Sarah Smith sane washing Trump is awful. I think she reports as she does because Trump accepts her calls. I suspect a truth sayer like Simon Marks would probably get the phone hung up on him by Trump.
Maybe.
But Trump is weird like that. Don't forget he has the memory of a goldfish, the attention span of a ten-year-old with ADHD and he's often too stupid to know when people are attacking him anyway (see the KCIII speech to Congress)..
If you listen to Michael Wolff, he'll call people who've attacked him for years and just rant at them over the phone. Just as long as they don't say anything or offer any kind of opinion, because it's all about him.
He has so many mental illnesses and pathologies that it needs quite a lot of imagination to think even vaguely how he thinks.
Billions in aid handed to terrorists and criminals Secret dossier reveals foreign aid and Covid relief loans were appropriated by gangs and hostile states
Terrorists, hostile states and gangsters have been given more than £28bn of taxpayers’ money, including through aid payments, according to a secret government report. ... More than £28bn ended up in the hands of those wishing to harm Britain between 2015 and 2021, according to the report, which was commissioned and produced by the Cabinet Office but was buried during the previous government. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/bf51632ce387959b
Gift link so no paywall.
Telegraph comments show the intelligence of their readers, blaming the current govt for fraud commited 5-10 years ago under the Tories and covered up in 2023 by the Tories.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Billions in aid handed to terrorists and criminals Secret dossier reveals foreign aid and Covid relief loans were appropriated by gangs and hostile states
Terrorists, hostile states and gangsters have been given more than £28bn of taxpayers’ money, including through aid payments, according to a secret government report. ... More than £28bn ended up in the hands of those wishing to harm Britain between 2015 and 2021, according to the report, which was commissioned and produced by the Cabinet Office but was buried during the previous government. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/bf51632ce387959b
Gift link so no paywall.
Telegraph comments show the intelligence of their readers, blaming the current govt for fraud commited 5-10 years ago under the Tories and covered up in 2023 by the Tories.
Quick skim read of the Telegraph article but what it actually seems to say is that because the Covid funds were badly designed, handled and monitored there was;
Wide scale fraud, much undetected at the time.
Some, perhaps but not definitely most, but certainly a large amount was done by organised criminal gangs.
Many of those criminal gangs were Eastern European.
Some of those gangs had links to terrorists and people smugglers and others in the Middle East.
Therefore some of the money may well have reached these groups.
So in conclusion: up to £28 Bn misappropriated but no way to know how much of that actual ended up with “The Baddies!”
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
And mass immigration is neither popular nor right. Your continuing attachment to it belies the assertion that you follow the evidence.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
And mass immigration is neither popular nor right. Your continuing attachment to it belies the assertion that you follow the evidence.
I’d except that isn’t popular at the moment but for years when the economy was doing well most people weren’t as anxious as now. As ever when things get tight people start to find reasons not to share.
There is no doubt that like most developed countries we have struggled to deal with it and you can make a good case for successive UK governments have made a pigs ear of it, but that is a far cry from proving or even demonstrating how dealing with an aging population by importing young people of working age and for the longer term their children can’t and doesn’t work.
Given how much it has fallen since the Boris Eave the zero migration argument deals with yesterdays problem but will create tomorrows.
But that’s pretty much what popularism does, address what people are looking at, not what’s round the corner!
Probably why along with backing zero migration they rail against Net Zero to.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
And mass immigration is neither popular nor right. Your continuing attachment to it belies the assertion that you follow the evidence.
I’d except that isn’t popular at the moment but for years when the economy was doing well most people weren’t as anxious as now. As ever when things get tight people start to find reasons not to share.
There is no doubt that like most developed countries we have struggled to deal with it and you can make a good case for successive UK governments have made a pigs ear of it, but that is a far cry from proving or even demonstrating how dealing with an aging population by importing young people of working age and for the longer term their children can’t and doesn’t work.
Given how much it has fallen since the Boris Eave the zero migration argument deals with yesterdays problem but will create tomorrows.
But that’s pretty much what popularism does, address what people are looking at, not what’s round the corner!
Probably why along with backing zero migration they rail against Net Zero to.
Peter.
It's interesting that the most significant government that operates in a system that doesn't have to respond to public opinion in the same way has taken a totally different approach to the one you recommend.
China now has a rapidly declining population and has made extensive use of fossil fuels to drive its growth, and is now better placed for both the energy and demographic transitions that lie ahead. But what do they know?
