Priti Vacant has a plan, a deal with migrants plan.

Alan Harper's Tash said:
Austerity made us have less doctors, police, social care and every other vital infrastructure.

This then makes people not want more people from elsewhere as they already need to wait a month to see a doctor etc.

If we had more doctors etc, the groundswell of opinion would be different to how it is now.

It’s totally separate to furlough as that started 10 years after this episode of austerity began.
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I don’t see the current crisis with cost of living to be austerity induced, the reason shit costs so much is because we’ve been printing money and borrowing to pay for support during the pandemic.

The government is going to have to find money to support the vulnerable over the winter and adding to that won’t help anyone here and now.

Of course we do need to take some in and do our bit but I wouldn’t say adapting our policy to get a feel for numbers is a good idea in the here and now.
 
Octavian said:
I don’t see the current crisis with cost of living to be austerity induced, the reason shit costs so much is because we’ve been printing money and borrowing to pay for support during the pandemic.

The government is going to have to find money to support the vulnerable over the winter and adding to that won’t help anyone here and now.

Of course we do need to take some in and do our bit but I wouldn’t say adapting our policy to get a feel for numbers is a good idea in the here and now.
Click to expand...
Why didn’t we have enough police and doctors etc before the pandemic?
 
joe123 said:
It always baffles me that in spite of the comparatively miniscule numbers of asylum seekers we currently take in, people assume that if we allowed applications from abroad, millions and millions of people would suddenly decide that Britain is actually the place they want to be.
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It’s just a trope used for inflammatory language to exacerbate Little Englander fears.

It‘s bullshit that people choose to believe.
 
joe123 said:
It always baffles me that in spite of the comparatively miniscule numbers of asylum seekers we currently take in, people assume that if we allowed applications from abroad, millions and millions of people would suddenly decide that Britain is actually the place they want to be.
Click to expand...

Well something similar has happened before. When Tony Blair opened up free movement from the new EU member states from Eastern Europe in 2004, we were told 20,000-30,000 might come.

It was vastly more than that, possibly sowing the seeds of Brexit in 2016, or at least contributing to it.

So when people argue that processing asylum applications abroad is the humane thing to do and won't lead to a significant rise in numbers - not 'millions and millions' - but a lot, it is understandable if some other people are a bit sceptical.

I've said it before and I will say it again: if this country was working brilliantly in terms of health care, education, housing, transportation, care for the elderly etc. etc. then I would welcome pretty much anyone who wants to come here, even if they just think they will benefit economically, because when I fly over the UK on my Microsoft Flight Simulator, we have plenty of spare space!

The trouble is, the country is in a bloody mess right now so perhaps we should sort out all those other things first before we allow the population to expand to 85 million+ as more people means more strain on these failing services. It is a real conundrum though, as we need more people to solve these problems, yet having more people contributes to them!

I also take issue with the use of the word 'miniscule', because it is projected that 30,000 people will come here by cross channel boats this year and up to 70%* could be successful with their applications - that is 21,000 people. What if it doubles again next year and the year after that?

Where the word miniscule could be utilised however, is if you compare the number of asylum seekers with that of visas granted to migrants last year: 1.2 million (they can't all be students).
30,000 is miniscule compared to 1,200,000.

Something is wrong with the demography of our country - unemployment figures are at record low levels and companies are still struggling to attract staff, whilst people in their 80s grow in number, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, at the same time. Throw massive price inflation combined with mediocre wage increases into the mix and we are looking at a whole heap of trouble. (See also the summer-of-discontent thread).

Look at well-paid jobs too, not just minimum wage, for the economy to grow in high-end areas, computer s'ware & that sort of thing, well I bet if you counted just 0.01% of the smartest IT people in India, there would be many many more than all the homegrown IT graduates from the UK finishing Uni this July. We either employ from abroad and the economy grows or we don't and it doesn't. Again, we need the economy to grow to pay for the pensions and health care requirements of the ever growing numbers of old people.

I'd like to agree with @stonerblue who recently said the world needs:

"A massive shift in International financial markets to allow developing countries to actually develop and not be in debt.

Outside investment in the people (health, education, housing etc) and not just stripping the countries of their resources and waltzing off with the profits. Political pressure to stop civil wars. Fairer distribution of global wealth and tighter controls on International aid."

The only problem with this list though is: 'allow developing countries to actually develop and not be in debt.' Is this not a bit preachy of us though, aren't we in massive debt ourselves?

