The Labour Government

hampshireblue said:
Ok, take one: Bone idle fookers:


Nobody wants to see people taking the piss and the actual number of those that do is relatively small. What changes would be made to root out the non genuine claimants? What timescales would you think appropriate to force them off benefits? Who is going to oversee it and impose it? Is the department that gets that reponsibility properly staffed and if not how long to recruit? You'll never get everyone, so what does a success look like? Does any new rule just apply to new claimants?

If it was easy it would have been done at an early stage.
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I'll give myself a pat on the back for you actually giving some sort of reply rather than the usual casual insult when a post doesn't suit your narrative.
 
tweety said:
I'll give myself a pat on the back for you actually giving some sort of reply rather than the usual casual insult when a post doesn't suit your narrative.
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Ouch. You must be mixing me up. Only one insult in the last month from me and that was aimed at Richard Tice. Still calling me "dumb" 10 minutes ago obviously doesn't count?
 
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metalblue said:
A fair point but if we cast our mind back 25-35% of Labour voters voted for Brexit. We’re frequently told on here that anyone who voted for Brexit did so because they didn’t like foreigners.

I guess voters don’t fit neatly in to boxes. Plenty of Tory voters don’t give two shits about immigration and plenty of Labour voters do. Their votes are likely cast on what they see as the most important thing to them and which party matches that rather than fully agreeing with a lot of the ideology.

To your point I would say if you see immigration as the single most important thing to fix you’re probably attracted to reform - and maybe this weeks announcement won’t change that, we will have to wait for the polls to tell us in the coming weeks if we see reform start to slide.
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Honestly I think immigration is perhaps a bigger issue in the mind of Labour supporters than it is Tory supporters?

The Tories got kicked out by their vote collapsing due a variety of things like party-gate, chopping and changing PMs etc. And also people were bored of them and wanting a change, so they voted for "something else". It wasn't all about immigration in the mind of many Tory voters, a great number of whom live in suburbs completely unaffected by the issues. I don't see many people looking like Jacob Rees Mogg, protesting outside migrant hotels!

It's a stereotype for sure but the "Alf Garnet" terraced housed, racist, working class voter exists and most of them historically would vote Labour.
 
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blueinsa said:
Who would have thought that being an environmentalist and seeing over population as an issue would have you in the same bed as them eh?

1/10 for googling but can’t give you anymore I’m afraid.
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It’s just another meaningless word salad funded by the AHRC.

Worth posting though in the context of the discussion around areas of public expenditure that could be cut without consequence.
 
Chippy_boy said:
Because getting a work visa with the help of your employer is tricky if you're not employed. Moving where I'd like to move to - the US or Canada or Australia - is a piece of cake if you are working and your employer supports the move to their offices abroad. But unless you are vastly rich, it's much more difficult - almost impossible in fact - without that.

Also you don't get private health cover from the employer you don't have. So you're either funding your own which can be prohibitively expensive, or reliant on the country giving you access to their national health care system, which can be a challenge.

You also lose your UK state pension indexation in most cases, which if you are not so rich as to not need it, is significant. If you're working, it's not a problem because you accrue pension benefits on the country you've emigrated to, but of course you don't as a retiree who isn't working.

There's a bunch of other difficulties but they are the main ones.
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Oh the irony of this. Someone who is anti-immigration moans about not being allowed to be an immigrant.He also wants lower taxes and almost certainly lower benefits,but admits that the indexation of the state pension is significant.

I actually don't think there is any justification for a pensioner living abroad to enjoy the benefits of the triple lock which is determined by economic conditions in a country they no longer live in. They can kick back in if the person returns to the UK.
 
domalino said:
I’ll just drop this academic paper on how the BUF & National Front used overpopulation and environmental concerns to justify their anti-immigration polices without comment.


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Ah, yes, I’m basing my population and immigration opinions on the far right when my voting history, in the few times I’ve ever voted, has been: Labour, Labour, Remain, Green.

I did mention within my post the issue with the left who defend immigration at all costs but - exactly like the far right - also completely miss the pertinent negatives to it all, even purposely ignoring them so they don’t gain any traction in discussion because they cannot have anything the far right agree with being discussed in a wider discussion.
 
Vic said:
Why is milk up 15% when supermarkets are reducing the price they pay farmers for it?
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Gate prices are up not down, generally they fluctuate but the trend is around up 45% over the last 5 years.

On top of that there are the processing and distribution costs before it gets to the supermarket shelf.

I’m sure you have a point worth investigating around supermarket profits but that was a bad example to use.
 
BlueHammer85 said:
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is speaking in Berlin at the moment, alongside her German counterpart.

