19-Nov-2021 : CON 36 / LAB 34 / GREEN 10 / LIBDEM 7

[thexterminatingdalek]

Nov 24, 2021 22:20:30 GMT mercian said:

It wouldn't be for the next few months.  It would just increase the demand.  It would be better to provide a ferry crossing to immediately take them all back to France (or at least French waters if the French won't take them).

If only we hadn't just thrown away our ability to do just that.

Are you seriously suggesting dumping people into the sea? Just checking.

[oldnat]

Mercian

"It would be better to provide a ferry crossing to immediately take them all back to France (or at least French waters if the French won't take them)."

Quite right! Bloody international law demanding that states go through due process to decide whether asylum seekers meet the criteria for asylum!

Ignore that woke nonsense and just load these bloody foreigners into containers that can be sunk in French waters. In fact, go further and send all the Irish passport holders in containers to Irish waters. Cleanse the Land!

Alternatively, there is the current UKGov strategy of making life so unpleasant for those in England who aren't decent chaps incapable of arranging a modest income equivalent to an MPs salary, that no one will want to go there anyway. (Fe)

[oldnat]

A second lab owned by Immensa is facing allegations of wrongdoing. Fears that incorrect Covid test results were sent out to the public due to malfunctioning machines. 1000s of NHS samples diverted to the site following the fiasco at Wolverhampton (Independent)

t.co/77CNxjXf2f?amp=1

While it was just the Cornish, Devonians and Welsh who were affected by Tory sleaze and incompetence, it didn't really matter - but now Mercians have been affected too!

[steve]

Mercian

What precisely do you propose happens when having broken the internationally agreed treatment of asylum seekers, in a specific and limited way of course and endangered people's lives in flagrant disregard of the international laws of the sea if the French authorities refuse to be complicit?

[alec]

Guardian reporting that the Bulb rescue will have access to £1.7bn of taxpayers money. Whether all of this is required isn't yet clear, but it appears it will cost hundreds of millions of pounds at least. The administrators will need to keep supplies to the exising customers at the contracted prices, but with a reported 1.7m customers and a potential deficit of £1.7bn over the winter, it's clear that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Bulb business plan.

Industry insiders have been openly discussing Bulb's flaky business model long before the price surge caused such carnage - see www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/27/energy-start-up-bulb-has-big-plans-business-strategy-may-unsustainable/
and
www.ft.com/content/4065b42b-e797-4acd-948a-2bee3ad00eff

The key point here was that Bulb deliberately supplied customers with below cost energy as a means to attract customers, pouring in venture capital to plug the gap, and Ofgen welcomed them into the energy supply market.

When the dust settles on this, we have to hope that sensible heads will turn their attention to Ofgen and government policy, for permitting such a risky 'financial instrument' type of approach to an essential service.

As the FT article suggests, 20 years of privatization in the UK rail sector have resulted in operating costs 40% higher than the European average, and this idea of the Uber style business approach in the power supply market has ended up costing taxpayers billions. The regulatory landscape for what is an absolutely essential public service has been dire for a long, long time, and just like the banks, the regulatory systems have been exposed as a complete failure. It is quite staggering that Ofgen permitted a major supply business to operate on such a basis.

[robert]

Nov 24, 2021 19:44:45 GMT mercian said:

"I didn't find peppa pig till I was 60, with young grandchildren and then wished I hadn't. How can a side view of the thing show two eyes from the left and the right view?"

Not a big fan of Picasso then? Nor me.

Too right. Much prefer a Constable.

On today's disaster in the channel, I just hope this generates some action from France and the EU to stop pretending that these people smuggler criminals are not their problem. Reports elsewhere that gendarmes just watched whilst a 30 foot boat loaded up. But then they're good at that. They did the same when lorries carrying British lamb were set on fire some years ago.

[eor]

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the polling impact of Peppa will be... nothing at all.

I think events like that *can* be impactful, but usually when they help shape opinions for people that hitherto didn't have much of a view and I doubt there are many such with Johnson.

Also it's worth noting that the number of people who will have actually seen the speech will be absolutely trivial - for those who have seen clips on the news or heard that it was a thing and googled "Boris Johnson Peppa Pig" etc, they'll have seen one of any number of clips, all obviously highly edited, which involve him pausing, apologising (sometimes repeatedly depending on the clip) and telling an anecdote that plenty of people with small kids (or whose friends have small kids) will initially relate to. It's an obviously cheesy analogy that he draws, but... he's a cheesy politician.

I am often wrong on these things, but I'll be surprised if it's changed people's existing perceptions of Johnson in any meaningful way.

