It doesn’t have to be cheap labour, no reason the wage for immigrants can’t be the same as anyone else in fact it should be. You still haven’t offered a solution to where the workers come from if the population is aging. Okay if you say it’s not immigration thats an opinion but then who? What’s your plan.It’s a never ending cycle and an argument that makes no sense.
We have more pensioners because we are living longer. Immigration is the answer yet no one thinks they too will grow old and add to the pensioner numbers so then what? Even more immigration?
Nearly 70 million now and it’s not enough? 75/80/85? How many is enough to satisfy the needs and as I keep asking, how does this economy or our services cope with such numbers?
Business wants cheap labour and doesn’t care where it comes from and politicians up until now have been happy to facilitate it.
The larger the population, the greater the decline in public services.It’s a never ending cycle and an argument that makes no sense.
We have more pensioners because we are living longer. Immigration is the answer yet no one thinks they too will grow old and add to the pensioner numbers so then what? Even more immigration?
Nearly 70 million now and it’s not enough? 75/80/85? How many is enough to satisfy the needs and as I keep asking, how does this economy or our services cope with such numbers?
Business wants cheap labour and doesn’t care where it comes from and politicians up until now have been happy to facilitate it.
I thought Biden’s immigration laws were stopped by the Republican house?Biden tried to neutralise Trump and passed the strongest immigration laws seen on the country.
He still lost the Election to him.
Starmer making the same mistakes.
The larger the population, the greater the decline in public services.
Waiting times for operation's and getting seen if you are unlucky enough to have to go to A&E are far worse than they used to be. So yes I've seen a big decline in public services. They haven't kept pace with the population growth.The larger the population the more people producing goods and services and paying tax that pays for those services.
Not to mention that larger population staffing a lot of those essential services like the NHS.
That's how it's supposed to work. Not how it has worked / is working. Demonstrably.The larger the population the more people producing goods and services and paying tax that pays for those services.
Not to mention that larger population staffing a lot of those essential services like the NHS.
Lost it.Is no-one else raising even an eyebrow at Shabana "my religion is the most Important thing in my life" Mahmood, our Muslim home secretary announcing potential visa restrictions on Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Namibia - all of which are Christian countries and from none of which are there many illegal immigrants.
Whereas she made no such anouncements relating to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria etc from which we have tens of thousands of illegal immigrants. And coincidentally these happen to be Muslim countries?
Nothing to see here? I'm sure it's just coincidence.
It doesn’t have to be cheap labour, no reason the wage for immigrants can’t be the same as anyone else in fact it should be. You still haven’t offered a solution to where the workers come from if the population is aging. Okay if you say it’s not immigration thats an opinion but then who? What’s your plan.
Is no-one else raising even an eyebrow at Shabana "my religion is the most Important thing in my life" Mahmood, our Muslim home secretary announcing potential visa restrictions on Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Namibia - all of which are Christian countries and from none of which are there many illegal immigrants.
Whereas she made no such anouncements relating to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria etc from which we have tens of thousands of illegal immigrants. And coincidentally these happen to be Muslim countries?
Nothing to see here? I'm sure it's just coincidence.
It's just "we need labour". Even if you were right and higher wages would persuade Brits to pick or pack food, or wipe arses in care homes, costs of care would go up, costs of food would go up (or we'd import more*) and you'd be paying more in shops or in council tax to pay those wages. I don't think you are prepared for that.“We need cheap labour”
That’s the argument being made by him and those like him.
Waiting times for operation's and getting seen if you are unlucky enough to have to go to A&E are far worse than they used to be. So yes I've seen a big decline in public services. They haven't kept pace with the population growth.
Fallen a bit yeah, and I'm not blaming Labour, far from it. Public services in this country have gone down the toilet in the last few decades though.The past year is the first time in 15 years that waiting lists have fallen. Still high mind.
That's true, but it's also true that it's the sort of policy that can only work in a small country. Google running huge parts of their books through Ireland and paying a relatively small amount in tax is a huge benefit for Ireland. Them doing the same thing in the UK would be a far smaller benefit to the UK taxpayer simply because there are far more of us, and the subsequent drop in tax revenue from the sort of broad range of businesses that operate in the UK would mean that it would be a net loss for the treasury. Ireland, on the other hand, is massively exposed to the fortunes of a handful of huge tech companies. If they pull out, they suddenly have a huge black hole in their finances, which I'd argue is a far bigger risk than anything Brown or Blair did.The median wages in Ireland vs the UK is a fair point. But how much people earn is only half the story.
The result of their much higher GDP per capita is that they have the ability to either have lower taxes - making everyone better off - or spend the money on better infrastructure and public services - that benefits everybody.