The pair confirm that Germany will change its law - by the end of the year - to allow for closing work between the two nations on stopping small boat crossings in the Channel.

Cooper says the change will mean "our police will jointly be able to pursue the criminal gangs who have been storing small boats in warehouses across Germany, who have been exploiting our borders right across Europe and into the UK, in order to make a vile profit from trading in human lives".

The change in law in Germany will make it illegal to facilitate migrant crossings in the Channel.
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Because criminals obey the law don't they.
 
moomba said:
Lots of words. Most of them bollocks.
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So you think:
We don’t already have an issue in Winter months with electricity coverage?
We aren’t heading into the 2030s with water coverage issues due to an increasing population?
We aren’t already struggling to turn over recycling demand and aren’t running out of landfill space for the overspill?
Our current cities aren’t heaving?
Traffic and the amount of pollution that comes from it, isn’t at dangerous levels in our cities?
Greater Manchester doesn’t have some of the most polluted air in Europe?
Nitrogen Dioxide levels from motor vehicles in Greater Manchester don’t already significantly exceed World Health Organisation guidelines?
Air pollution doesn’t contribute to 1,200 annual early deaths in Greater Manchester and 1 in 20 of GtrMcr adult deaths aren’t linked to air pollution?
There isn’t a skills shortage problem and there isn’t a growing surplus unskilled population who we don’t need here?
The current standard of vacant housing stock is suitable for families to be shoved into?
A net 1.4+m population growth in just the last two years alone has been covered with new cities being built and current cities expanding at the required rate?
The infrastructure of current cities and these fantasy new cities you think exist is sufficient for this population growth?
Over 72% of land in England isn’t already farmed land?
Farming demand on that land isn’t degrading the soil and making the crops that are grown on them and the animals we graze on them aren’t becoming less nutritious?
More than 15% of England is natural wild habitat? And think that low wild habitat and low woodland coverage in Britain hasn’t lead to poor soil quality and does lock enough of the carbon emmisions from a growing population away to sufficient safe levels?
We have a healthy population?
The unhealthy population you don’t think exists isn’t a burden on the NHS and care services?
Crime has not gone up 50% in a decade?
The Police and other emergency services aren’t overstretched and can cover everything they need to and there’s enough money to recruit enough to cover the crime and other emergency issues with a future growing population?
The country isn’t becoming more polarised?
There aren’t immigrant dumping zones in inner-city areas?
Pubs and social clubs don’t close in immigrant dumping zones?
The existing population don’t move out of immigrant dumping zones because they don’t like how their areas have become immigrant dumping zones?
People from outside immigrant dumping zones are clamouring to move into immigrant dumping zones?
Racial segregation is not becoming a feature of our society?
Many communities haven’t had their local places of congregation for special events taken away from them?
The far right bigots aren’t cottoning onto reasonable peoples’ issues with immigration to push their bigotry?
Left wing idiots do take on board and don’t shout down all the negativities that come with a growing population and immigration?
The Migration Observatiry didn’t say that the current and future planned UK infrastructure is suitable for a 30-60m population?
You think that the roads are not a mess, road networks in cities can cope with the amount of vehicles on the roads, transport is not a mess, schools can offer places for the amount of children there are in the country (every child in the country who wants a school place is on role at a school), white working class children (especially boys) are not being left behind in school performance, wages are not kept suppressed, poverty is not high, the gap between rich and poor is not at an all-time high, pollution is not at dangerous levels, the environment is not impacted and often can be reversed, food is not becoming less nutritious, the job market is not all over the shop, public services can cope, housing is not in crisis, crime is not ever increasing, social cohesion is not collapsing and not getting ever more polarised, racial segregation is not becoming facet of our communities, and you think we have become a better country due to increased population mainly through immigration and will continue to become an even better country because of it?
 
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.db. said:
Correct.

Sorry for seemingly posting this same thing on the forum (but is that any worse than people just posting their social media echo chamber feeds over and over?!), but people need to fucking get real when it comes to this.

Not enough people think of this from a viewpoint of rationality or the future. People need to start considering it from the wider sense of what the results of the population increasing are, rather than just parrot the same extremely minor positives that an increasing population, which is occurring through mass immigration, brings.

More people living on this island means a worse country in pretty much every aspect of the environment, health, society and economy, apart from maybe more income from taxes. Everything else is a never ending spiral down the shitter.

I don’t want a growing population in Britain. There are already too many people living on this island. Having a larger population who can pay more tax is far outstripped by many other factors:

With the current population size, the UK barely covers electricity demand in the Winter as it is. Plus, it’s estimated that our current water industry will not be able to cover the demand for water required by the growing population by the 2030s.

