Jim Ratcliffe - claims the UK is being “colonised”

[I'm With Stupid]

You can accept immigration helps the economy on paper and still question whether adding people faster than we build houses, gp surgeries, schools etc is sustainable. It’s not immigrants fault individually, but adding people does increase demand for housing, which makes an existing shortage worse.

We’ve basically gone down the shortcut route using migration to plug ageing and skills gaps. That helps the economy and tax income, but the strain hits local areas.

Countries like Japan try to limit immigration, partly to protect their culture, but that comes with its own problems. Jobs harder to fill, staff overworked and slower growth.

I’ve always wanted a high skilled migration policy for the UK, but like we see in Japan they are over worked with not enough people to do their jobs. We also don’t pay enough to attract the best or even keep the best as a lot of our young people are fucking off to countries that pay more.

Japan is now full of people from places like Vietnam working in convenience stores and other low-paid jobs. They've basically got no choice given the number of old people in the country. It's also quite cheap to live there nowadays too, certainly to buy property, because of the falling population. There's actually a niche on Youtube of foreigners going over to Japan, buying up traditional Japanese houses and renovating them, because it's so relatively cheap outside places like central Tokyo, and because their work is online, they can live in these more rural areas. I've also heard stories of older Japanese people refusing to sell their land because they can't accept that it's now worth a tenth what they paid for it in the 90s.

You're right though, the issue isn't immigration, it's the rate of immigration. Immigration broadly benefits the economy, but at the same time, if it happens too quickly, then public services simply can't be expanded to accommodate the new people.

 

[domalino]

It's also quite cheap to live there nowadays too, certainly to buy property, because of the falling population. There's actually a niche on Youtube of foreigners going over to Japan, buying up traditional Japanese houses and renovating them, because it's so relatively cheap outside places like central Tokyo, and because their work is online, they can live in these more rural areas.

I remember reading about this when the trend became popular and there's more to it than population numbers and urbanisation. Houses in Japan are treated more like cars, because of earthquake damage and because houses built after WW2 were really bad quality.

So it's standard in Japan to just pay the value of the land, then knock down the old house and build a new one. It's more expensive to just buy land because it saves you the cost of demolition. The average lifespan of a house is about 30 years. They would find the idea of buying a victorian house for 10x your annual salary,paying it off over 20-30 years and then selling for a profit insane.

Raze, rebuild, repeat: why Japan knocks down its houses after 30 years

Unlike in other countries, Japanese homes become valueless over time – but as the population shrinks, can its cities finally learn to slow down and refurb?

www.theguardian.com

 

[Vic]

If the thread is just moving on to how to accommodate migrants amid pressure on housing, you'd have to wonder why Brits want bigger new houses with at least 3 WCs, want them built on brownfield land which has higher construction costs, and want them in already densely occupied urban areas not taking new land. We want more room per person (partly through easier separation) but also object to HMOs - but at least now we can call that "co-living" so it sounds a bit more upmarket.

 

[My mate]

People on here slagging Jim ratshit off for not paying £4bn in tax…given the chance between giving it to the government or putting in a Swiss bank account,I know what I’d be doing

 

[blueparrot]

People on here slagging Jim ratshit off for not paying £4bn in tax…given the chance between giving it to the government or putting in a Swiss bank account,I know what I’d be doing

Yes so do I ,paying my fair share not being a greedy selfish twat, then criticising the government for not spending enough on infrastucture.

 

[The perfect fumble]

It’s almost as if everybody has forgotten why we are where we are, after over a decade of trying to turn the country back to Dickensian times.

With the Tories is was go after the poor and if they object, take the social services away from them as we no longer want to keep you as you are a drain on *society (*as in, us richer people).

Reform, which Ratcliffe is advocating, will go much further, as that is the trend with how the known and unknown leaders want to take us.

The ultra rich have always resented paying taxes to support the "feckless" poor, they're just not subtle about it anymore, but what has happened now, and this is more significant by far, is the middle classes increasingly feel the same.