And yet a huge amount of that is because those tax revenues aren't being used to pay for public services, they're being used to pay private companies to provide public services, who have consistently done a shit job and cut corners to increase shareholder profit. The other place a large amount of tax revenue goes to is paying off the debt caused by Covid and the previous financial crash. But Ireland and the UK are roughly the same in this respect, with Ireland's government debt standing at around €50k per person, and the UK's at £42k per person (but a much higher percentage of GDP because of our lower GDP per capita in absolute terms). The other difference is that the UK's is increasing whereas Ireland is managing the pay it off.One of the reasons people are so unhappy in the UK with higher taxes is that we get so very little back for it. Our roads and general infrastructure is falling to bits. Our pension sysem is one of the least generous amongst developed countries, our health service is woeful compared to other countries, in terms of facilities, waiting times and critically, clinical outcomes. The reality is we have high taxes already AND shit public services.
Potentially, but I can't help but notice when people look for examples of this being successful, they always point to various forms of tax havens with tiny populations that are basically able to fund their public services by effectively leeching off the revenues made in the more populous neighbouring countries. Nobody's made a trillion dollar company in Ireland, yet somehow all of the profits of huge American corporations are funnelled through there and that's presented as some sort of economic success story. And it is for the people of Ireland (if you ignore the insane cost of living and property prices), but it's also not something the UK can follow, because we don't have a bunch of countries that are 10 or 20 times the size next to us that we can offer to do the books for and have a free trade agreement with. Not that the city of London doesn't try, of course. The only thing that will happen if the UK reduces corporation tax (and let's not pretend the Tories didn't do it) is that revenues from corporation tax will go down.This problem has not come about overnight of course. It's been brewing a long time. It started with Blair and Brown inflating the size of the state and funding that with progressively higher taxation, and broadly the same policies have persisted - made worse in fact - by successive Conservative (in name only) governments.
We need a reset. If we are to be wealthy ever again, we need a much better growth agenda, pro-business, anti-woke, lower tax environment. Carry on as we are and we will just see progressive decline further and futher.
The larger the population the more people producing goods and services and paying tax that pays for those services.
Not to mention that larger population staffing a lot of those essential services like the NHS.
It doesn’t have to be cheap labour, no reason the wage for immigrants can’t be the same as anyone else in fact it should be. You still haven’t offered a solution to where the workers come from if the population is aging. Okay if you say it’s not immigration thats an opinion but then who? What’s your plan.
We have evidence that what you have just said simply isn’t true nor the case.
As of June 2025 there was 1.26 million non UK born people claiming universal credits so how does their immigration benefit?
The training issue comes back to the sell off of our utilities and PFI contracts. Most of the people who are slightly older than me at work were trained on the job by CEGB (the forerunner of national grid), British Rail, British Telecom, British Gas etc. They had apprenticeship programmes taking kids from 16 and developed them over 2 to 4 years, following it up with ongoing training. The training programmes were second to none allowing kids to do high quality ONCs, HNCs and literally be an understudy, with lots of time given.cheap labour is the hook - see also man of fighting age and illegal migrants - its a right wing trope.
Plumbers were earning loads we were told in the early 2000's yet at the same time Polish plumbers were putting British plumbers on the dole at the same time when clearly British plumbers charging £1 an hour less could have simply undercut them. The rhetoric has never made any sense but the gullible will swallow it.
I know loads of people in my boat - encouraged to have a private pension so are retiring early - no reason and no desire to go back. You work 43 years you have done your time. An apprentice isn't made overnight - it took me a number of years to get the professional qualifications needed to progress. We haven't pulled any ladders up behind us the employers took them away - we have long since stopped "training our own" up.
Immigrants are not the panacea but they are part of a mixed answer. I'd much rather have a 30 year old firefighter attending an emergency at my home rather than a 72 year old just because the latter was born in the UK. In any event that 72 year old will eventually retire and the plan you were asking him for doesn't explain who is training the youngster and where are they coming from? There is no plan.
You were in a boat too:)cheap labour is the hook - see also man of fighting age and illegal migrants - its a right wing trope.
Plumbers were earning loads we were told in the early 2000's yet at the same time Polish plumbers were putting British plumbers on the dole at the same time when clearly British plumbers charging £1 an hour less could have simply undercut them. The rhetoric has never made any sense but the gullible will swallow it.
I know loads of people in my boat - encouraged to have a private pension so are retiring early - no reason and no desire to go back. You work 43 years you have done your time. An apprentice isn't made overnight - it took me a number of years to get the professional qualifications needed to progress. We haven't pulled any ladders up behind us the employers took them away - we have long since stopped "training our own" up.
Immigrants are not the panacea but they are part of a mixed answer. I'd much rather have a 30 year old firefighter attending an emergency at my home rather than a 72 year old just because the latter was born in the UK. In any event that 72 year old will eventually retire and the plan you were asking him for doesn't explain who is training the youngster and where are they coming from? There is no plan.