 1.45% (slowing) 2023: -0.9% (contraction) 2024: 0.4% (minimal growth) 2025: Near stagnation (0.1% projected), with contractions in Q2 (-0.4%) and Q3 (-0.3%)
You need to be careful with figures for foreign born people in small European countries because it can just mean people moving between Malmo and Copenhagen, which is not really immigration.
I'm just pointing out that if you choose to extend the GDP growth period to 2025, you will almost certainly see Denmark having outperformed Finland.
For what it's worth, the reason the UK's GDP per capita in USD did so poorly in the period is that the pound collapsed against the dollar in 2016. For some reason.
"Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK should move towards closer alignment with EU markets "if it's in our national interest". The prime minister told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg it would be "better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment", in order to protect trade deals with India and the US.
But he ruled out revisiting manifesto promises not to rejoin the EU single market or customs union, or to end freedom of movement."
Starmer understands the customs union stuff is silly.
It must be. Ed Davey supports it.
The Starmer thoughts mentioned by Carnforth above are of course nonsense as he knows. The single market is something you are a member of or not. If you are in it, all the same rules apply to you as everyone else. If you are not, everything has to be negotiated. Inside it, sending widgets from Gateshead to Riga is the same as sending it from Gateshead to Birmingham. (Though a little further). Outside the SM, it isn't. In the SM, you can go and live in Prague because you feel like working there. Outside you can't. These are not alignable situations.
My first London bedsit, when I started work in a decent job, cost £42 a month in NW6, which AI tells me would now equate to £175. Can you get a bedsit in a reasonable part of London nowadays for £175 per month? I think not!
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
Probably the problem that underlies most of our other problems.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
+1 - the fact is that the UK population increased by 10% but we didm't build the homes for a 2% increase let alone the 10-15% that was required.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
Canada has already gone into negative net migration figures. We need to do the same for a sustained period.
It is worth noting, of course, that countries which have not had significant levels of immigration (like Japan) have not been all sweetness and light.
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
Torsten Bell posted an interesting thread today about the decline of employment of teenagers and people doing Saturday jobs while studying. That's the exact opposite of what you would expect to see in a country with an inverted population pyramid.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
What was immigration trying to fix? Was it less output? Output per worker not increasing as much as the number of workers exiting?
Was it investment in trying to reduce the output gap by using the large amounts of cheap credit available e.g. Quantitive Easing.
Was it the lack of business friendly policies emerging from the dominant party of government in the last 50 years. If it was the latter, then perhaps that party should STFU about how others are trying to remedy their legacy.
Well, there are different types of immigration.
Some is people who met a partner overseas and married them, and want them to live in the UK with them. Not an unreasonable ask, one would think.
Some is people on inter-coroporate transfers: we're setting up a London, you're in charge. Some of this is temporary, some permanent. Often it is expected to be one type, and ends up another.
Some is people who come here via visas for specific job types where there is considered to be a shortage, or because they command a certain salary.
One of the things the UK does poorly, I think, is not having the sharp distinction between immigrant and non-immigrant visas. I'm in the US on a non-immigrant visa, and have no path to a Green Card or citizenship. I can apply for an immigrant visa (with Green Card), but that is an entirely separate process.
On your first point, I may have mentioned this one a few times before the UK system doesn’t understand the case of someone who moves away and just happens to get married, it’s set up mostly for what might be called arranged marriages involving a foreign spouse.
In the UK system pretty much any visa, even a visit visa, is an immigrant visa, because in practice it’s almost impossible to deport anyone. Where I live is pretty much the opposite, it’s almost impossible to get an immigrant visa without exceptional skill, only dozens issued per year, although long-term visas are now available for high earners. The US system sits somewhere in the middle although the O-1 visa is something of an anomoly, where you have to meet a high bar for skill and salary yet it’s not an automatic immigrant visa.
Comments
I'm cursing that I didn't fix for seven years even though it was very slightly more expensive.
'I didn't hear precisely what my hon. Friend said, but he will share my opinion on the matter by this evening.'
Or was that per week? I can’t now really remember. Perhaps £175 per week nowadays isn’t completely out of the range
What an absolute shambles.
This is precisely the sort of ineptness that has discouraged the Greens from doing deals with any of the other left of Labour parties in the past.
Stuff should get cheaper, better and more abundant as time goes by. Just by accumulation of technical knowledge, if nothing else.
And yet the cost of putting a roof over people's heads has done the opposite.
Just checked and The Only Ones were on as well, what a banger of an episode that was.
Looking at my Spotify fav list hardly any bands were from that window: The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Faithless, Primal Scream, Daft Punk, Leftfield, Underworld, David Guetta. A couple creep in admittedly: The Fall and Joy Division.