UK spying fears after secret camera found in Whitehall ceiling panel ... Security officials working at Marsham Street in Victoria, central London – a vast suite of offices that houses the Home Office and the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) – found a hidden camera in a ceiling panel, ministers have been informed.
White House tells PM not to ban social media for children Trump administration claims plans for Australian-style age restrictions could harm freedom of speech ... ... Sir Keir is said to be carving out policies to provide him with a “legacy” as he faces the threat of a leadership challenge from Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor who is favourite to secure a return to Parliament in the Makerfield by-election on June 18. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/08/starmer-ban-children-sending-explicit-images-social-media/ (£££)
That paragraph might be more significant than the headline.
White House tells PM not to ban social media for children Trump administration claims plans for Australian-style age restrictions could harm freedom of speech ... ... Sir Keir is said to be carving out policies to provide him with a “legacy” as he faces the threat of a leadership challenge from Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor who is favourite to secure a return to Parliament in the Makerfield by-election on June 18. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/08/starmer-ban-children-sending-explicit-images-social-media/ (£££)
That paragraph might be more significant than the headline.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
The truly humble would read up on correlation and causation.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
And mass immigration is neither popular nor right. Your continuing attachment to it belies the assertion that you follow the evidence.
You're talking to someone but who has been told his username appears on every one of his posts and yet still insists on signing off every post "Peter".
Among those charged Monday were a Catholic priest from Colombia who sexually groomed a minor parishioner, a woman from Cuba who took part in a $37 million health insurance scam and a man from Jamaica who conspired in a $54 million stock manipulation scheme.
The 17 defendants were all convicted after becoming citizens but allegedly committed their crimes during the five years before they applied for citizenship or after they applied but before they were naturalized, in violation of a law that requires would-be Americans to prove they're of "good moral character."
These are not good people. But there is a philosophical issue I have with the state adding an extra punishment on top of what the courts have determined. And presumably there is no right of appeal.
Although it’s quite ironic that Trump is focusing on insurance fraud, stock market manipulation and paedophilia
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
And mass immigration is neither popular nor right. Your continuing attachment to it belies the assertion that you follow the evidence.
It’s massively popular with our political class across the board and has been for 30 or so years.
It’s even popular with a few on PB as any criticism of it or migrants gets a Pavlovian response.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 3h Russian forces according to reports are being forced to withdraw on mass from positions around the Kinburn Spit south of the Dnipro river due to severe supply difficulties caused by continued Ukrainian drone strike campaigns on Southern logistical routes.
This is just the start. It is highly likely by later this year that the Russians will have to withdraw from Crimea due to lack of supplies, fuel and even water. They have lost this war and it is getting worse for them by the week. Zelenskyy must have been very confident that Putin would reject his latest peace offer or he wouldn't have made it. He was right.
And the consequences of that would do more for the popularity of Western governments than most of the actions they can take for themselves.
Success is more about right place/right time than we might want to be the case.
Interesting that Zelenskyy is aware of, and refers to, Reform councils taking down the Ukrainian flag in his latest interview.
Yet another example (do we need more?) that Farage and his cronies really do represent something new and malignant in British public life.
And, hopefully, temporary. There is certainly at least anecdotal evidence that Farage is facing an increasing backlash. The question is, if we are at peak Reform, will NF's fall pressage a recovery in the Tories .. or Labour? My personal view is that, at least initially, it will be a Burnham-led Labour, rather that a Badenoch-led Conservative party.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
Among those charged Monday were a Catholic priest from Colombia who sexually groomed a minor parishioner, a woman from Cuba who took part in a $37 million health insurance scam and a man from Jamaica who conspired in a $54 million stock manipulation scheme.
The 17 defendants were all convicted after becoming citizens but allegedly committed their crimes during the five years before they applied for citizenship or after they applied but before they were naturalized, in violation of a law that requires would-be Americans to prove they're of "good moral character."
These are not good people. But there is a philosophical issue I have with the state adding an extra punishment on top of what the courts have determined. And presumably there is no right of appeal.