Are there any initiatives or investment planned to combat this and keep us serviceable for electricity and water with the surges in immigration and ever increasing population?
And even if there are, will these then have a knock-on effect of increasing pollution which is already a massive problem?

The UK is already struggling to cope with the amount of waste/refuse it has to process. Recycling plants can’t turn around the amount of waste it faces, which leads to much going to landfill when investment in landfill has pretty much ended because successive govts have said that we are going to recycle more. And we are running out of landfill space to the point that we may have no more land to use for waste storage within the next eight years. So where’s the waste going to go with an increased population?

Our current cities are heaving. Traffic and the amount of pollution that comes from it, is at dangerous levels. Greater Manchester has some of the most polluted air in Europe; Nitrogen Dioxide levels from motor vehicles in Greater Manchester already significantly exceed World Health Organisation guidelines. Air pollution contributes to 1,200 annual early deaths in Greater Manchester. 1 in 20 of GtrMcr adult deaths are linked to air pollution.

A growing population through immigration of non-skills-shortage-target-people, means there’s a surplus unskilled workforce. Industries like Tech in Manchester are facing huge shortages in a skilled workforce yet we have hundreds of thousands of people coming into the country who don’t meet these required skills. The right people are not coming into this country. The plan around who comes in is very poor. We have a surplus population of people we don’t need. What we need more than anything is to create skills course qualifications for the current population so that employment balances out properly, not just get more and more people in with the hope that some might be able to cover the skills shortage.

Housing in existing cities is poor and insufficient. There aren’t enough homes and, where homes are vacant, the state of them can be appalling and you wouldn’t use them for keeping farm animals, never mind human families with children. There are too many rogue landlords taking advantage of tenants. There are also instances of double the amount of people living in homes than they are supposed to house in inner-city areas.

Current towns and cities, especially Manchester, feel overpopulated. There’s been a net increased population of Manchester Salford Trafford Stockport Tameside and Oldham who’ve arrived in this country in just the last two years. Yet, there are no new cities being built and existing cities are not increasing at that rate. In existing cities, everywhere is extremely busy all the time. If there were plans to develop places like Carlisle, Dundee, Ipswich, Bangor, Plymouth etc. into 2million population cities with mass house building and infrastructure programmes, fair enough. But there isn’t. The govt aim to build 300,000 new homes a year yet that will still fall short of demand for the population size there is currently, never mind a larger population. Plus, even if there were the right amount of houses being built and available for the growing population, there isn’t the infrastructure to educate, care for, keep healthy and transport all these people around.

Plus even if new cities were built or small cities became big cities, it still wouldn’t help with the need to generate the required electricity and water - and food - demand for more people because it’s not there. And, even if everything was in place for it, pollution would still be made worse so why would we want to do that anyway?

Building new cities and increasing the the size of existing cities means that we would lose green belt land, natural wild habitats, farming land (which has further knock-on effects of not producing enough food for the increasing population and increases of imports which means extra cost and even further pollution), and we would lose parts of our beautiful countryside.

Over 72% of land in England is already farmed land, less than 15% of England is natural wild habitat, with the rest being urban built on or urban parkland. Low wild habitat and low woodland coverage in Britain has lead to poor soil quality and carbon emmisions are not locked away. One-crop farming also leads to poor soil quality and a lack of biodiversity. Soil has degraded and eroded, the quality of the food that we grow and graze on farmland is decreasing and it is a contributor to poor health with lack of nutrients and even a reduction in the quality, size and diversity of the microbiome in our guts, which is one of the most important aspects of health (arguably the most important). Plus, we are taking away the small % of wild habitats we have.

None of this is a good thing and all of it gets worse with a growing population.

An increasing population puts further demand on our already struggling public services.

Crime has significantly increased. A decade ago, the Police in England and Wales recorded around 4m annual crimes committed. There’s been a steady increase in that time and in recent years it’s not been below 6.5m. Population increases will see an increase in crime. Why should people have to put up with that as a side effect of increasing the population? It’s not something people want.

Plus with this, the less likely the general population are to get required help from the Police, because they are too busy with the amount of crime being committed in general.

The UK is one of the most unhealthy countries in Europe (granted, that is mainly due to poor lifestyles and diets). The strain on the NHS is huge, to the point that the NHS cannot cope with a 69m population it has now, never mind how it would cope with an increasing population.

As you say, if the growing elderly population is a growing problem now, what will it be like when everyone of working age now gets to to retirement age? They’ll need an even bigger NHS and care service, there’ll need to be an even bigger pension pot. So what then? Just constantly flood the island with more and more people? Constantly putting more and more strain on everything? And house them where? Feed them how? Keep the taps and electricity flowing how? Stop them from contributing to and being a victim of the growing pollution problem how?

