General Election/UK Politics

[MikeO]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-51664792

 

[johnh]

1 hour ago, TallPaul1878 said:

That's not a good long term solution. Ultimately society has to adjust it's social contract. We expect infinite growth in a finite world. If people are living longer and migrants are required to fill the pension black hole then what happens when these same migrants get old?

How many immigrants is the right amount of immigrants? What is the carrying capacity of the land? What kind of quality of life should people expect? What are the long term impacts on the environment from endless immigration? Where will everyone live? Where will all their waste go?

These are genuine concerns for many people and they go unanswered by all of the political parties. It's no surprise that the public want something different. 

What happens to the countries all these immigrants come from, particularly the skilled ones?

[MikeO]

21 minutes ago, johnh said:

What happens to the countries all these immigrants come from, particularly the skilled ones?

Oh don't go worrying yourself about that John, Brits being OK is all that matters.

[MikeO]

2 minutes ago, TallPaul1878 said:

Brits being okay IS all that matters. We elect a British government not a global one. Of course we aren't going out to do harm to other nations but it is ridiculous to be hobbled by worrying about the rest of the world all of the time. Your oikophobia is showing.

Ridiculous conclusion to come to, I like Brits as much as anyone; I just happen to believe that all human life has the same value irrespective of what piece of rock they happen to be born on.

Your xenophobia is showing.

[johnh]

37 minutes ago, MikeO said:

Ridiculous conclusion to come to, I like Brits as much as anyone; I just happen to believe that all human life has the same value irrespective of what piece of rock they happen to be born on.

Your xenophobia is showing.

Which was the exact point of my post Mike.  Just surprised it received the response that it did.

[MikeO]

20 minutes ago, johnh said:

Which was the exact point of my post Mike.  Just surprised it received the response that it did.

My reply was ironic John, sorry you mistook it for anything else.

[Palfy]

4 hours ago, RPG said:

I think we should start to put our own house in order before we presume to take the moral high ground and try to preach to the rest of the world.

That is as true for countries as it is for individuals. Once we can look after our own properly, then perhaps we can start preaching.

I believe that this is exactly what this government is setting about doing. But because they are not extreme left wing they will never get the credit they deserve on this board. Thankfully, the majority of the rest of UK is not so tribal.

How much more tribal can you get when you think of yourself before others. 

[pete0]

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/02/20/tories-create-sweatshop-britain-with-zero-hours-increase-and-immigration-cut/?fbclid=IwAR08YClIol_mfbnPzknmnTPB0i4etu3G2x4T9R9QyGdvq31IS5N7HwnHGa4

[Palfy]

1 minute ago, RPG said:

First off, I am not thinking of myself before others. I am putting my country first.

Second off, If we don't protect ourselves we will very soon lose the capability to look after anyone else.

What exactly are we protecting ourselves from, bar the propaganda from the right telling us otherwise we were in a good position, and immigration as been a huge factor to our prosperity and without it services would have collapsed. 
So what are we protecting ourselves from, we already have the highest standard in worker’s rights in Europe, higher than the EU standard, we have I think I’m right in saying the highest minimum wage in Europe. 
So what is it bar pure and adulterated nationalistic tribalism are you talking about, the rhetoric you preach will do more to hurt our friends and ourselves, than protect us from the invisible enemies you so clearly fear is destroying our country. 

[Palfy]

32 minutes ago, RPG said:

What this government is doing is removing the discriminatory immigration laws which favour EU and applying one standard of immigration requirements for all, globally. This attracts the brightest and the best and protects us from economic migrants who have contributed nothing to society but who rapidly become a drain upon it.

Discriminatory to who, if you lived here you would know that we have a huge amount of migrant workers from South America, because we are not getting enough workers coming from the EU to keep the country running. I myself have 2 from Nepal and they are labourers who pay their  taxes and NI  

And to say that the migrants who come here and do low skilled work don’t contribute anything to society but just take, is a grossly made up lie by the far right fascists and racists who work on project fear that immigrants are stealing from us, when in fact they are doing the jobs that we haven’t got the labour resources to do, and they pay their way into the system as I and other’s do. 
So again who are you protecting, I employ carpenters from countries from the EU, if they are on price work they are on the same price as there British counterparts, and if they are on a day rate they again are on the same rate as there British counterparts. 
And they pay there taxes, until they get there UTR number they got stopped 30%, then 20% when they are fully in the system, all exactly the same as British workers who operate as self employed in the industry. 