Although it’s quite ironic that Trump is focusing on insurance fraud, stock market manipulation and paedophilia
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We haven’t had stagnant wages for 25 years. Don’t those start with the global financial crisis of 2008, only 16 years ago? We haven’t had political instability for 25 years. That’s only since Brexit. I think those who advocated for financial deregulation and Brexit are the ones who need more humility.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
We have had governance by opinion poll for many years, yes, but I think Peter is pointing to another phenomenon. Trump believes reality is determined by what he thinks, and that’s backed up by his supporters thinking it too. He isn’t following the polls. He’s declaring he won in 2020 because he says so.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 3h Russian forces according to reports are being forced to withdraw on mass from positions around the Kinburn Spit south of the Dnipro river due to severe supply difficulties caused by continued Ukrainian drone strike campaigns on Southern logistical routes.
This is just the start. It is highly likely by later this year that the Russians will have to withdraw from Crimea due to lack of supplies, fuel and even water. They have lost this war and it is getting worse for them by the week. Zelenskyy must have been very confident that Putin would reject his latest peace offer or he wouldn't have made it. He was right.
And the consequences of that would do more for the popularity of Western governments than most of the actions they can take for themselves.
Success is more about right place/right time than we might want to be the case.
Interesting that Zelenskyy is aware of, and refers to, Reform councils taking down the Ukrainian flag in his latest interview.
Yet another example (do we need more?) that Farage and his cronies really do represent something new and malignant in British public life.
And, hopefully, temporary. There is certainly at least anecdotal evidence that Farage is facing an increasing backlash. The question is, if we are at peak Reform, will NF's fall pressage a recovery in the Tories .. or Labour? My personal view is that, at least initially, it will be a Burnham-led Labour, rather that a Badenoch-led Conservative party.
I thought the polling was that vast majority of Reform voters would not consider voting labour, but also that Reform has a significant % of normally don't vote.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
No, it hasn’t. We need politicians to stop governing by what an opinion poll says.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It's only right if it's what I already agree with.
Otherwise, it's populism and I'm not listening to either the opinion or any contrary evidence.
This is why the erstwhile "liberals" have made themselves so despised, and helped fuel it.
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 3h Russian forces according to reports are being forced to withdraw on mass from positions around the Kinburn Spit south of the Dnipro river due to severe supply difficulties caused by continued Ukrainian drone strike campaigns on Southern logistical routes.
This is just the start. It is highly likely by later this year that the Russians will have to withdraw from Crimea due to lack of supplies, fuel and even water. They have lost this war and it is getting worse for them by the week. Zelenskyy must have been very confident that Putin would reject his latest peace offer or he wouldn't have made it. He was right.
And the consequences of that would do more for the popularity of Western governments than most of the actions they can take for themselves.
Success is more about right place/right time than we might want to be the case.
Interesting that Zelenskyy is aware of, and refers to, Reform councils taking down the Ukrainian flag in his latest interview.
Yet another example (do we need more?) that Farage and his cronies really do represent something new and malignant in British public life.
And, hopefully, temporary. There is certainly at least anecdotal evidence that Farage is facing an increasing backlash. The question is, if we are at peak Reform, will NF's fall pressage a recovery in the Tories .. or Labour? My personal view is that, at least initially, it will be a Burnham-led Labour, rather that a Badenoch-led Conservative party.
I thought the polling was that vast majority of Reform voters would not consider voting labour, but also that Reform has a significant % of normally don't vote.
If that’s true - polling at the next election is going to be impossible to work out as identifying who will actually vote is going to be impossible
WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3 · 3h Russian forces according to reports are being forced to withdraw on mass from positions around the Kinburn Spit south of the Dnipro river due to severe supply difficulties caused by continued Ukrainian drone strike campaigns on Southern logistical routes.
This is just the start. It is highly likely by later this year that the Russians will have to withdraw from Crimea due to lack of supplies, fuel and even water. They have lost this war and it is getting worse for them by the week. Zelenskyy must have been very confident that Putin would reject his latest peace offer or he wouldn't have made it. He was right.
And the consequences of that would do more for the popularity of Western governments than most of the actions they can take for themselves.
Success is more about right place/right time than we might want to be the case.
Interesting that Zelenskyy is aware of, and refers to, Reform councils taking down the Ukrainian flag in his latest interview.
Yet another example (do we need more?) that Farage and his cronies really do represent something new and malignant in British public life.
And, hopefully, temporary. There is certainly at least anecdotal evidence that Farage is facing an increasing backlash. The question is, if we are at peak Reform, will NF's fall pressage a recovery in the Tories .. or Labour? My personal view is that, at least initially, it will be a Burnham-led Labour, rather that a Badenoch-led Conservative party.
I thought the polling was that vast majority of Reform voters would not consider voting labour, but also that Reform has a significant % of normally don't vote.