I'm against this whichever party does it - which includes Labour at very local level.
El Presidente at least has the excuse of being gaga.
So it's expensive to rent anywhere because supply of houses does not match demand hence rents increase until renters can pay no more...
As for hyperbole, the whole post in reply to Francis for one. Axis Powers 🙄 align against the USA.
I know you Lib Dem’s are Trump and EU obsessives but if that happened we’d have numerous committees and working parties to scope it all out and trade off deals over the next decade trying to sort it out.
We will carry on as we are and hope for some sanity after the mid terms and the Supreme Court judgement on tariffs.
As for what Trump has done in Venezuela well so what. No different to what other US presidents have done, aside from the approach.
The prime minister told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg it would be "better looking to the single market rather than the customs union for our further alignment", in order to protect trade deals with India and the US.
But he ruled out revisiting manifesto promises not to rejoin the EU single market or customs union, or to end freedom of movement."
Starmer understands the customs union stuff is silly.
They talk the talk. That’s it so far.
My experience now as prime minister is of frustration that every time I go to pull a lever there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arm’s-length bodies that mean that the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be, which is among the reasons why I want to cut down on regulation, generally and within government
Now this is great, but he is nearly 6 years into being Labour leader and 18 months into being PM. By the time he was elected he (and we) should know the plan, and by now it should be rolling out fast and we should have at our fingertips the timetable for action and implementation.
As it is he is acting as if every single thing he knows he has has to work out since becoming PM, including every single thing that all PB posters know.
Does he know it can be hard to get a GP appointment and that the HMRC doesn't answer the phone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-H895vrIU8
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/01/04/anyone-but-reeves-public-hunt-sunak-corbyn-chancellor/
Complete with a 6 month waiting list for getting a pineapple.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-H895vrIU8
The problem is that our politicians -of all hues- have lied to us.
If you don't import people of working age, then you get a horribly inverted population pyramid and an increasing share of workers income going on supporting oldies. (Which is bad.)
And if you do import workers, you get social issues and housing shortages. (Which is also bad.)
If you are on the max, as you suggest everyone is, then we have a lot of very, very sick people in poor accommodation paying landlords exorbitant rents. There is a lot of 'welfare' that gets diverted to the Private Rented Sector that we should be trying to limit. So to make a big, big dent in welfare would be to go after the rapacious private sector - which I hope someone of your experience would have concluded by now.
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mbmcvcjetb2o
What you're saying may be true of overheated property markets like London/SE but in the north/midlands getting started with a 2/3 bed terraced house has always been within reach, although it is getting more challenging.
Using immigration as a quick fix has been disastrous whichever way you look at it.
64% of Democrats are opposed and 43% of Independents are opposed. 60% of Republican voters in favour
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2026/01/03/0cfdc/1
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2007836775360745944
WELKER: Is the Cuban government the Trump administration's next target?
MARCO RUBIO: Well, the Cuban government is a huge problem. Yeah.
WELKER: Is that a yes?
RUBIO: I think they're in a lot of trouble, yes
Its really bad long term though. Its a really useful experience for many, you can meet new mates outside of your tight school network, you have to do a little bit of growing up as you have to deal with adults who expect product or service to be delivered efficiently, and you get some concept for the value of money, as you learn quickly it can be spent far faster and more easily than it took to earn it.
In extremis, buildings tens of millions of new homes would bring prices down - a bit. But it would require massive subsidy in most of the country, take decades, and we know from our current experience that most of the benefits would not accrue to renters and first-time buyers.
It’s about the priorities in their heads.
Corbyn is a Negative Western Nationalist (see Orwell).
The tendency to excuse anything Russian on the Hard Left, even post Cold War and even with the current fascist state, has long been noted.
See the attempts to whitewash Serb atrocities in the Yugoslav Wars - Serbia was Russia’s ally, therefore DoublePlusGood. So you got SWPies praise Arkan….
Another factor into the mix, this massive increase in people going to uni and very high cost of acccomodation and living, it is now very very common for students to work a lot during term time.
In my day most people didn't work during term time or if they did it was say a shift a week at the boozer to pay for their nights out not 3 days a week working at Costa. Now many students its the only way they can make ends meet to make the rent and buy food.
My first job with ICI Paints after leaving University had a gross salary of less than £20 per week.
It's all relative.
Unwind has been seen a lot in parts of the UK, where new housing is immediately occupied by people who were house sharing. And despite the “efficiency” of HMOs, most people don’t want to live 8 to a 4 bed house.
I don't know the answer to that, for what it's worth. And it's really only Japan which has avoided significant net migration in the last half century. And it may be that their issues are nothing to do with demographics.