[Palfy]

13 minutes ago, RPG said:

If you are happy with immigrants from all over the world (as I am, provided they meet the one, universally applied criteria) then surely you are pleased at this governments anti discrimination policy of applying the same rule to all and allowing future global immigration as easily as that from post brexit EU?

Again, you choose the far left smokescreen terms of racist, fascists and far right as applicable to anything or anyone who dares to disagree with your extreme left wing views on how the world must be. That is tribalism Palfry, achieves nothing and makes logical debate with you impossible.

Meanwhile, Johnson continues the good work of this government.

Stop dodging the question who and what are we protecting ourselves from, and why do low skilled immigrants not contribute to the country, but only drain the country when they are clearly here to work. 
And when you implement your points system to try and prevent low skilled workers coming who then picks up the slack. 
And please let’s remember all the low skilled migrant workers from outside the EU, could have been stopped from coming in but they weren’t why was that, is this new policy more to hurt our European friends than people from others countries round the world. 
Like I say if you lived here you would have a better insight on what’s actually happening here, the fact that you don’t can be clearly seen you don’t have a clue about what’s happening here. 

[pete0]

2 hours ago, RPG said:

and protects us from economic migrants who have contributed nothing to society but who rapidly become a drain upon it.

What are the figures for these? As far as I'm aware migrants are net contributors. 

[pete0]

2 hours ago, RPG said:

But, as quite a few on this board refuse to think of themselves as British (even though they are) that is a very moot point

You're being Hitlery again. 

I've not noticed anyone else say anything similar so I assume you mean me and my comment was I'd say I'm British before I'd say I'm English. Either way even if I described myself a earthling why would you take issue?

[Palfy]

3 minutes ago, RPG said:

You, once again, choose to dodge my question and fail to acknowledge the points I make. Any low paid immigrant merely drives down salaries in UK by shifting the supply curve to the right. If they fail to meet the immigration criteria then those jobs will have to be carried out by current 'Economically Inactive' UK citizens who, mostly, will not do the work for the current low pay. However, the subsequent shift of the supply curve to the left will force higher salaries, attract workers based in UK, reduce unemployment and reduce the welfare burden.

So, we are protecting ourselves from an ever increasing drain on our welfare.

To address the leftist argument about a work force shortage caused by this policy. It won't happen. Either the jobs will be taken by UK workers or they won't. If they are, fine. If they are not, then market forces drives the salary up and either enough UK workers step forward or the £23k threshold is reached and qualified overseas citizens can then legitimately apply.

Now, please answer my question. What's not to like about having one, globally applied, immigration policy, points based, which only attracts the brightest and the best and, as a consequence, drives lowest salaries up?

I answered your question we have the highest minimum wage in Europe so immigrants aren’t driving wages down, and we don’t have the numbers of unemployed British to fill the gap when they are shown the door and stopped from coming in. 
Unless of course you are in the fascist camp of Priti Patel and her government, who would try and force the disabled and their carers to pick up the slack or stop their benefits when they can’t, or force the retired to go back to work, or stop people going into higher education and force them into low skilled work, they all form the 8 million this government want to get back to work.

 In reality there are somewhere around 1.8 million who are unemployed, they are made up of those who want to work and those who don’t want to work. 
Those who want to work are are being penalised by the government who want them to work, by making it harder for them to claim benefits to pick up any short fall in their earnings, or are you suggesting everyone should be on £30,000 plus a year, which would be great but in reality can’t happen, but let’s go down your route and put everyone on £30,000 we still wouldn’t have a workforce big enough without low skilled immigrants. 
Now answer my questions from earlier posts or don’t bother responding, because you are clearly dodging and it’s starting to become very boring. 

[pete0]

17 minutes ago, RPG said:

That really depends on how you count them. If you factor in that they are driving salaries down, preventing low pay from increasing and theteby keeping UK citizens on benefits and out of work, then that is not correct.

Figure I saw regarding pay was 0.5% which isn't a huge sacrifice when you consider that are putting more into the country than the rest of us. What figures have you seen? 