If that’s true - polling at the next election is going to be impossible to work out as identifying who will actually vote is going to be impossible
Good morning, everyone.
It's also going to be difficult because politics is far more fragmentary and motivation now seems to be far more negative (ie voters are increasingly voting against X rather than for Y).
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
Democracy is the best system we have for choosing governments. Facts are not best decided by opinion poll.
This is fair illustration of the populist approach.
White House tells PM not to ban social media for children Trump administration claims plans for Australian-style age restrictions could harm freedom of speech ... ... Sir Keir is said to be carving out policies to provide him with a “legacy” as he faces the threat of a leadership challenge from Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor who is favourite to secure a return to Parliament in the Makerfield by-election on June 18. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/08/starmer-ban-children-sending-explicit-images-social-media/ (£££)
That paragraph might be more significant than the headline.
If children need to be protected from all social media, not just some content, it suggests the problem is with social media as a whole, not children having access to it.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
The problem is people having factually wrong opinions. On immigration for example you can legitimately want less of it, or be comfortable with a high level. But it's a problem if people think that immigration is currently very high when it isn't, or that most new housing goes to immigrants when it doesn't, and politicians devise policies based on those demonstrably wrong perceptions.
White House tells PM not to ban social media for children Trump administration claims plans for Australian-style age restrictions could harm freedom of speech ... ... Sir Keir is said to be carving out policies to provide him with a “legacy” as he faces the threat of a leadership challenge from Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor who is favourite to secure a return to Parliament in the Makerfield by-election on June 18. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/08/starmer-ban-children-sending-explicit-images-social-media/ (£££)
That paragraph might be more significant than the headline.
If children need to be protected from all social media, not just some content, it suggests the problem is with social media as a whole, not children having access to it.
If we ban social media, how does Trump get his ummmm, message to them?
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
I am fine with democracy, but we used to have politicians who at least at times tried to lead the country for the longer term, and not expect to be popular all the time. Thatcher would be an example.
If we are to suceed as a country we need to recapture the benefits of deferred gratification over the instantaneous.
White House tells PM not to ban social media for children Trump administration claims plans for Australian-style age restrictions could harm freedom of speech ... ... Sir Keir is said to be carving out policies to provide him with a “legacy” as he faces the threat of a leadership challenge from Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor who is favourite to secure a return to Parliament in the Makerfield by-election on June 18. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/08/starmer-ban-children-sending-explicit-images-social-media/ (£££)
That paragraph might be more significant than the headline.
If children need to be protected from all social media, not just some content, it suggests the problem is with social media as a whole, not children having access to it.
Starmer's legacy might be making accessing half the internet a huge pain in the arse with an unholy mix of technological deficiency and authoritarian bullshit.
Billions in aid handed to terrorists and criminals Secret dossier reveals foreign aid and Covid relief loans were appropriated by gangs and hostile states
Terrorists, hostile states and gangsters have been given more than £28bn of taxpayers’ money, including through aid payments, according to a secret government report. ... More than £28bn ended up in the hands of those wishing to harm Britain between 2015 and 2021, according to the report, which was commissioned and produced by the Cabinet Office but was buried during the previous government. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/bf51632ce387959b
Gift link so no paywall.
Telegraph comments show the intelligence of their readers, blaming the current govt for fraud commited 5-10 years ago under the Tories and covered up in 2023 by the Tories.
Quick skim read of the Telegraph article but what it actually seems to say is that because the Covid funds were badly designed, handled and monitored there was;
Wide scale fraud, much undetected at the time.
Some, perhaps but not definitely most, but certainly a large amount was done by organised criminal gangs.
Many of those criminal gangs were Eastern European.
Some of those gangs had links to terrorists and people smugglers and others in the Middle East.
Therefore some of the money may well have reached these groups.
So in conclusion: up to £28 Bn misappropriated but no way to know how much of that actual ended up with “The Baddies!”
Peter.
Indeed. Most of the COVID fraud went to Tory party cronies. Only a small part will have ended up with terrorists.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
Democracy is the best system we have for choosing governments. Facts are not best decided by opinion poll.
This is fair illustration of the populist approach.
First we have Reform’s Zia Yousaf (self proclaimed “shadow Home Secretary) who Tweeted in outrage at the sacking of a police officer.
Then we have Reforms Steve Barrett Tweeting in outrage at the conduct of an officer.
...As you have guessed, it’s the same officer. The same incident.