(this bit is going to sound like covering myself, but it's also worth noting that being intertwined with the social care bill and increased salience of the migrant crossings issue is going to make it quite tricky to determine even whether it *has* had any effect in VI terms)

[mercian]

Steve
"What precisely do you propose happens when having broken the internationally agreed treatment of asylum seekers, in a specific and limited way of course and endangered people's lives in flagrant disregard of the international laws of the sea if the French authorities refuse to be complicit?"

Well I may be wrong but my understanding was that the internationally agreed treatment of asylum seekers was that they should claim asylum in the first safe country they arrived in. We wouldn't know what that was, but they came from France, so France in turn should return them to whatever safe place they came from before that.

Also, though the media has concentrated on the few women and children involved in the disaster, it seems that most were young fit men just as most who safely get here appear to be. A lot of them come from the Middle East and apparently destroy their identity documents. If ISIS wanted to infiltrate western countries I wonder how they would do it?

[peterbell]

Mercian,my understanding is that the international agreement is that asylum seekers can choose their preferred country. The agreement that it should be the country of entry was a Euro ruling but of course we are no longer in the EU. Just another benefit? of Brexit.

[Deleted]

Nov 24, 2021 23:28:13 GMT eor said:

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the polling impact of Peppa will be... nothing at all.

I think it is correct for the committed voters - the question is about the non-committed ones.

[in DK is not weighted so any direct reference to the figures could be very wrong - but also could be very right.]

[eor]

Jeez Mercian, if ISIS wanted to infiltrate anywhere surely there'd be a thousand easier ways than what you're describing? Just get someone a job as a lorry driver, or a deck-hand or one of the thousands of people that move between countries every day without the risk of imminent death.

I'll give you the point on the "women and children" thing tho, it's an irritating trope that somehow endures in many situations where it makes no sense. Like putting a healthy young man onto a packed raft in a freezing stormy shipping lane is somehow less immoral, more okay. It's nonsense, and dangerous nonsense.

(others: FWIW I've just seen the news, and hadn't when I wrote my reference to "increased salience of the migrant crossings" in my previous comment, in case anyone thinks me callous. At that point I thought we were still just talking about Labour's criticism of Patel's handling etc.)

[jib]

Nov 25, 2021 0:05:27 GMT peterbell said:

Mercian,my understanding is that the international agreement is that asylum seekers can choose their preferred country. The agreement that it should be the country of entry was a Euro ruling but of course we are no longer in the EU. Just another benefit? of Brexit.

Oh come on!

Tragedy as this was, that is a new low in apportionment of blame. 

[eor]

Nov 25, 2021 0:08:08 GMT @laszlo said:

Nov 24, 2021 23:28:13 GMT eor said:

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the polling impact of Peppa will be... nothing at all.

I think it is correct for the committed voters - the question is about the non-committed ones.

[in DK is not weighted so any direct reference to the figures could be very wrong - but also could be very right.]

Agreed - my reasoning was that there were perhaps very many uncommitted voters when Ed Miliband tried to affect a misleading persona by eating the bacon sandwich, or Michael Foot sincerely showed his respects at the Cenotaph in clothing that to him seemed of no disrespect at all, there seem surely few people left who a) don't have a fairly clear idea what they think about Johnson and b) would actually vote in the next GE. 

Tangentially I think you may have a point in that there could be a temporary switch from CON to DK as there has been on previous occasions when Johnson has said things that are controversial. 

[peterbell]

If you have data to the contrary please provide it. I'm not blaming this tragedy on Brexit because most of these migrants would try to reach UK anyhow but it appears to be a fact that we can't stop them coming to the UK because of Brexit.

[oldnat]

Interesting thread by Prof Davis on the efficacy of PCR testing in England. following on from the continuing Immensa scandal.

NB This is nothing to do with the merits or otherwise of government responses to COVID, but specifically on the efficiency (or lack of it) that the UKGOV model of contract allocation may have worked - very much a political, as opposed to an epidemiological matter.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1452285348453752840.html

[oldnat]

EOR

I think we frequently misunderstand each other's posts, so for clarity, can you explain the wording in your "when Ed Miliband tried to affect a misleading persona by eating the bacon sandwich, or Michael Foot sincerely showed his respects at the Cenotaph in clothing that to him seemed of no disrespect at all"?

I have no idea how that widely used image of Milliband eating a bacon sandwich came about, and have no idea as to whether that was something staged by Milliband and his team, or simply captured by a photographer. Can you clarify the source that makes it clear that he "tried to affect"? It could be that it was one of those daft constructed photo-ops that party publicists create - or not. I don't know, but you appear to.

