The Labour Government

[hilts]

Guessing you're referring to Proportional Representation? If you are, then to be fair the Lib Dems - and your very own Green Party - have been the losers on that far more times than Reform. The Lib Dems could write a book on the number of times they've been shafted by FPTP and most of it would be before Reform even existed! The number of Reform voters who are suddenly saying FPTP is wrong when they previously had no issue with it because they used to vote Labour or Tory is quite something ;)

It is, even the Labour membership wanted reform, sitting prime minsters and the two big parties in general don't seem to be quite so keen for some reason:-) Only the public at the ballot box can change it. Fuck all chance of that.

We are generally doomed by 5 year winner takes all election cycles and it's impossible to break.

 

[Oldham Exile]

They weren't isolationists at all that's just a remainer lie, they were useless mind.

I expected better from you making up stuff to promote your political view:-)

First sentence is spot on

2nd sentence - hmmm - perhaps you need to pay more attention to his posts:-)

 

[BigJoe#1]

It was blocked at every stage and then stopped by your lot before it was given a chance.

Your logic is like saying City are 1-0 down after 5 minutes so may as well go home because we've lost the game.

Perhaps you might like to read up about how much of a problem Australia had with illegal migrants, how much they don't have now, and what they did that fixed it.

Agree with you, however sadly, I think the UK is beyond the point of no return and a lost cause.... and it is not only Labour that has brought us to this point.

 

[BobKowalski]

Rwanda Bill causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of UK, deputy PM Micheál Martin says

It comes at a time when tension over immigration levels is high in Ireland, with the country experiencing a housing crisis.

news.sky.com

Well I never said it was a success, because it was never given the chance to prove it would either work or not, because of legal challenges. All I said was there was some evidence that it was working. However a similar scheme in Australia has been effective as a deterrent.

In retrospect, analysts believe it was the ‘turnaround and take back’ measures that reduced entry by boats rather than offshore asylum processing. The latter had been used previously prior to its reintroduction in around 2012.

Turnaround was also floated (no pun intended) by the UK, and is (I think) used in some EU countries and is potentially dangerous. Take back is arrangements with other countries to take back migrants arriving by boat which is similar to what Starmer is trying to do.

For Rwanda to be seen as a deterrent it had to deter, however the Govt tended to paint it as more of a vacation retreat to counter claims it was unsafe and Rwanda only made provision for 200 places and unlike Australia the migrants where free to leave. The Australian offshore centres are, in reality, detention camps

 

[bluenova]

This is tiresome, you are scratching around trying to support your argument, you could easily find these things out for yourself.That said your baseline is that Rwanda wasn't working as a deterrent, my contention is that even though it was never tested it was already working, the evidence came from migrant testimony and the Irish government. You have tried to de - bunk the Irish government as politics, though quite why they would want to publicise the success of Rwanda as a deterrent and potentially cause more inflows there way you have not made clear.
See below. Ireland works out where migrants likely come from by where they make the claim. If coming from Europeit will in probability be made at the port or airport, if the Dublin office then the likelihood is the migrant came from the UK across the Northern Irish border. The graph speaks for itself.


View attachment 162531
As for boat detection, that is available if you choose to look.

Boat v lorry you are mistaken. You are approaching it from a safety perspective. Chance of success is the driver.

Why is it tiresome? Go and read the first post I made to you - it was simply explaining about the biometric data, and the fact that this was a pilot - I didn't make an argument about whether Rwanda was working as a deterrent - you did in your reply. I commented on the difference with the new plans, and said we don't know if either would work, but this has more chance of scaling up, as the Rwanda Government had said they could only take a few thousand people. Anyway, as you say, "it was never tested". Ultimately, it's a sideshow, as they didn't get it working, and as far as I'm aware almost no-one was ever sent back.

The graph is the first solid info you've provided, and there's only one big spike on it - from 2021 - before the Rwanda plan came about. Given that they made the claim that this spike was due to the Rwanda plan, then I haven't got a clue what the Irish Government were up to, but I suspect it was like all politicians - they wanted to blame someone else for grief they were getting. The people who produced the graph above said, "For now, we don't have any conclusive evidence either way". As we'll never be able to get that conclusive evidence, we can't say it was working, or it wasn't.