And, yet, the facts show that the large drop in net migration over the last 2 years has not been a serious inhibitor to growth, and nor did the large amount that preceded it drive it.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
I am fine with democracy, but we used to have politicians who at least at times tried to lead the country for the longer term, and not expect to be popular all the time. Thatcher would be an example.
If we are to suceed as a country we need to recapture the benefits of deferred gratification over the instantaneous.
Billions in aid handed to terrorists and criminals Secret dossier reveals foreign aid and Covid relief loans were appropriated by gangs and hostile states
Terrorists, hostile states and gangsters have been given more than £28bn of taxpayers’ money, including through aid payments, according to a secret government report. ... More than £28bn ended up in the hands of those wishing to harm Britain between 2015 and 2021, according to the report, which was commissioned and produced by the Cabinet Office but was buried during the previous government. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/bf51632ce387959b
Gift link so no paywall.
Telegraph comments show the intelligence of their readers, blaming the current govt for fraud commited 5-10 years ago under the Tories and covered up in 2023 by the Tories.
Quick skim read of the Telegraph article but what it actually seems to say is that because the Covid funds were badly designed, handled and monitored there was;
Wide scale fraud, much undetected at the time.
Some, perhaps but not definitely most, but certainly a large amount was done by organised criminal gangs.
Many of those criminal gangs were Eastern European.
Some of those gangs had links to terrorists and people smugglers and others in the Middle East.
Therefore some of the money may well have reached these groups.
So in conclusion: up to £28 Bn misappropriated but no way to know how much of that actual ended up with “The Baddies!”
Peter.
Indeed. Most of the COVID fraud went to Tory party cronies. Only a small part will have ended up with terrorists.
What about terrorists who also support the Tories?
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
Yes it is. You can't just recite your populist political party narrative of choice. It is also all about context and you provide none.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
Unless you are alluding to immigration from the accession countries over the "25 years", and they have largely gone home, absurdly large immigrant from outside Europe was a post Brexit, Johnson construct. But Johnson made the case for importing "our friends" from the Indian subcontinent when perhaps he should have been looking at tackling structural issues.
I don't see Farage looking at structural issues beyond demonising people whose melanin level doesn't suit him.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
The problem is people having factually wrong opinions. On immigration for example you can legitimately want less of it, or be comfortable with a high level. But it's a problem if people think that immigration is currently very high when it isn't, or that most new housing goes to immigrants when it doesn't, and politicians devise policies based on those demonstrably wrong perceptions.
I think your biggest problem (and that of your liberal ilk) is that you think you're always right - and any contrary opinion is therefore "wrong" - and are totally blind to the fact you have an ideology of your own; you genuinely think the facts support it.
I'd anchor that ideology around the complete fungibility of all individuals, and championing things like choosing your own identity and free movement regardless of any evidence of the social problems this causes.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
The problem is people having factually wrong opinions. On immigration for example you can legitimately want less of it, or be comfortable with a high level. But it's a problem if people think that immigration is currently very high when it isn't, or that most new housing goes to immigrants when it doesn't, and politicians devise policies based on those demonstrably wrong perceptions.
We were repeatedly promised immigration "in the tens of thousands". By that metric, net migration is still very high. In recent years it has been astronomically high.
And even the Green candidate in Makerfield acknowledged that an increasing population puts more pressure on housing.
Billions in aid handed to terrorists and criminals Secret dossier reveals foreign aid and Covid relief loans were appropriated by gangs and hostile states
Terrorists, hostile states and gangsters have been given more than £28bn of taxpayers’ money, including through aid payments, according to a secret government report. ... More than £28bn ended up in the hands of those wishing to harm Britain between 2015 and 2021, according to the report, which was commissioned and produced by the Cabinet Office but was buried during the previous government. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/bf51632ce387959b
Gift link so no paywall.
Telegraph comments show the intelligence of their readers, blaming the current govt for fraud commited 5-10 years ago under the Tories and covered up in 2023 by the Tories.
Quick skim read of the Telegraph article but what it actually seems to say is that because the Covid funds were badly designed, handled and monitored there was;
Wide scale fraud, much undetected at the time.
Some, perhaps but not definitely most, but certainly a large amount was done by organised criminal gangs.
Many of those criminal gangs were Eastern European.
Some of those gangs had links to terrorists and people smugglers and others in the Middle East.
Therefore some of the money may well have reached these groups.