Why "misleading"? If it was a deliberate ploy, are you suggesting that it was an attempt to counter a latent anti-Semitism in a portion of the electorate that wouldn't vote for a party led by someone of Jewish heritage, and that he was trying to mislead them by pretending that he was not of Jewish heritage [1]?

As to Foote's half-coat at the Remembrance Sunday ceremony, your wording appears to me to suggest an assumption that only a full length coat would "show respect" to the fallen, and your "to him seemed of no disrespect" is a sarcastic description.

[1] While dietary habits are strongly influenced by cultural traditions, they are not absolute - as demonstrated in the office I worked in where the woman of Jewish heritage grabbed a bacon roll when they were brought in on a Friday with the same enthusiasm as the rest of us - as did those of a Catholic background.

[eor]

oldnat - happy to clarify.

Here is a clear explanation of how the image of Miliband eating the bacon sandwich came about, from the person who took it.

www.huffpost.com/entry/ed-miliband-bacon-sandwich_n_5bbe27b0e4b01470d0580898

I refer to it as "misleading" only because I infer that he had, as politicians so often do, identified something that the Normal Person does that they should therefore be seen doing themselves. Like supporting football clubs or liking popular bands. You may choose to attribute a different motivation to his choice to publicly eat what was clearly an unfamiliar item in full view of the press.

And no, on Foot you misread my point entirely. My impression was that he himself saw no problem with his attire and intended no disrespect whatsoever. Others saw it differently, and my point was that for some who didn't follow politics closely it was likely their first clear impression of him, and I think he suffered for that.

Not everything's a dig at what you find important :-)

[oldnat]

EOR

Thanks for the link. From that it seems that Milliband didn't try to affect matters by staging that photo-op, so the assumption that you make as to his motivation in ordering a bacon sandwich seems totally unsubstantiated. Why do you assume that a bacon sandwich "was clearly an unfamiliar item" to him? Unless you are a person whose dietary heritage shuns pork, then I suspect that you too may have partaken of that delicacy on more than one occasion, and may have looked as awkward when trying to avoid the grease, butter and ketchup dripping on to you.

Incidentally, today is quintidi 5 Frimaire in the year of the Republic CCXXX, celebrating the pig, so good baconing to you!

I'm glad that you weren't being sarcastic about Foote's coat. It would have been of no account to anyone, had it not been for the Tory press describing it as a "donkey jacket", and screaming disrespect. Whether that made any difference to voters is another matter.

I'm reminded of the London based press screaming "disrespect" at Blackford, at this year's ceremony, for holding the wreath "upside down" as the card was at the bottom, not the top of the wreath.

Any effect in Scotland is likely to be minimal as that is the normal placement of the card here - as a quick glance at any war memorial will demonstrate.

Perhaps you credit the tabloid media and their venom with too much influence?

[eor]

My inference may be unfair. I don't know Ed Miliband, maybe he eats bacon sandwiches regularly and just happened to get snapped doing it incompetently by the photographers accompanying his election campaign. And maybe saying "lol, everyone makes a mess sometimes" just didn't occur to anyone on his staff, during or afterwards.

Or, maybe, he was doing what I said, trying to affect to an element of popular culture as politicians very often do.

Either way, it doesn't actually matter in the context of my original post - it's how people react to it that matters. My contention was that people saw Miliband's bacon sandwich thing as as politician being inauthentic and out of touch and that was damaging to him. Whether that was fair or not given his own intentions is not hugely relevant.

Likewise on Foot, the impression at the time is all I was referring to.

I would say the coverage (such as I saw it) of Blackford was a desperate attempt to make something out of nothing, as indeed happened more than once with Corbyn at the same event in other years. I don't defend that, I wish that wasn't how things are. But it doesn't change that a bunch of people saw Foot looking a bit scruffy at the Cenotaph and formed an impression, and that may have had a lasting effect, even tho he intended no disrespect at all.

[steve]

Mercian and JIB

If the UK government allowed asylum seekers to cross the channel by ferry rather than risk drowning when hit by one it would resolve both such tragedy as has just occurred and do the people carriers out of a job while making processing of the people simpler as you would know precisely when and where they would be arriving which resolves the policing issue on both sides of the channel.

Those found not to be legally entitled to remain could then be deported to their country of origin (not France) in the normal way.

That would be the humane and ethical approach the reason why people resort to other far more hazardous methods is because this option is denied by our government to them. Our government are not unique in their immorality on this issue but are one of the worst offenders regarding denying safe options for egress.