Money is this country is higher than ever. Pay is low due to Union power being low. Companies are making more money than ever, they just aren't distributing it fairly. Very few get to negotiate a wage. It's very much you get what you get. Just look at civil service, the government that claimed to be encouraging pay rises has given the LM real pay decreases in the last decade. The pay from the government is that bad they had to scrap the lowest grade, Admin Assistants, as minimum wage was about to over take it. Essentially most civil servants are getting paid a grade below what that should if they were doing the same job twenty years ago. The government has also failed to control housing so rents and mortgages are higher than they should be, likewise so are bills and public transport. Even worse most this excess is used to create profits, not a better service, and these profits are then took out the country so our economy is fucked both ways. One less disposable income from the workers to use in the local economy and two the rich ones are hiding theirs offshore contributing as little as possible to the country. You claim to want to look after our own first, well if you side with the tories then you're a hypocrit as you are backing capitalist that don't look after this country and bleed the money to foreign bank accounts. 

[pete0]

3 hours ago, RPG said:

But that is my entire point. Why aren't companies distributing money fairly? Because market forces mean they don't have to. And companies are in business to make a profit. Business isn't about being fair in today's world. I wish it was, but it isn't. You want higher salaries you have to alter the market forces and that is what this government is doing with its new immigration controls. It should see the lowest salaries increase. This is borne out by the latest representations made by British industry to UK government not to impose some of these controls as they know it will cut off the supply of cheap labour and force them into paying a 'fair' rate for the job.

Market forces? I've already told you 0.5% is because its foreigners. So the rest is the government, you know them guys who are meant to govern. Kicking out foreigners won't magically make wages higher. For that to happen we need a governant to back its workers, yet our one is pushing the lies of trickle down economics and removing workers rights and lessening Union power. 

[Palfy]

3 hours ago, RPG said:

Not at all Palfy. I have tried to stick to the subject matter but you seem to prefer terms such as Nationalist, Racist, Fascist, Bigot and, now, Hitlery. I think you need to take my points in the genuine spirit with which they are made rather than look for an excuse to take faux offence. I am trying to talk about the issue, not the personalities involved.

Like it or not, you (royal you, not you personally) live in and are subject to UK rules and laws. It beholds every UK citizen to want what is best for their country. If that is not the case then you are unpatriotic and further discussion is meaningless.

Assuming you are still with me, then it is logical that we look after our own before tending to non UK citizens. And, as a consequence of doing this, we can build a stronger economy and be in a position to help third party countries. We can't do that if we undermine our own economy in a noble but misguided attempt to declare open house and provide welfare to every man andhis dog.

You have replied to Pete’s post using me as the recipient, please try and keep up. 

[pete0]

Add baby killers to the of horrible things you are if you vote tory. 572 in a three year period in Liverpool alone. 

She revealed: "When you have rising infant mortality [death of a child under the age of one] then you have a fundamental problem as a society.

"Infant mortality has been falling in England every year since the war, now it is rising - and it is rising faster in Liverpool than anywhere else - it is more than twice the national average here."

She said that in Liverpool, between 2014 and 2017 there were a total of 572 excess infant deaths compared to what would have been expected based on historical trends.

The research estimate that each 1% increase in child poverty was significantly associated with an extra 5.8 infant deaths per 100,000 live births.

Professor Kenny added: "This means a mother who has a baby in our city is more likely to lose it than if she lived elsewhere - this should keep us all awake at night."

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpool-babies-dying-lives-being-17817272?fbclid=IwAR2B18dGzq0DXBSY9I4tSw9Hec5isDhUrrLSCYbykYwNVmnRIRb2wshZ4ws

[Palfy]

3 hours ago, RPG said:

One thing I would say though is to repeat what I said in a previous post. If there aren't enough UK citizens to fill jobs then salaries will go up. If they go up enough they will reach the threshold at which non UK citizens can apply. It's called market forces and as a businessman you should really know that.

Market forces are global and not solely the preserve of this country, for a business to be successful you have to be competitive in the market place whether you are selling a product or a service, if you are not competitive then you haven’t got a viable business.