Those who love to piss on the flag shaggers in here and laugh at the likes of Robinson are, as always, missing the point, as a political force wankers like Robinson have always occupied the fringes, but look at the facts, this stuff has gone mainstream not because the working class far right are driving it, but because the new middle class far right are.

 

[stonerblue]

Fair point and it's one I think I've made previously on the forum. But regardless of the semantics, there appears to have been, in Oldham and other places, a wilfully blind eye turned by local authorities and police to these activities, as they didn't want to 'upset' these communities.

And the other 'communities' that they 'didn't want to upset', like the Catholic church or the scouts ?

 

[pride in battle]

If wankers like Ratcliffe paid tax and stopped spouting bollocks we would have better public services.
It's the same nonsense as wankers living in the Costa del Sol voting for Brexit.

The 50 richest families in the UK own more than 34 million Brits. That's the fucking problem and to think that the problem is immigrants is utter idiocy.

Agree 100% but what do you mean by 'own' 34 million brits ?

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Agree 100% but what do you mean by 'own' 34 million brits ?

I read it as having more wealth than 34 million people put together.

 

[M18CTID]

Agree 100% but what do you mean by 'own' 34 million brits ?

I think he means the cumulative wealth of those 50 richest families is greater than the wealth of 34 million Brits combined

 

[pride in battle]

I read it as having more wealth than 34 million people put together.

Ah, yep, madness isn't it !

 

[M18CTID]

People on here slagging Jim ratshit off for not paying £4bn in tax…given the chance between giving it to the government or putting in a Swiss bank account,I know what I’d be doing

I wouldn't mind being in a position where I paid £4bn in tax!

 

[domalino]

The ultra rich have always resented paying taxes to support the "feckless" poor, they're just not subtle about it anymore, but what has happened now, and this is more significant by far, is the middle classes increasingly feel the same.

Those who love to piss on the flag shaggers in here and laugh at the likes of Robinson are, as always, missing the point, as a political force wankers like Robinson have always occupied the fringes, but look at the facts, this stuff has gone mainstream not because the working class far right are driving it, but because the new middle class far right are.

You love to say people are missing the point, but this thread has shown that everyone knows the reasons for the rise of the far right are because of the bad economy & cuts to public services.

To say "it's not just working class but middle class people" feeling that isn't a new point, it's just rephrasing the same point and pretending you're saying something different. It's also not new, the term "the squeezed middle" is over 20 years old at this point.

And we can know all this and still laugh at people like Robinson, in fact mockery has always been an important aspect of fighting the far right, and it's even more important now that people refuse to let these people get away with their hyporcrisy, lies and grifting.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

And the other 'communities' that they 'didn't want to upset', like the Catholic church or the scouts ?

That's not an appropriate analogy. The concept of 'colonisation' is that you impose your culture and mores as the defining ones, and reject others.

The Catholic Church knew abuse was wrong, and were adept at covering it up. The Scouts at best either simply weren't vigilant enough or didn't appreciate the seriousness of the issues around abuse, or at worst, swept it under the carpet.

A more appropriate one might be if the Catholic Church made it a condition of becoming a priest that you abused young boys or actively encouraged it among their congregations, like some religious cults have done.

 

[The perfect fumble]

You love to say people are missing the point, but this thread has shown that everyone knows the reasons for the rise of the far right are because of the bad economy & cuts to public services.

Yeah, and they're wrong.

And it's not everyone, coz anyone who disagrees is either attacked or given up, so they don't post.

Why are they wrong?

Coz we've been here before, many times in my lifetime and it's never resulted in this.

Why is no one debating why this time is different? I'll tell you why, coz that would require a degree of introspection, a questioning attitude, an analysis as to why so many folk are rejecting the divide and rule, bad economy argument, but the left don't do that, they will never do that and that's why they're losing.

 

[domalino]

Yeah, and they're wrong.