I don't like it when we take trained nurses and doctors from places like the Philippines, but what else can we do when the demographics of our country is slewed so much towards the over 65s ? (another thing that is only going to get worse). Something has clearly gone wrong here too, that so many Doctors are retiring early on massive pensions and locum nurses are required to fill staffing shortfalls and are paid £50,000 plus per annum to do so. That can't continue indefinitely, its killing the free NHS.

Regarding "Political pressure to stop civil wars...." Well what about political pressure on normal wars e.g. Russia/Ukraine - how has that worked out?

Finally, "Fairer distribution of global wealth...." great in theory, but how likely in practice? Not very, I would say.

*I don't quite know where that number is coming from by the way, because this week it was reported (and in decent newspapers not the Daily Mail) that a majority of people crossing in dinghies are from Albania. People go on holiday to Albania! so why are their young men fleeing from there anyway?
 
El_george said:
Well something similar has happened before. When Tony Blair opened up free movement from the new EU member states from Eastern Europe in 2004, we were told 20,000-30,000 might come.

It was vastly more than that, possibly sowing the seeds of Brexit in 2016, or at least contributing to it.

So when people argue that processing asylum applications abroad is the humane thing to do and won't lead to a significant rise in numbers - not 'millions and millions' - but a lot, it is understandable if some other people are a bit sceptical.

I've said it before and I will say it again: if this country was working brilliantly in terms of health care, education, housing, transportation, care for the elderly etc. etc. then I would welcome pretty much anyone who wants to come here, even if they just think they will benefit economically, because when I fly over the UK on my Microsoft Flight Simulator, we have plenty of spare space!

The trouble is, the country is in a bloody mess right now so perhaps we should sort out all those other things first before we allow the population to expand to 85 million+ as more people means more strain on these failing services. It is a real conundrum though, as we need more people to solve these problems, yet having more people contributes to them!

I also take issue with the use of the word 'miniscule', because it is projected that 30,000 people will come here by cross channel boats this year and up to 70%* could be successful with their applications - that is 21,000 people. What if it doubles again next year and the year after that?

Where the word miniscule could be utilised however, is if you compare the number of asylum seekers with that of visas granted to migrants last year: 1.2 million (they can't all be students).
30,000 is miniscule compared to 1,200,000.

Something is wrong with the demography of our country - unemployment figures are at record low levels and companies are still struggling to attract staff, whilst people in their 80s grow in number, which is both a good thing and a bad thing, at the same time. Throw massive price inflation combined with mediocre wage increases into the mix and we are looking at a whole heap of trouble. (See also the summer-of-discontent thread).

Look at well-paid jobs too, not just minimum wage, for the economy to grow in high-end areas, computer s'ware & that sort of thing, well I bet if you counted just 0.01% of the smartest IT people in India, there would be many many more than all the homegrown IT graduates from the UK finishing Uni this July. We either employ from abroad and the economy grows or we don't and it doesn't. Again, we need the economy to grow to pay for the pensions and health care requirements of the ever growing numbers of old people.

I'd like to agree with @stonerblue who recently said the world needs:

"A massive shift in International financial markets to allow developing countries to actually develop and not be in debt.

Outside investment in the people (health, education, housing etc) and not just stripping the countries of their resources and waltzing off with the profits. Political pressure to stop civil wars. Fairer distribution of global wealth and tighter controls on International aid."

The only problem with this list though is: 'allow developing countries to actually develop and not be in debt.' Is this not a bit preachy of us though, aren't we in massive debt ourselves?

I don't like it when we take trained nurses and doctors from places like the Philippines, but what else can we do when the demographics of our country is slewed so much towards the over 65s ? (another thing that is only going to get worse). Something has clearly gone wrong here too, that so many Doctors are retiring early on massive pensions and locum nurses are required to fill staffing shortfalls and are paid £50,000 plus per annum to do so. That can't continue indefinitely, its killing the free NHS.

Regarding "Political pressure to stop civil wars...." Well what about political pressure on normal wars e.g. Russia/Ukraine - how has that worked out?

Finally, "Fairer distribution of global wealth...." great in theory, but how likely in practice? Not very, I would say.

*I don't quite know where that number is coming from by the way, because this week it was reported (and in decent newspapers not the Daily Mail) that a majority of people crossing in dinghies are from Albania. People go on holiday to Albania! so why are their young men fleeing from there anyway?
Click to expand...
Some good arguments here but one of the things you do not mention is that for the economy to grow this needs investment. Firms are not investing because they are to busy creaming off profits for their shareholders. A prime example of this are our 'friends' across the city. Look at how City have invested huge amounts of money in order to grow their 'economy'.
 
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