I've never heard of claims that there are significant numbers of boats going undetected on the channel, and have tried to look it up, but apart from the odd anecdote about a random person being found, can't find any. If you're sure that's the case, where is this information? I chose to look, and have come up short apparently :)

I think we agree on boats v lorries. I said the reason it had come down was because the lorry routes security was tightened considerably. Prior to the small boat routes taking off, those routes had been cut back dramatically. My point about safety, is that you said that if (and I'm sure we both agree, it's a big if) small boat crossings are curtailed, then people would just go by lorry instead. My argument is that you don't take a much more risky route unless there's a significant advantage. As you say, that advantage is the chance of success, which is why similar numbers are unlikely to be able to successfully cross by lorry.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Agree with you, however sadly, I think the UK is beyond the point of no return and a lost cause.... and it is not only Labour that has brought us to this point.

Oh, I agree with that. The UK faced some really terrible headwinds over the past 14 years, things outside any government's control. But that does not give them a free pass. The Tories have managed the situation very badly indeed.

You could even lay the blame for Brexit at their door (I don't actually since the Brexit vote went through. I think it's a poor argument to suggest we should never have had a Brexit vote in case it gave the people what they wanted.)

Their main failing - due to the infiltration into the Conservative parliamentary part by a bunch of people who were effectively Liberals - was a failing to get a grip on the size of the public sector and on public spending. Instead going for higher and higher taxes and unsustainably high borrowing.

Labour inherented an economy in a pretty poor state (albeit growing), and very sadly have enacted policies to make it worse.

 

[hilts]

You'd be surprised perhaps to find that I agree with you. Providing the taxing the rich bit is not over done, or it genuinely will be not only ineffective but downright damaging. Could the top rate be raised to say, 47%? Perhaps. Beyond that, it's not going to bring any additional revenue in and will just drive people (further) into tax avoidance.

And also, BTW, I cannot condone wealth taxes at all. I think they are completely morally unacceptable, for reasons I've already posted. No matter how popular. They could also be a slippery slope. Starting at £10m cut off today perhaps but I note the few countries that have tried them and NOT given up, now have the cut offs WAY lower than that, adversely impacting millions of people, unfairly.

My view is tax Reform so Starmer or whoever hopefully replaces him has in effect a blank sheet. Generally you want to put more money in the pockets of those you know will spend it. I would personally raise tax allowance have more bands for income tax. I would also scrap NI for employees and have tte income tax bands higher.

To be successful and not completely batter the well off we need to get money out of companies and the self employed who tbh get away with a lot. You would need to invest heavily in tax inspectors and be able to impose one off taxes on large companies.

I would widen council tax bands, that would be my wealth tax. There are obviously loads of other taxes that can be looked at be that would need experts to comment on.

Just picking on individual groups to raise money ain't gonna be enough.

This will take some time to avoid fucking it up, it should have happened years ago. We are wasting time with this status quo pick a side to dump on bullshit. What sort of country do people want?

 

[Chippy_boy]

For Rwanda to be seen as a deterrent it had to deter, however the Govt tended to paint it as more of a vacation retreat to counter claims it was unsafe and Rwanda only made provision for 200 places and unlike Australia the migrants where free to leave. The Australian offshore centres are, in reality, detention camps

Given the undeniable success of the Australian initiatives, don't you think it would have been a great idea to see how we could implement similar, tweaking our Rwanda plan if, as and when needed?

We took a plan that may very well have worked (was never tested, as agreed in posts above) and trashed it for political purposes.

 

[hilts]

First sentence is spot on

2nd sentence - hmmm - perhaps you need to pay more attention to his posts:-)

That would be my sarcasm mate i called him blueuntrue about 5 years ago I think, Hans Christian was another:-)

 

[Chippy_boy]

My view is tax Reform so Starmer or whoever hopefully replaces him has in effect a blank sheet. Generally you want to put more money in the pockets of those you know will spend it. I would personally raise tax allowance have more bands for income tax. I would also scrap NI for employees and have tte income tax bands higher.

To be successful and not completely batter the well off we need to get money out of companies and the self employed who tbh get away with a lot. You would need to invest heavily in tax inspectors and be able to impose one off taxes on large companies.

I would widen council tax bands, that would be my wealth tax. There are obviously loads of other taxes that can be looked at be that would need experts to comment on.