Those still trying to cross the channel by nefarious methods if such an approach were in place are then far more likely to be doing so for nefarious purposes which would simplify the job for everyone.

The fact that our right wing media and far right British nationalist politicians would throw a world beating hissy fit if such an approach were suggested would be an indicator of the ethical swamp they reside in.

[Danny]

Nov 24, 2021 19:03:12 GMT js said:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59399702.amp

Traffic light it is then.

Ambitious plans for the new coalition as well. Fingers crossed for policies driving higher wages in Germany, Europe needs it.

I notice their energy plan is wind power with surpluses used to produce hydrogen as fuel for low wind periods.  What I have been arguing fo here as at least a doable way of storing energy. Whereas spending money on nuclear des not in any way solve the problem of storing energy. Though it does help subsidies the military nuclear industry.

[Danny]

Nov 24, 2021 23:46:30 GMT mercian said:

Steve
"What precisely do you propose happens when having broken the internationally agreed treatment of asylum seekers, in a specific and limited way of course and endangered people's lives in flagrant disregard of the international laws of the sea if the French authorities refuse to be complicit?"

Well I may be wrong but my understanding was that the internationally agreed treatment of asylum seekers was that they should claim asylum in the first safe country they arrived in. We wouldn't know what that was, but they came from France, so France in turn should return them to whatever safe place they came from before that.

Also, though the media has concentrated on the few women and children involved in the disaster, it seems that most were young fit men just as most who safely get here appear to be. A lot of them come from the Middle East and apparently destroy their identity documents. If ISIS wanted to infiltrate western countries I wonder how they would do it?

 I think you are wrong- international law says any country must give shelter to assylum seekers regardless of how they arrive in that couuntry.

You are confusing this with EU law, which said it would be dealt with at the point of arrival within the EU. But we chose to leave that system.

Given that the UK is now an independent sovereign nation, i would be certain if the situation was refugees trying to leave the UK, the UK government would do nothing whatever to prevent them doing so. Johnson or Patel would be screamed at by the public for preventng them leaving!

Calais saying it costs them 8 million a year to check vehicles leaving for the UK, and they want that money refunded.

[moby]

Nov 25, 2021 0:26:59 GMT peterbell said:

If you have data to the contrary please provide it. I'm not blaming this tragedy on Brexit because most of these migrants would try to reach UK anyhow but it appears to be a fact that we can't stop them coming to the UK because of Brexit.

True but wasn't brexit supposed to give us the autonomy and control to manage this issue more effectively. That expectation was a total sham of course because issues like this always need trust and effective international cooperation which brexit has destroyed. Having spent many years in the MOJ, often coming across the problems of deporting offenders back to their country of origin I could see brexit was going to make a serious problem worse and it has.

[neilj]

Re the bacon sandwich and Foot's duffel coat, which wasn't a duffel coat and looking at pictures he didn't deserve the derision he got for it. Neither did Miliband eating  a bacon sandwich a little awkwardly, from the reaction by some media outlets one would think  he stole people's first born child. The reaction to how his brother David Miliband held a banana was also OTT. But Labour leaders have to accept they are held to a much higher level than Conservative leaders by some sections of the media. Whether it was Foot's coat or Miliband eating a bacon sandwich or even Starmer buying a field so his disabled mother could run a donkey sanctuary (the utter swine)

As to laying the wreath upside down, Johnson also did this in 2019, although the BBC did show footage from 2016 so it showed him putting it the right way around. This was explained as an accident, but some media outlets that were so critical of opposition leaders were far less worried about this

Having said all that, as I said earlier, it's not fair or right, but it is the reality, Labour (and other leaders including the SNP) have to accept that they are held to a  higher level than Tory leaders and you might just as well complain that it gets dark at night.  Johnson often looks like a bag of sh@t tide up in the middle, but it is just brushed away. The same leniency is not given to opposition leaders

[jib]

Nov 25, 2021 6:59:45 GMT moby said:

Nov 25, 2021 0:26:59 GMT peterbell said:

If you have data to the contrary please provide it. I'm not blaming this tragedy on Brexit because most of these migrants would try to reach UK anyhow but it appears to be a fact that we can't stop them coming to the UK because of Brexit.

True but wasn't brexit supposed to give us the autonomy and control to manage this issue more effectively. That expectation was a total sham of course because issues like this always need trust and effective international cooperation which brexit has destroyed. Having spent many years in the MOJ, often coming across the problems of deporting offenders back to their country of origin I could see brexit was going to make a serious problem worse and it has.