And it's not everyone, coz anyone who disagrees is either attacked or given up, so they don't post.

Why are they wrong?

Coz we've been here before, many times in my lifetime and it's never resulted in this.

Why is no one debating why this time is different? I'll tell you why, coz that would require a degree of introspection, a questioning attitude, an analysis as to why so many folk are rejecting the divide and rule, bad economy argument, but the left don't do that, they will never do that and that's why they're losing.

Yet another post where you tell everybody they're wrong without actually volunteering what they're wrong about or what the right answer is.

And we all know why, because if you actually committed to the reasons you think this is so different and why you're right and we're all wrong, people could pull apart your argument and expose it's flaws. So instead you just post ad-nauseum about how everyone else is wrong except you with no substance behind it at all.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Yet another post where you tell everybody they're wrong without actually volunteering what they're wrong about or what the right answer is.

It’s social media’s ability to connect like minded people together and radicalise the people suffering to manage.

 

[meltonblue]

Yeah, and they're wrong.

And it's not everyone, coz anyone who disagrees is either attacked or given up, so they don't post.

Why are they wrong?

Coz we've been here before, many times in my lifetime and it's never resulted in this.

Why is no one debating why this time is different? I'll tell you why, coz that would require a degree of introspection, a questioning attitude, an analysis as to why so many folk are rejecting the divide and rule, bad economy argument, but the left don't do that, they will never do that and that's why they're losing.

I think you’re vastly underestimating the power of social media.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

People on here slagging Jim ratshit off for not paying £4bn in tax…given the chance between giving it to the government or putting in a Swiss bank account,I know what I’d be doing

Well if I was going to avoid £4bn in tax in full view of everyone, I certainly wouldn't have a brass neck to then publicly criticise the government for what they spend money on. Like Ronald McDonald complaining about the obesity epidemic.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Yet another post where you tell everybody they're wrong without actually volunteering what they're wrong about or what the right answer is.

And we all know why, because if you actually committed to the reasons you think this is so different and why you're right and we're all wrong, people could pull apart your argument and expose it's flaws. So instead you just post ad-nauseum about how everyone else is wrong except you with no substance behind it at all.

Nonsense.

I know why this is different.

because muliculturalism is a lie, and its been exposed as such because of the massive influx of migrants these last thirty years. A sizeable chunk of this country believe in the primacy of integration and the belief that when in Rome one should do as the Romans do, multiculturalism is the polar opposite of that, far from creating a more harmonious society it has underpinned white flight and ethnic enclaves. Multiculturalism is the denial of the existence of an indigenous population and a dominant culture, it celebrates seperateness over integration by denying the need or even the existence of a dominant culture to integrate with. All this has eroded the fundamental nature of the nation state and this has triggered an existential angst that the right has capitalised on.

Keir Starmer said the following this week that to be British, is to be "reasonable, tolerant, compassionate and diverse"

Who is it that decides what is reasonable?

As for tolerant....

"the ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with"

But tolerance is not infinite, if one does not tolerate something it does not necessarily mean that one is intolerant, it more often means that one considers something is intolerable, a threshold has been crossed. if one tolerates everything one tolerates the intolerable and that is a nonsense, and why should my Britishness be defined by my ability to tolerate something I dislike or disagree with anyway?

Compassionate? What the fuck! We're into the realms of being nice again, if something cannot stand alone as being the right thing to do because it evidently is, then one should not be obliged to let it slide because one is compassionate! Do me a favour, that's bullshit.

And then we come to diverse, the buzzword of the age....

"To be diverse means including, representing, or consisting of a wide range of different people, backgrounds, characteristics, and perspectives. It involves embracing differences—such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and ability—to create a varied, inclusive environment that fosters innovation, creativity, and mutual respect."

That is a political statement, one I suspect you agree with in its totality, there are aspects of this I agree with and others I do not and I know I'm not alone, but one thing I know for an absolute fact, my Britishness should not hinge of whether I buy into this wholeheartedly or not.