There are also far too many issues with an ever polarised and disunited nation with increased immigration. And it seriously is not just an issue with far right bigots, even if the rise of the far-right directly naturally correlates with increased immigration. Every-day, normal, fair-minded people with no extreme views are seeing ever increasing issues with ever increasing immigration.

Many inner-city areas have just become immigrant dumping zones. This sees the existing population feel grievances with the state that these areas become. Small things like some, if not all, the pubs and social clubs shutting in these areas means that social spaces for existing populations decrease or disappear. Pubs and social clubs are often the heartbeat of communities, as places of social communion, sports teams and events. British culture suffers without them and in many places with high immigration, there are no pubs left. The types of businesses in these areas change to cater more for the immigrant population as well; from clothing to food to faith-based sector businesses and charities.

Immigrants being housed in hotels means that the existing local population lose their local place where work meetings, work training, Christmas parties, wakes, birthday parties, school proms, university balls, dance clubs, fitness clubs, wedding receptions, anniversaries, or have people who would visit friends+family for a weekend and need somewhere to stay etc. at these hotels which they were built for and were used for previously, cannot happen anymore. They’ve been taken away from existing communities and their grievances with that mostly have nothing to do with who’s there and nothing to do with being right wing, but simply that another community hub is taken away from the community.

The existing population in these areas, and not just the far-right bigots amongst them, naturally tend to end up relocating from these areas because of accumulations of things like this happening because they don’t like how their local community changes. And you never hear of people wanting to move to these areas. This then creates segregation within our towns and cities, which makes integration into British culture more difficult for concentrated immigrant areas. This is something we should be avoiding as a society but is a natural societal move with increasing immigration.

Another negative that comes from this is that right wing bigots cotton onto it and drive it through as an issue for the whole country which sees the rise in far right sentiment towards immigration. They completely miss all the pertinent negatives to it all and drive it as a cultural issue only. It is a cultural issue but not solely a cultural issue. A knock-on negative that comes from that are then the left wing idiots cotton onto the far right issue, who just do anything to argue and shout down the right wing bigots, start to defend immigration at all costs but - exactly like the far right - also completely miss the pertinent negatives to it all, even purposely ignoring them so they don’t gain any traction in discussion because they cannot have anything the far right agree with being discussed in a wider discussion.

And overall, it just adds to the ever growing polarisation of society.

But the roads are a mess, road networks in cities can’t cope with the amount of vehicles on the roads, transport is a mess, schools can’t offer places for the amount of children there are in the country (300,000 children are not on role at a school), white working class children (especially boys) are being left behind in school performance, wages are kept suppressed, poverty is high, the gap between rich and poor is at an all-time high, pollution is at dangerous levels, the environment is impacted and often cannot be reversed, food is becoming less nutritious, the job market is all over the shop, public services cannot cope, housing is in crisis, crime is ever increasing, social cohesion is collapsing and getting ever more polarised, racial segregation is becoming facet of our communities… all because of an increase in the population and immigration.

There’s no way that there are more positives than negatives to having a larger population and further immigration.

In 2010 there was a study done by the Migration Observatory that said that an ideal UK population size would be between 30-60m for the infrastructure we had and planned to have. Yet, we’re now at 69m and by the 2040s the current rate of increase would see a 77m population. This is a massive ‘NO!’ for me. We are not ready for it, we are already not coping.

Every single negative aspect to a growing population increases with an ever growing population. Even where people draw positives from a growing population, they can only be maintained and addressed through an even higher growth in population because it’s unsustainable and with that comes all the negatives from an ever growing population.

More people = a worse country.
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What a brilliant post. Bravo. You eloquently put into words exactly how I feel.

I've made much shorter posts previously saying that "We are FULL" and that we need - temporarily at the very least - net migration to be zero or lower. If a hotel has no rooms available, it doesn't matter how needy the guy at the desk late at night is. "Sorry Sir, but we are full".

Even with a net zero target, around 500,000 per year could come in because around that same number leave every year. So there could be no argument that this would dramatically compromise our ability to fill key roles. If we cannot fulfill the roles we need with an additional 500,000 arrivals every year, something is badly wrong. And then at least the population is not increasing further than it is already.

We need time to build out our infrastructure and public services, and then perhaps we can resume to a small level of net migration - say 50,000 - but absolutely no higher, and only after we have got enough housing, hospitals, doctor's surgeries, roads, etc.
 
.db. said:
Ah, yes, I’m basing my population and immigration opinions on the far right when my voting history, in the few times I’ve ever voted, has been: Labour, Labour, Remain, Green.