I'm afraid that we are going to see refugees coming through for a long time now after the collapse of the Blair - Bush puppet Government in Afghanistan. There is a steady stream from other states broken by the warmongering mentality that was prevalent in the early 2000s.

A lesson to all, whether driven by ideological or religious zeal or a Messiah complex, war rarely solves much. In the case of Afghanistan, it would have been better never to have intervened and it's a sad situation all round.

[barbara]

Yesterday was the inevitable consequence of the populist policies followed by this government. Instead of explaining the international rules around asylum and our role in following them to the British public, then creating legitimate routes of entry for asylum seekers while making clear that those who don't meet the published criteria will be returned to their countries of origin, just pander to the mob and get your right wing mates in the media to demonise the poor souls desperate to escape the hell holes that us and other Western nations created through our interference. And then when tragedy strikes just shout louder and blame everybody else.

Oh for a grown up government of any political hue.

[Deleted]

jib also the situation in Belarus and the border with Poland ( @laszlo provided some good info t'tother day but easy to find on internet)

I've posted quite a lot of recent polling on Brits views (YG and R&W: current approach is 'too soft') and will post a UN piece. Note lower down when they refer to 'Europe has sought to contain migrant arrivals through the questionable practice of outsourcing boundaries' that Turkey is quite worrying at the moment.

www.un.org/en/academic-impact/europe-and-refugee-crisis-challenge-our-civilization

Agree entirely on the need to reduce 'push' factors (eg end the 'regime change' approach (direct wars or indirect support of uprisings as per 'Arab Spring') that create power vacuums, years/decades of conflict and as we've seen recently in Afghanistan no long-term solution) but there is also a need to reduce the 'pull' factors and that is something Patel and HMG can do - at it will involve the courts. I don't want the RW press to inflame the issues but the polling is quite clear and Starmer would be foolish (politically speaking) to push for the kind of 'open door' policy that a small minority of Brits want - I expect he'll engage in some 'virtue signalling', bit of 'Captain Hindsight' stuff, but offer no LAB policy (hardly a bold prediction given that is his approach to everything and the risks he'd face if he made immigration a 'live' discussion within LAB)

I'll also repost this YG article from 3Nov'21. I've simplistically used the terms 'legal' v 'illegal' as Patel will face legal challenge on that (see useful links provided by colin ) but folks have a very nuanced view on immigration. My concern is that if we don't control 'illegal' immigration then it will only see a rise in the anti all immigration (something that is a much bigger problem in many EUropean countries, see YG Eurotrack polling)

yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/11/03/what-concerns-british-public-about-immigration-pol

[birdseye]

We need top be realistic when talking of illegal migrants. They are nothing if not rational. Their conditions in France are apalling - can you imagine the political reaction here if there was a shanty camp torn down by the police in winter leaving migrants with no shelter, food or money? By comparison the treatment here is more civilised as it should be. But the migrants also know that the chances of them being returned to their country of origin are next to zero. They destroy their documents, their home countries refuse to take them without proof they are citizens, and we have a well established legal circus snarling up any court hearings.

So in short, they are way better off when they get here and have every chance of their stay being permanent. What would you do in their shoes? Its really just a modern version of the Irish migrations to the USA.

[Danny]

Nov 25, 2021 7:45:11 GMT @jib said:

I'm afraid that we are going to see refugees coming through for a long time now after the collapse of the Blair - Bush puppet Government in Afghanistan.

We are going to see a fair few coming now because having left the Eu we are no longer able to just send them back to France. They know we have left the Eu and therefore they cannot be returned, so its worth the risk of getting to the UK.  More and more will come.

In this respect as many others, being a member of the EU gave the UK real power over its neighbours. Leavers threw away real sovereignty in exchange for a dream sovereignty which is meaningless. Leavers made the Uk a vassal state of the EU.

As i said before, if the situation was reversed and Johnson was beng asked by France to stop migrants going the other way, he would be slaughtered by the same people complaining about France not intervening. Brexiteers created this problem.

[Deleted]

JIB

@"In the case of Afghanistan, it would have been better never to have intervened and it's a sad situation all round."

I disagree.

It would have been better to stay-and build on the civil society , emancipation of women, and "normal life" being constructed over two decades by devoted hardworking NGOs, UN agencies -and the Afghan people. A few troops,and over time a less corrupt and more appropriate governance model would have been a modest price to pay for the good of Afhhanistan.

We have plunged them back into the Middle Ages.

Pictures in my paper this morning include Afghans who worked for western NGOs, kneeling on the Dungeness shingle with hands raised in triumph.