So in conclusion: up to £28 Bn misappropriated but no way to know how much of that actual ended up with “The Baddies!”
Peter.
Indeed. Most of the COVID fraud went to Tory party cronies. Only a small part will have ended up with terrorists.
What about terrorists who also support the Tories?
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
I am fine with democracy, but we used to have politicians who at least at times tried to lead the country for the longer term, and not expect to be popular all the time. Thatcher would be an example.
If we are to suceed as a country we need to recapture the benefits of deferred gratification over the instantaneous.
So, you're saying you want Thatcher back?
I agree.
Her location if anyone wants to bring out the JCB.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
I am fine with democracy, but we used to have politicians who at least at times tried to lead the country for the longer term, and not expect to be popular all the time. Thatcher would be an example.
If we are to suceed as a country we need to recapture the benefits of deferred gratification over the instantaneous.
So, you're saying you want Thatcher back?
I agree.
No I don't. I voted againt her in my first 2 elections and would again.
But no one would call her a populist or weathervane politician, and she was certainly an election winner.
Billions in aid handed to terrorists and criminals Secret dossier reveals foreign aid and Covid relief loans were appropriated by gangs and hostile states
Terrorists, hostile states and gangsters have been given more than £28bn of taxpayers’ money, including through aid payments, according to a secret government report. ... More than £28bn ended up in the hands of those wishing to harm Britain between 2015 and 2021, according to the report, which was commissioned and produced by the Cabinet Office but was buried during the previous government. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/bf51632ce387959b
Gift link so no paywall.
Telegraph comments show the intelligence of their readers, blaming the current govt for fraud commited 5-10 years ago under the Tories and covered up in 2023 by the Tories.
Quick skim read of the Telegraph article but what it actually seems to say is that because the Covid funds were badly designed, handled and monitored there was;
Wide scale fraud, much undetected at the time.
Some, perhaps but not definitely most, but certainly a large amount was done by organised criminal gangs.
Many of those criminal gangs were Eastern European.
Some of those gangs had links to terrorists and people smugglers and others in the Middle East.
Therefore some of the money may well have reached these groups.
So in conclusion: up to £28 Bn misappropriated but no way to know how much of that actual ended up with “The Baddies!”
Peter.
Indeed. Most of the COVID fraud went to Tory party cronies. Only a small part will have ended up with terrorists.
If you have evidence of that claim can you pop in and see the police please?
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
The problem is people having factually wrong opinions. On immigration for example you can legitimately want less of it, or be comfortable with a high level. But it's a problem if people think that immigration is currently very high when it isn't, or that most new housing goes to immigrants when it doesn't, and politicians devise policies based on those demonstrably wrong perceptions.
I think your biggest problem (and that of your liberal ilk) is that you think you're always right - and any contrary opinion is therefore "wrong" - and are totally blind to the fact you have an ideology of your own; you genuinely think the facts support it.
I'd anchor that ideology around the complete fungibility of all individuals, and championing things like choosing your own identity and free movement regardless of any evidence of the social problems this causes.
We all suffer from cognitive bias, whether we are liberal or illiberal. We get comfort from people who think like us and get frustrated by people who don't. We all look for evidence that supports our views and ignore evidence that doesn't. We all do.
The remedy is to be aware of that behaviour and actively manage it when it comes to evidence.
But our opinions also depend on our values and these are not evidence based but deeply and emotionally ingrained. It takes a lot to shift them.
So we can amicably disagree when it comes to values, but we shouldn't accept "alternative facts" when the evidence contradicts them.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
That’s not Trumpoan logic. It’s politics.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
It hasn't worked very well.
So, you don't like democracy then?
I am fine with democracy, but we used to have politicians who at least at times tried to lead the country for the longer term, and not expect to be popular all the time. Thatcher would be an example.
If we are to suceed as a country we need to recapture the benefits of deferred gratification over the instantaneous.
A case study in why resisting reasonable development entirely can come back to bite you (if the developer ploy here works)? Work in the system to resist where you can, don't just pretend the system doesn't exist because you don't like it.
Council rejects 100 homes.
Developer wins appeal for 75 homes.
Developer then submits another 65 homes on the remaining land.
End result? Residents could get 140 homes instead of the original 100. Now they claim they’re being “picked on”.
we have the same population as France but 7 million fewer homes..
We've arrived at this point almost entirely by virtually unrestricted immigration and given the birth rate we could very easily shrink our population back again by making further immigration almost impossible.