Just picking on individual groups to raise money ain't gonna be enough.

This will take some time to avoid fucking it up, it should have happened years ago. We are wasting time with this status quo pick a side to dump on bullshit. What sort of country do people want?

Spot on in every respect. You would have my full support for such measures.

We can collect a lot more tax (and waste a lot less resources chasing it) with a much more simple, fairer tax system.

Another change to add to your list: It is LUDICROUS that people in e.g. leafy Ascot where there is little or no social deprivation and minimal welfare bill, should pay perhaps half the council tax on their $2m 4 bed detatched, compared to someone in e.g. Rotherham in their similar 4 bed detatched that's worth £500k.

I am (somewhat) in favour of local democracy but I think we have too many layers and some things (such as the above) should be better and more fairly standardised across the UK. Why should someone in Wales, or Gloucester, for example, have shit healthcare provision and outcomes compared to someone in Berkshire? We are all supposed to be entitled to the same level of NHS service, but we are not.

 

[Vic]

Those GDP numbers are dissapointing as analysts expected growth, and this has come after the UK US trade deal. There is clearly more to it, things like Millebands drive for zero emissions has been very damaging to the UK car industry.

Interest rates staying needlessly high is also hindering business investment, Reeves really should get shot of Bailey, he is utterly hopeless in his forecasts and has never really understood part of his remit as stimulating the UK economy. High interest rates have also stalled the housing market, house sales are actually declining despite the April jump made by those wanting to avoid the stamp duty rises.

Isn't the drop in house sales a lull after the stamp duty rush?

 

[BobKowalski]

…

Their main failing - due to the infiltration into the Conservative parliamentary part by a bunch of people who were effectively Liberals - was a failing to get a grip on the size of the public sector and on public spending. Instead going for higher and higher taxes and unsustainably high borrowing.

Labour inherented an economy in a pretty poor state (albeit growing), and very sadly have enacted policies to make it worse.

Brexit requires a larger State and public sector. There is more administration, Red tape, customs resources etc. For example Instead of one centralised source to regulate and test chemicals used by industry for 30 countries, we have to undertake the task ourselves, which requires facilities, staff and so on.

In short, if you no longer outsource the cost of regulatory oversight on the industrial sector you have to do it in-house and that will cost more and require a larger State.

Johnson seemed to acknowledge this. Truss didn’t. Sunak just wanted to get through to the election and jack it in for a cushy job in the City. A secret gang of liberals is, given Johnson’s purge of the Tory Party, somewhat fanciful to put it politely.

 

[Postman Pep]

Just for context.
Labour are doing very well and Starmer is a proper PM. Carry on.

 

[hampshireblue]

Fucking tiresome this. No, I didn't. The (lack of) growth is clearly disappointing and relevant and worth posting.

I merely said that month-to-month growth figures were not relevant to the discussion of whether the UK economy is close to bankruptcy. And I was replying to someone else's post, who brought up the subject of growth in the first place. BTW.

It really is hard work when your sole objective is just to argue.

Maybe people "argue" because much of what you put out is merely your opinion that in the last few weeks has become more and more extreme, and in many cases, bereft of fact.

An example when someone puts a view forward and you say:

"I never knew you were an expert on border control as well".

Maybe said in jest, but if so, it doesn't come across that way, and later your view:

"I strongly suspect Starmer binned it, in case it did work, more as a political gesture"

The latter with absolutely no substance except the world according to chippy.

 

[hampshireblue]

Agree with you, however sadly, I think the UK is beyond the point of no return and a lost cause.... and it is not only Labour that has brought us to this point.

Is that regarding immigration or generally? If generally, let's not forget who told lots of lies that is having the ongoing effect of making us all poorer. Your mate, Nige. It was also the case that countries in Schengen had a duty to protect other countries in the EU but not signed up to Schengen, with regards to immigration. We weren't in Schengen and therefore were protected to a degree by our membership. Apparently people thought it a good idea to ditch that protection.

If I was chippy, I might say "I strongly suspect Farage knew what he was doing, because without immigration he has nothing"-but I won't.

 

[BlueHammer85]

View attachment 162550View attachment 162549

Same for every PM last couple of decades.
There is no party or PM that can make everyone happy, it's impossible. we're a divided nation, left v right and social media and media will continue to ensure we hate whoever is in power.