I did mention within my post the issue with the left who defend immigration at all costs but - exactly like the far right - also completely miss the pertinent negatives to it all, even purposely ignoring them so they don’t gain any traction in discussion because they cannot have anything the far right agree with being discussed in a wider discussion.
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To me there's clearly a common ground between Right and Left. Too busy being outraged, fingers in ears, just not listening. So they take completely polar opposites, like a lot in here and everywhere tbh. From liberals to far right its become about beating the other side rather than fair discussion.
 
.db. said:
Ah, yes, I’m basing my population and immigration opinions on the far right when my voting history, in the few times I’ve ever voted, has been: Labour, Labour, Remain, Green.

I did mention within my post the issue with the left who defend immigration at all costs but - exactly like the far right - also completely miss the pertinent negatives to it all, even purposely ignoring them so they don’t gain any traction in discussion because they cannot have anything the far right agree with being discussed in a wider discussion.
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Sorry but deciding we can’t have immigration because of recycling & the state of water companies is a joke, these industries havent maxed out, they’re underfunded and poorly managed. 20% of the water supply is lost to waste because of bad infrastructure and management by water companies that have doubled their profits in 5 years. Your water supply concerns would be entirely addressed by nationalising a public resource and investing the money we pay for water in the infrastructure instead of paying dividends to their foreign owners and relying on the state to bail them out.

Britain has half the population density of the Netherlands, a country which is a net exporter of food. You present these things as insurmountable problems that just can’t be gotten around, but that’s simply not true.

And if it upsets you that your main anti immigration talking points are straight off a 1970s NF flyer and have as much legitimacy now as they did then, that’s not my fault for pointing it out.

That’s not to say I, or anyone, is a supporter of completely unchecked, unlimited immigration, it’s just pointing out “The island is full” rhetoric is far right bollocks and always has been.
 
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hampshireblue said:
Oh the irony of this. Someone who is anti-immigration moans about not being allowed to be an immigrant.He also wants lower taxes and almost certainly lower benefits,but admits that the indexation of the state pension is significant.

I actually don't think there is any justification for a pensioner living abroad to enjoy the benefits of the triple lock which is determined by economic conditions in a country they no longer live in. They can kick back in if the person returns to the UK.
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Haha, so you're happy for someone to come on a boat who has contributed nothing to get well looked after but a person who has worked all their lives in the uk and paid tax and ni to get nowt because they choose to live out their retirement somewhere warmer.

Also the big difference with immigrants from the uk who choose to live abroad aren't a burden on the country they choose to live in unlike all these cookers coming over in boats.
 
maxwellblue said:
Haha, so you're happy for someone to come on a boat who has contributed nothing to get well looked after but a person who has worked all their lives in the uk and paid tax and ni to get nowt because they choose to live somewhere warmer.

Also the big difference with immigrants from the uk who choose to live abroad aren't a burden on the country they choose to live in unlike all these cookers coming over in boats.
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Which is 4% of the numbers coming over.

It's a ridiculous distraction from other issues and cements fear ignorance and in some cases, racism.

You want to "stop the boats." investigate up the ladder and probably find either a politician, or a countries secret service creating it.
 
TinFoilHat said:
Which is 4% of the numbers coming over.

It's a ridiculous distraction from other issues and cements fear ignorance and in some cases, racism.

You want to "stop the boats." investigate up the ladder and probably find either a politician, or a countries secret service creating it.
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Maybe but they represent most of the illegal entries to the UK.
My original point was made along side others on how to save money so they is no need for tax rises on the British public.
500 a day and already over 1 million claiming benefits.
 
maxwellblue said:
Haha, so you're happy for someone to come on a boat who has contributed nothing to get well looked after but a person who has worked all their lives in the uk and paid tax and ni to get nowt because they choose to live out their retirement somewhere warmer.

Also the big difference with immigrants from the uk who choose to live abroad aren't a burden on the country they choose to live in unlike all these cookers coming over in boats.
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I didn't say they should get nowt. I said the pension they get having taken a conscious decision to become an immigrant shouldn't be index linked to something going on in a country they no longer choose to live in.

Just for context, Chippy doesn't want any immigrants, legal or irregular. I don't want irregular immigration either, but do believe that whilst there is mass migration taking place around the world, being a caring and modern society, we should be taking some of the weight. As it is, we are 17th in Europe for the number of asylum claims per capita and at least 5th in terms of actual numbers.

Many UK born immigrants live in countries where they are a "burden" as they are often entitled to use their health systems, use their roads, use their resources like water. All of these are things that Chippy has complained about recently.
 
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