steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 10:54:18 GMT
grahamThat's a miss interpretation of the 1931 election it was won by a national government and while the Labour party parliamentary representation dropped by 80% the Labour party and national Labour vote was still in excess of 33% down just 4% the Labour recovery with 100+ extra seats resulted from just a 6% increase in vote share. Labour in all its forms vote share in 1931 was bigger than it was in 2019 where the party secured 200+ seats. That's first past the post for you..
|
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 10:58:08 GMT
leftieliberalWhile I would agree with much of your post I would add that the liberal democrat vote share did actually rise by 50% between 2015 and 19.
|
|
Danny
Member
Posts: 10,352
|
Post by Danny on Jul 11, 2023 11:28:27 GMT
leftieliberalWhile I would agree with much of your post I would add that the liberal democrat vote share did actually rise by 50% between 2015 and 19. Yeah...the problem is not just the share but how it is distributed. Current polled estimates of vote share could lead to very very different outcomes if that vote share is optimally distributed. Numbers at the moment look like a nailed on loss of power by con, but that could range from total labour landslide, to even lab minority largest party with significant number of libs. Events in Scotland may yet determine who wins there, which might affect a labour overall majority. A lib con coalition would be lib suicide. A lib lab one might not be better, certainly if handled as badly as their last coalition. |
|
|
|
Post by graham on Jul 11, 2023 11:39:05 GMT
graham That's a miss interpretation of the 1931 election it was won by a national government and while the Labour party parliamentary representation dropped by 80% the Labour party and national Labour vote was still in excess of 33% down just 4% the Labour recovery with 100+ extra seats resulted from just a 6% increase in vote share. Labour in all its forms vote share in 1931 was bigger than it was in 2019 where the party secured 200+ seats. That's first past the post for you.. Labour's GB share in 1931 was circa 31% compared with 33% received by Labour in 2019. It makes no sense at all to combine the National Labour vote share with the Labour share because the two parties opposed each other. Moreover, the National Labour candidates were endorsed by the Tories and other parties in the National Government. Most of those who voted for them were Tories and Liberals.. It would be just as pointless to combine Labour's vote shares in 1983 and 1987 with the support received by SDP candidates. |
|
neilj
Member
Posts: 6,366
|
Post by neilj on Jul 11, 2023 11:49:59 GMT
A rather ominous figure, are we in end times...
|
|
alurqa
Member
Freiburg im Breisgau's flag
Posts: 781
|
Post by alurqa on Jul 11, 2023 11:57:38 GMT
* I have just finished " The Earth Transformed" by Peter Frankopan. Ostensibly a fantastically detailed account of the effects of the earths natural cycles on human civilisations , its accounts of the post Columbus period have made a huge impression on me. He details the staggering plunder of natural resources and human beings undertaken by European countries in the Americas,Africa and Asia since the discovery of the New World and the rounding of The Cape. The wealth generated by this ,( often brutal) exploitation is vast and forms the basis of European economics still. The History of European colonialism is a long and vastly profitable one. I admit to being attracted to notions of fundamental truths and am too often persuaded of their existence, but I do wonder if the long era of colonial exploitation which underpins this continent's standards of living is fading away and with it our economic future. (Ignoring all the Tory gumph from Hauge, I'll respond to your last bit as that means I won't shout!!)
From the above I think you'd be very impressed with this:
Diane Coyle's review is very positive, and indeed I have not been disappointed. The bit about Rio Tinto (a company I have some shares in, but in which probably all pension funds are heavily invested in) and it's destruction last year of an important aboriginal heritage site -- and for a 'mere' $135m -- was sobering. But it's an at times astonishing eye-opener to what's going on in the world. I would heartily recommend it.
|
|
|
|
Post by alec on Jul 11, 2023 12:09:50 GMT
Okinawa Update: as previous, there has been growing concern about what's going on with covid in Okinawa, Japan, where hospitalisation rates are through the roof, and worse than at any time during the pandemic. However, worth bearing in mind that Okinawa is a relatively small island district, with a US naval base plus a strong tourist industry, serving Chinese and other nationalities alongside the domestic market.
There is no question something major is happening locally, but whether this is of wider concern remains in question. There are two alternative theories. Firstly, it's a new variant. The genomic surveillance from Okinawa itself is very thin, but from the reduced samples from elsewhere in Japan there isn't apparently anything particularly more spiteful in circulation, other than the new XBB2.3 family, which may or may not be a major shift. It could be variant induced, in which case that would be news on the bad to terrible scale.