A lot of our companies are already under severe budgetary restraints to make themselves competitive in the global market’s due to our very competitive wages and our very favourable employment rights, and your simplistic solution to replace immigrants in low skilled jobs is to put wages up even more higher compared to our competitors than they are now, which anyone with any modicum of sense of market forces would know wouldn’t work. 
That would cause companies to go out of business and unemployment to rise dramatically, which would be a huge burden on the welfare state than the fabricated one you have in your head. 
 

And yes I do own a business and a very successful one at that, so your little put down of “as a businessman you should no better” is a very futile attempt at saying I don’t know how to run a business, yet applying your model to the market forces of businesses you wouldn’t get yours off the ground, so luckily for you you’ve got the comfort blanket of working for someone else.

It’s a pity really that you’ve never had the balls to go out on your own, your never know if you could have made something better for yourself in aviation or some other field.

Its small companies like mine that keep the country going, small companies combined  are the biggest employer in this country, and they pay there taxes, unlike your Amazons and Starbucks, but we can only keep going if we are competitive. 

[Palfy]

9 hours ago, RPG said:

But it seemed flash and in bad taste  to mention it until now.

I don’t really wish to dwell on this point, but a year ago you couldn’t get enough of gloating, about how well you were doing by posting pictures of your place in Malaysia, and bragging about the people you employ to look after your property, as a put down to me when you assumed I had nothing you tried to beat me with your success, I think you need to go back and revisit your posts from then.
So you’ve either changed your opinion on bragging or that statement is a crock of shit.

[MikeO]

I know my place.

 

[Palfy]

Actually it doesn’t cost me any business in fact quite the contrary, what 40 years of working for myself and making my own way in life has taught me, is how to weed out the those that cannot be trusted and you fall very much into that category, that is why I very much dislike you and your values, I go with my instinct which has served me very well in past and continues to do so. 
Have you had an opportunity to revisit your old posts where you were being very flash about how well you were doing in life, or would you care for me to repost some just as a reminder of what you were like before this new improved version of you appeared. 
After all the mod warnings and what  warnings would they be, I know you’ve been crying to the mods, I’m very surprised I haven’t had the police knocking at my door. 

[pete0]

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2020/03/02/when-senior-tories-want-to-uphold-human-rights-in-our-way-you-know-its-time-to-make-a-stand/?fbclid=IwAR1PxMHoQpzBZCdOvajX0HNsH18Xcu_jzZTOvShbSOcu-WrEmbxy3Ff37ko

[pete0]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-nurse-sacked-after-warning-21618887?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mirror_main&fbclid=IwAR3COWOXmdLYNo9rWZydqmL_YHCJyUMZKWL4ohqbFSBq9QOIVYjC77tOySg

[Formby]

There is something very decadent about relying on cheap immigrant labour to prop up your economy, so I do think a new model of labour is needed. A proper reward for the value of your work (Proudhon) would be a good starting point.  

[pete0]

3 minutes ago, RPG said:

We have left the EU. We therefore leave all of the EU legislation that we are currently bound by.

Your link is politiically jaundiced in its content and very agenda driven. In short, more project fear - which has already been comprehensively exposed as a smoke and mirrors con job by disgruntled pro EU agitators.

Did you even read it? It's a treaty entered seperately from the union. We're still bound regardless. 

What is not fearful about a government that wants to diminish human rights? 

[Palfy]

23 hours ago, RPG said:

Oh dear Palfy. You really are reverting to type again aren't you. A retirement penthouse in Malaysia is hardly being flash. We all have to live somewhere and that is where we will be spending our retirement, which could begin as early as this year. That is just common sense, planning ahead.

If you still can't engage in debate, after all the mod warnings,  without descending again into foul and abusive language, it really does make me wonder about you as a person, a boss and as a business owner. It really is a bad case of behavioural recidivism wrt debate.  One of the main criteria for any effective leader, be it in business, the military or any other discipline you care to mention, is to remain calm and polite under pressure. You just don't seem able to master that life skill do you. Does that attitude (being spring loaded to the vulgar position) cost you a lot of business?

Tell me in your perfect codes of conduct what is worse someone who is blasphemous occasionally, or someone who lies. 

[MikeO]

Locked for the time being; if the two of you want to continue the discussion please PM each other.

[pete0]

 

[pete0]