It is worth asking the question: which developed countries have been successes over the last 30 years? And what do they have in common? Are the ones that have significantly restricted immigration done better (economically, etc.) or worse?
Was it investment in trying to reduce the output gap by using the large amounts of cheap credit available e.g. Quantitive Easing.
Was it the lack of business friendly policies emerging from the dominant party of government in the last 50 years. If it was the latter, then perhaps that party should STFU about how others are trying to remedy their legacy.
Israel 3.4% p.a.
Cyprus 3%
Ireland 2.3%
Australia 2.3%
New Zealand 2.2%
Luxembourg 2.1%
Most of those have seen high immigration, except for NZ, which has high net emigration, doesn't it? But, of course, GDP growth isn't the only metric that matters.
"Venezuela looks nothing like Libya,Irak,Afghanistan."
I might be wrong, but I suspect that is going to look really fucking stupid in hindsight
@SkyNews
A representative of the Venezuelan armed forces says Nicolas Maduro and his wife have been "abducted" by the US and demands their immediate release.
He urges the world to "turn their eyes to what is happening" to the country.
https://x.com/SkyNews/status/2007855218537411034?s=20
My net salary was £17 a week.
https://x.com/maria_drutska/status/2007821802412876282
Some is people who met a partner overseas and married them, and want them to live in the UK with them. Not an unreasonable ask, one would think.
Some is people on inter-coroporate transfers: we're setting up a London, you're in charge. Some of this is temporary, some permanent. Often it is expected to be one type, and ends up another.
Some is people who come here via visas for specific job types where there is considered to be a shortage, or because they command a certain salary.
One of the things the UK does poorly, I think, is not having the sharp distinction between immigrant and non-immigrant visas. I'm in the US on a non-immigrant visa, and have no path to a Green Card or citizenship. I can apply for an immigrant visa (with Green Card), but that is an entirely separate process.
Finland - 101.9
Denmark - 98.1
Norway - 76.5
Sweden - 75.3
Switzerland is highest at 122%, and has the highest proportion of the population being foreign born.
Also, Britain is the lowest despite sustained high levels of immigration throughout that period, which is really atypical. In most other European countries there was significant fluctuation with some years of negative net migration.
Trump said the US were in charge.
In reality nobody knows who is in charge now.
That's WAAAYYYYYY better than Libya,Irak,Afghanistan.
Oh, wait...
Turned down 10 years @1.79%…
The best recent success story in Europe in recent years in probably Poland. Significant growth for such a large country, thanks to leaving communism behind. I was there in the summer and the place is clearly booming.
Yet most of us took a much shorter fixed term for a slightly better rate at the time. An interesting study in behaviour.
At the very least, that doesn't suggest a strong correlation.
Also, Denmark has grown really quickly in the last five years, so if you extend the numbers, you will almost certainly see it having passed Finland. In fact, Finland's had a pretty miserable time of late:
2020: -2.49% (COVID contraction)
2021: 2.73% (modest recovery)
2022: 1.45% (slowing)
2023: -0.9% (contraction)
2024: 0.4% (minimal growth)
2025: Near stagnation (0.1% projected), with contractions in Q2 (-0.4%) and Q3 (-0.3%)
China weighs in— “We have never believed that any country can act as the world’s policeman, nor do we agree that any country can claim to be an international judge,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yitold his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar in Beijing today.
My goto example is the street where I live. Some of my neighbours are retired school secretaries who bought many decades ago and now have housing costs of zero. Some are people like me who moved here in the late 2000s and have housing costs of not-very-much. The kind of people who move here now are paying a fortune for similar boxes of bricks.
I can understand why long-standing Romford residents get pissed off about this, even before you start to consider the social changes that follow. But it's inevitable, given our veneration of the London Green Belt.
For what it's worth, the reason the UK's GDP per capita in USD did so poorly in the period is that the pound collapsed against the dollar in 2016. For some reason.
Inside it, sending widgets from Gateshead to Riga is the same as sending it from Gateshead to Birmingham. (Though a little further). Outside the SM, it isn't. In the SM, you can go and live in Prague because you feel like working there. Outside you can't. These are not alignable situations.
In the UK system pretty much any visa, even a visit visa, is an immigrant visa, because in practice it’s almost impossible to deport anyone. Where I live is pretty much the opposite, it’s almost impossible to get an immigrant visa without exceptional skill, only dozens issued per year, although long-term visas are now available for high earners. The US system sits somewhere in the middle although the O-1 visa is something of an anomoly, where you have to meet a high bar for skill and salary yet it’s not an automatic immigrant visa.