Alternatively, the infection history of Japan may hold the key, with several commentators pointing to the fact that Japan has had a relatively quiet 6 months, compared to many countries, and although they were still vaccinating in large numbers relatively recently, waning immunity might be the key. There is some evidence to back this up. with serology surveys from Feb/Mar showing antibody levels at 45-50% (compared to ~75% in the UK). That could mean we are seeing an explosion of cases because immunity has waned. As the case numbers and hospitalisations now appear to be spreading northwards through Japan, it may just be that this is the next wave, and isn't so much about a new mystery variant but a regular feature of living with covid.
Is this a better alternative? No, would be the clear answer. We know that repeat infections increase the risk of long term disease and death, and we know that the more infections we get the greater the number of people who will succumb to long covid, so the idea that Japan is going to take a battering because they haven't been sick enough already in the last six months isn't remotely reassuring to anyone sensible. It's merely a distribution thing; spreading the sickness out to avoid single large peaks that overwhelm your health care system isn't an effective management strategy, as you'll still end up with lots of long term sick and associated economic disruption.
The variant hypothesis is however somewhat supported by the observation that the rate of hospitalisations is ahead of any previous point of the pandemic in Japan, albeit with caveats over testing coverage etc.
So it remains something of a mystery in the specific case of Okinawa, although there is no great mystery with the bigger picture. Covid is still crashing through in repeated waves, and if, like the UK and Canada, we're currently in a lull, that's just a temporary state of affairs. In Wales, wastewater covid signals have just turned upwards quite sharply, with the Zoe app also suggesting an R value in Wales on 1.3, so something of a surge potentially underway there. The NE USA is also seeing the first signs of an uptick in wastewater signals. Australia has just come through a pretty rough June, with a marked peak of hospital covid patients, and they are now struggling against another bad 'flu winter, a year on from when 'immunity debt' was meant to have been repaid. In Chile, a nasty covid wave has now been replaced by the worst RSV outbreak on record, with huge strain on the healthcare system, with children born after the last of the covid restrictions were ended the worst affected, so again, not immunity debt, and with doctors openly suggesting the impact of covid on immune systems is enabling other viruses to spread more easily and display more sever clinical symptoms.
So I think as we work through summer, we're beginning to get a glimpse of the future; repeat sickness, with elevated death rates, reduced life expectancy, labour force strain, educational disruption, and health services struggling.
It'll just keep coming, until we address the engineering challenges of infection control.
|
|
alurqa
Member
Freiburg im Breisgau's flag
Posts: 781
|
Post by alurqa on Jul 11, 2023 12:17:07 GMT
I presume you do know that this can never happen for exactly the same reasons that we can't simply ship back immigrants, because of that bloody European human rights guff. The EU and the US were really clever in incorporating that into the Good Friday Agreement, well away from the clutches of any British politician. The bigger question is, which numptie came up with the idea that captial punishment was bad in the first place, and imposed it on the rest of Europe so they could do the same to us? I'm sure that the Birmingham 6 and the Guildford 4 wouldn't have agreed with you. Once you have hanged someone for a crime they did not commit you cannot bring them back to life. Those were just two of the big miscarriages of justice in that time period. Sorry, I've clearly obfuscated my point too much. After the war the London Treaty, which was signed in 1949, set up the Council of Europe. One of its stunning achievements was to get the whole of Europe to sign up to agreeing to abolish capital punishment. Obviously it was heavily influenced by the time, being so near to war.
And now that we all agree captial punishment is bad, that decision is locked into the GFA. I fully concur that 'once you have hanged someone for a crime they did not commit you cannot bring them back to life.' And that is my primary objection to capital punishment. But neither the Birmingham Six nor the Guilford Four were executed.
|
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 12:21:45 GMT
Spaffer fails to hand over the WhatsApp messages he promised to the covid enquiry and is now in breach of the order from the enquiry judge. youtu.be/U9Y2-1SsYSY |
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 12:23:04 GMT
"Key pillars of illegal migration bill have been abandoned, says Patel"
Would that be the illegal sections by any chance?
|
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 12:25:31 GMT
"Refugees, asylum seekers, torture victims and campaign groups urge MPs to vote against asylum bill
Campaigners are urging MPs to “stand on the right side of history” by voting against the government’s controversial asylum bill.