 

[BobKowalski]

View attachment 162550View attachment 162549

Thatchers first two years in office saw her and Conservative approval hit the low twenties. Johnson had a mid-thirties approval rating in his first year.

Much as people enjoy seeing Starmer getting a kicking - sometimes deserved - the first year or two can mean little in the great scheme of things :)

 

[threespires]

I honestly think Farage would be far worse than Starmer. He's a grifter first and foremost and will latch on to any populist idea - immigration in particular - for his own ends. He slagged off the EU for decades but was more than happy to pick up his MEP salary. I could see him isolating us from the rest of the world with his divisive politics. Even the policies that should appeal to people of all political persuasions are ideas that belong in a fantasy world. How the hell are they going to fund the increase in the tax-free personal allowance to £20,000 that they're proposing? The simple fact is they can't so they won't do it if they get in. I know you're quite right-wing when it comes to the economy and stuff but there's not a chance Farage comes close to delivering what you're advocating on that score IMO. You yearn for the days of a Thatcher-type figure and as divisive as she could be at times, she shits all over Farage. In fact, I reckon if she's looking down now she'd be horrified at the prospect of Farage becoming PM.

Starmer's far from perfect but I see him as being the best of a not very impressive bunch. I don't think Ed Davey's too bad either but he goes under the radar a lot for some reason, even though he's the leader of a party that has 68 more seats than Reform.

It's completely irrational to consider that because A and B are rubbish and C is different from A and B that C must be better; but it's a really common cognitive bias we are all very susceptible to. Think psychologists call it the contrast effect. In part it's how for a while companies were able to successfully launch credit cards with worse interest rates but with interesting and flashy benefits programs that didn't offset the interest rate impact.

It's what Reform are relying on and Farage is no mug, he's leaning into it. It's how he avoids real scrutiny: keep the conversation on the relative differences not the absolute outcomes.

 

[ganganvince]

I honestly think Farage would be far worse than Starmer. He's a grifter first and foremost and will latch on to any populist idea - immigration in particular - for his own ends. He slagged off the EU for decades but was more than happy to pick up his MEP salary. I could see him isolating us from the rest of the world with his divisive politics. Even the policies that should appeal to people of all political persuasions are ideas that belong in a fantasy world. How the hell are they going to fund the increase in the tax-free personal allowance to £20,000 that they're proposing? The simple fact is they can't so they won't do it if they get in. I know you're quite right-wing when it comes to the economy and stuff but there's not a chance Farage comes close to delivering what you're advocating on that score IMO. You yearn for the days of a Thatcher-type figure and as divisive as she could be at times, she shits all over Farage. In fact, I reckon if she's looking down now she'd be horrified at the prospect of Farage becoming PM.

Starmer's far from perfect but I see him as being the best of a not very impressive bunch. I don't think Ed Davey's too bad either but he goes under the radar a lot for some reason, even though he's the leader of a party that has 68 more seats than Reform.

Unfortunately you are spot on Starmer is the best of a bad bunch. Problem being though those queuing up behind him Rayner Streeting etc are much worse.

 

[M18CTID]

Spot on in every respect. You would have my full support for such measures.

We can collect a lot more tax (and waste a lot less resources chasing it) with a much more simple, fairer tax system.

Another change to add to your list: It is LUDICROUS that people in e.g. leafy Ascot where there is little or no social deprivation and minimal welfare bill, should pay perhaps half the council tax on their $2m 4 bed detatched, compared to someone in e.g. Rotherham in their similar 4 bed detatched that's worth £500k.

I am (somewhat) in favour of local democracy but I think we have too many layers and some things (such as the above) should be better and more fairly standardised across the UK. Why should someone in Wales, or Gloucester, for example, have shit healthcare provision and outcomes compared to someone in Berkshire? We are all supposed to be entitled to the same level of NHS service, but we are not.

Something that made me laugh a few months ago was a caller into LBC saying his mother-in-law couldn't afford to pay her utility bills, despite owning and living in a million pound house. James O'Brien's advice to the caller was for him and his wife to stop being tight twats who want the whole house leaving to them and instead advise her mother to release some funds via equity release. That way, she'd have more than enough money to pay her utility bills for the rest of her days, yet she'd still own a large chunk of the house meaning her daughter would still inherit a shit load of money anyway!