That is a much better deal for almost everyone than continually concreting over the country to build horrible Barratt new builds without any accompanying infrastructure.
No more immigration, almost no more new housing, and in 15 years time housing will be affordable again. As a bonus, we can fill in the various holes in our labour force by redeployment of the people who are building houses to cope with immigration.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
We've spent 25 years trying the approach of allowing mass immigration to increase the working age population in the face of what would otherwise be a natural decline and it has led to poor productivity growth, stagnant wages, inflated asset values and political instability. It's about time the people who advocated it learned to have some humility.
We have had 25 years of large scale immigration. We have increased the working age population. We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population. We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
The onus isn't on me to prove a causal link. I have democracy on my side.
No you have Populism and what’s popular isn’t always right and what’s right isn’t always popular.
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
And mass immigration is neither popular nor right. Your continuing attachment to it belies the assertion that you follow the evidence.
You're talking to someone but who has been told his username appears on every one of his posts and yet still insists on signing off every post "Peter".
Following the evidence isn't exactly his forte.
I almost always put my name at the bottom of letters and emails. it's just what I've always done...What's that got to do with evidence based decisions making?
Sarah Smith sane washing Trump is awful. I think she reports as she does because Trump accepts her calls. I suspect a truth sayer like Simon Marks would probably get the phone hung up on him by Trump.
Maybe.
But Trump is weird like that. Don't forget he has the memory of a goldfish, the attention span of a ten-year-old with ADHD and he's often too stupid to know when people are attacking him anyway (see the KCIII speech to Congress)..
If you listen to Michael Wolff, he'll call people who've attacked him for years and just rant at them over the phone. Just as long as they don't say anything or offer any kind of opinion, because it's all about him.
He has so many mental illnesses and pathologies that it needs quite a lot of imagination to think even vaguely how he thinks.
Which is why, of course, that sucking up to him doesn't work very well. Because he often doesn't remember your sycophancy.
Comments
But Trump is weird like that. Don't forget he has the memory of a goldfish, the attention span of a ten-year-old with ADHD and he's often too stupid to know when people are attacking him anyway (see the KCIII speech to Congress)..
If you listen to Michael Wolff, he'll call people who've attacked him for years and just rant at them over the phone. Just as long as they don't say anything or offer any kind of opinion, because it's all about him.
He has so many mental illnesses and pathologies that it needs quite a lot of imagination to think even vaguely how he thinks.
Now he's just reviewed The Ritz restaurant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw8CVthU9yI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGV-xp1gds4
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
No one is building homes to cope with immigration, we aren’t building enough homes because not enough people can afford new ones. Largely flatlining wages after inflation , higher prices and supply and demand mean there are too few buyers who can afford them.
If we stop immigration the average age will be 45 in 2040 with far too few young people and a rapidly ageing population. Are the pensioners going to build their own houses.
In this scenario under sixteens would drop from 18% to 14%, the working population from 62% to 55% and the over 67’s would grow from about 19% to 29%…
So dependency would go from roughly 2:1 to close to 1:1.
Hey Presto not only no need for new houses with a collapsed economy no money to build them either!
Peter.
Wide scale fraud, much undetected at the time.
Some, perhaps but not definitely most, but certainly a large amount was done by organised criminal gangs.
Many of those criminal gangs were Eastern European.
Some of those gangs had links to terrorists and people smugglers and others in the Middle East.
Therefore some of the money may well have reached these groups.
So in conclusion: up to £28 Bn
misappropriated but no way to know how much of that actual ended up with “The Baddies!”
Peter.
We have increased the working age population.
We have so far managed to avoid the economic cliff edge of a naturally declining population.
We have had low productivity and low wage growth.
And you have abjectly failed to establish a causal link between them.
Other Countries with high immigration have had productivity growth; the US for one.
Developed Countries like Japan have had slow wage growth and little immigration.
Peter.
Breaking: OpenAI filed for an IPO, setting it up to potentially go public as soon as this fall
Essential you are adopting the Trumpian logic, that for something to be true the majority just has to believe it.
Much like his Meet the Press walk out. His evidence consisted of only what he believed, nothing more.
I am old fashioned, I like evidence based argument and still believe in objective truth.
Peter.
There is no doubt that like most developed countries we have struggled to deal with it and you can make a good case for successive UK governments have made a pigs ear of it, but that is a far cry from proving or even demonstrating how dealing with an aging population by importing young people of working age and for the longer term their children can’t and doesn’t work.