Refugees, asylum seekers, more than 60 victims of torture and around 30 campaign groups have written to members of the House of Commons to express their “horror” at the bill and urging them to vote against the proposed legislation."
Fat chance for most Tories ethics is just the county residence of some of their racist base.
|
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 12:31:25 GMT
In news from across the pond the Republicans " whistleblower " over the bogus Biden corruption claims turns out to be a Chinese spy and arms dealer currently on the run from the FBI, right wing politicians know all the best people. youtu.be/p5s_1YkD628 |
|
pjw1961
Member
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Posts: 8,569
|
Post by pjw1961 on Jul 11, 2023 12:33:10 GMT
"Refugees, asylum seekers, torture victims and campaign groups urge MPs to vote against asylum bill Campaigners are urging MPs to “stand on the right side of history” by voting against the government’s controversial asylum bill. Refugees, asylum seekers, more than 60 victims of torture and around 30 campaign groups have written to members of the House of Commons to express their “horror” at the bill and urging them to vote against the proposed legislation." Fat chance for most Tories ethics is just the county residence of some of their racist base. You county-ist!  |
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 12:39:36 GMT
grahamIrrespective of whether you include national Labour or not it doesn't make a lot of difference as it was only 1.5% of the vote. The fact remains there was no vast collapse in Labour party support in 1931 and no massive recovery in 1935 at most it was a fall of 4% then a rise of 8% The changes in support for the Tory and Labour party since 2019 are far greater. The huge drop in Labour party parliamentary reputation was as a result of the impacts of first past the post. Why do you feel the need to question irrefutable facts?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2023 12:54:04 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by graham on Jul 11, 2023 13:04:57 GMT
graham Irrespective of whether you include national Labour or not it doesn't make a lot of difference as it was only 1.5% of the vote. The fact remains there was no vast collapse in Labour party support in 1931 and no massive recovery in 1935 at most it was a fall of 4% then a rise of 8% The changes in support for the Tory and Labour party since 2019 are far greater. The huge drop in Labour party parliamentary reputation was as a result of the impacts of first past the post. Why do you feel the need to question irrefutable facts? The collapse in Labour's parliamentary numbers in 1931 was largely due to the party facing a united opposition running against its candidates. Most contests that year were Labour v a candidate supported by the National Government. Polling 31% in that scenario is much less impressive than polling 33% with several other candidates running in each constituency - as happened in 2019. Labour's vote share actually fell by 6.5% in 1931.
|
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 13:41:36 GMT
Fees for private schools have risen by 40% since 2016 don't see many parents sending their little Ruperts and Cynthias to state schools instead. Why should removing bogus charity status be any different. youtu.be/3wgN5AE_2FMBtw Spaffer showing his contempt for his new offspring by naming the poor little bastard Odysseus |
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 13:44:23 GMT
grahamA proportional system would have netted Labour around 200 seats in 1931, irrespective of the vote for the national government. This would have risen to around 250 in 1935. It's clearly the impact of first past the post.
|
|
|
|
Post by athena on Jul 11, 2023 13:51:22 GMT
I'm always hesitant to get involved in debates about migration. Fundamentally I'm strongly in favour of a drastic reduction in the global population (because it makes tackling the climate crisis so much easier). I'm also strongly in favour of shrinking the UK population - our island is too urbanised, too densely populated and its biodiversity is appallingly depleted already. As others have said, the never-ending growth paradigm is broken, so we shouldn't be importing healthy young people to boost the economy, nor to look after our ageing population.
On the other hand, assuming that the UK remains relatively habitable as the climate catastrophe unfolds, we should expect to take in climate refugees, even if that means controls on the reproduction of people who're already here.
I can't claim to be confident that we'll succeed in getting the global population down to a sensible level in a managed way or to particularly like any of the methods I can think of for doing so, but that doesn't alter my conviction that this is what we need to do. I'm not going to join my voice with the xenophobic anti-immigrant brigade, but perhaps a first step towards stabilising and then shrinking the UK population would be to curtail immigration drastically. As a concomitant we should do much more to tackle refugee problems at source and to help the world's centres of population growth improve living standards without further population growth (to reduce an important driver of economic migration). It's a long time since I looked at any figures, but it certainly used to be the case that women have fewer children when they have access to reliable contraception, when infant mortality falls and when economic prosperity reduces the contribution of child labour to the household economy.