Given how much it has fallen since the Boris Eave the zero migration argument deals with yesterdays problem but will create tomorrows.
But that’s pretty much what popularism does, address what people are looking at, not what’s round the corner!
Probably why along with backing zero migration they rail against Net Zero to.
Peter.
China now has a rapidly declining population and has made extensive use of fossil fuels to drive its growth, and is now better placed for both the energy and demographic transitions that lie ahead. But what do they know?
...
Security officials working at Marsham Street in Victoria, central London – a vast suite of offices that houses the Home Office and the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) – found a hidden camera in a ceiling panel, ministers have been informed.
The discovery sparked alarm because officials in the building had been involved in the controversial planning application for China’s proposed new mega-embassy in London.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/secret-camera-found-whitehall-reported-security-services-4463667
Trump administration claims plans for Australian-style age restrictions could harm freedom of speech
...
...
Sir Keir is said to be carving out policies to provide him with a “legacy” as he faces the threat of a leadership challenge from Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor who is favourite to secure a return to Parliament in the Makerfield by-election on June 18.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/08/starmer-ban-children-sending-explicit-images-social-media/ (£££)
That paragraph might be more significant than the headline.
Starmer’s Vanity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkPouEfJYZ8
Jacob Rees-Mogg is not a fan of Prime Ministers seeking legacies at the end of their terms (9 minutes).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1U9_j-bz-A
One for PB's cricket community.
Following the evidence isn't exactly his forte.
It likely means that they are not getting institutional demand.
This is going to be the pump & dump of the 21st century
As a great man once said. iPO - It’s Probably Overvalued
And it’s into the Nasdaq in about 15 trading days then hoovered up,by the relevant trackers.
It’s not for me.
The 17 defendants were all convicted after becoming citizens but allegedly committed their crimes during the five years before they applied for citizenship or after they applied but before they were naturalized, in violation of a law that requires would-be Americans to prove they're of "good moral character."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-denaturalization-us-citizenship-b2992045.html
These are not good people. But there is a philosophical issue I have with the state adding an extra punishment on top of what the courts have determined. And presumably there is no right of appeal.
Although it’s quite ironic that Trump is focusing on insurance fraud, stock market manipulation and paedophilia
It’s even popular with a few on PB as any criticism of it or migrants gets a Pavlovian response.
Taz
My personal view is that, at least initially, it will be a Burnham-led Labour, rather that a Badenoch-led Conservative party.
We’ve had governance by opinion poll for many years.
To recap: Trump ruined the game for everyone and derailed the Knicks 45-day winning streak just to get booed and fall asleep
Otherwise, it's populism and I'm not listening to either the opinion or any contrary evidence.
This is why the erstwhile "liberals" have made themselves so despised, and helped fuel it.
It's also going to be difficult because politics is far more fragmentary and motivation now seems to be far more negative (ie voters are increasingly voting against X rather than for Y).
This is fair illustration of the populist approach.
https://x.com/jaimerh354/status/2064028672525250561
Here we see populism in two easy compare and contrasts.
First we have Reform’s Zia Yousaf (self proclaimed “shadow Home Secretary) who Tweeted in outrage at the sacking of a police officer.
Then we have Reforms Steve Barrett Tweeting in outrage at the conduct of an officer.
...As you have guessed, it’s the same officer. The same incident.
If we are to suceed as a country we need to recapture the benefits of deferred gratification over the instantaneous.
I agree.
I don't see Farage looking at structural issues beyond demonising people whose melanin level doesn't suit him.
I'd anchor that ideology around the complete fungibility of all individuals, and championing things like choosing your own identity and free movement regardless of any evidence of the social problems this causes.
And even the Green candidate in Makerfield acknowledged that an increasing population puts more pressure on housing.
NEW THREAD
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4891827,-0.1569132,17z?
But no one would call her a populist or weathervane politician, and she was certainly an election winner.
We get comfort from people who think like us and get frustrated by people who don't.
We all look for evidence that supports our views and ignore evidence that doesn't.
We all do.
The remedy is to be aware of that behaviour and actively manage it when it comes to evidence.
But our opinions also depend on our values and these are not evidence based but deeply and emotionally ingrained. It takes a lot to shift them.
So we can amicably disagree when it comes to values, but we shouldn't accept "alternative facts" when the evidence contradicts them.
it's just what I've always done...What's that got to do with evidence based decisions making?
Peter.