I would also like us to take as many refugees as possible directly from their country of origin, because if we only or mostly take those who are able to make their way to these shores we discriminate against women, young children, older people and anyone who is frail or disabled - in other words those who are most vulnerable. If we took enough refugees directly from their region of origin I could probably live with a draconian approach to unauthorised arrivals.
|
|
|
|
Post by graham on Jul 11, 2023 14:03:48 GMT
graham A proportional system would have netted Labour around 200 seats in 1931, irrespective of the vote for the national government. This would have risen to around 250 in 1935. It's clearly the impact of first past the post. It would have depended on the form of PR used . Strict propotionality would likely have produced circa 185 Labour seats that year. On the other hand, the fact that most contests were straight fights between Labour and a candidate supporting the National government will have helped prop up Labour's vote share despite the fact that barely 50 MPs were elected. Under a PR system that would not have happened , and it is likely that Labour's vote share would have fallen back to 25% or so. It is also worth recalling that until post World War 2 none of the parties contested every seat in the way we have long come to expect. The Tories had no candidate in the Rhondda or Ebbw Vale etc - whilst Labour did not fight very rural seats. Quite a few MPs were actually returned 'Unopposed' - something which still occurs in rural areas at local elections. |
|
c-a-r-f-r-e-w
Member
A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
Posts: 6,692
|
Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Jul 11, 2023 14:06:35 GMT
Yes, this is an important issue Danny. It’s not inevitable that full employment leads to inflation, but it’s non-trivial to ensure that it doesn’t. If the economy is at full capacity then this can lead to inflation, especially if injecting more money into the economy, as if business is at full capacity and cannot hire more people, then it can’t produce more goods to pull prices back down. As you suggest, if you can’t get more workers, then an alternative is to invest in greater productivity via technology etc., but this is a risk, especially in eras of higher inflation and hence higher interest rates. Especially if you then get an inflationary shock on top, as happened in the Seventies, with really high interest rates wrecking swathes of industry dependent on borrowing to invest (as well as to make stuff in advance of payment). This is why it can help if the government acts to keep prices down, in turn helping to limit interest rate rises, and to help with some of the productivity investment, especially the riskier stuff. IMO interest rate rises are fuelling the 'wage-price' spiral but it shouldn't be long before real wages turn +ve (for those that understand base effects)
Record wage growth fuels fresh inflation fearswww.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66156713Anyway, instead of a 'Groundhog Day' then one idea would be to not allow BoE such freedom on interest rates but put the 'inflation' target more in control of HMG (ie HMG can control the prices of mortgages and the 'pass-thru' effect on rents) In extremis then 'overnight' interest rates are permanently locked at say 3%, with the rest of the yield curve influenced by 'market forces' and HMT policies. In 'bad times' with low inflation then bond yields would drop but Keynesian policy would boost spending, boost inflation and move us back to 'good times' (OK levels of inflation). The problem is obviously the good times which any govt would like to keep rolling into the election cycle - rather than raise taxes, reduce money supply*, etc to 'cool things down'. Pretty major flaw and that is the price we pay for 'democracy'. * Inflation in 'assets' and the money supply is ignored by BoE (et al). In 'boom' times then there could be various ways to reduce the money supply (eg if house pries are rising above inflation then reduce availability of credit and/or charge a premium for credit to reduce demand). Hiking taxes in boom times should be obvious but Thatcher spassed the O&G revenues on tax cuts and Blair spassed the NICE decade on public spending. Govts don't like setting up a rainy day fund for the next govt to spass (other than Major perhaps?) Yes, it’s something of an irony if high interest rates result in stoking inflation after all, rather than reducing it, and not necessarily a new phenomenon, given that high interest rates didn’t seem to work so well for Thatcher (unless as her chief economist suggested, the idea wasn’t to cut inflation but to trash the unions and favour capital via unemployment induced by high interest rates and cuts). cheltenham-gloucesteragainstcuts.org/2013/04/09/former-thatcher-adviser-alan-budd-spills-the-beans-on-the-use-of-unemployment-to-weaken-the-working-class-sound-familiar/The thing about having more money in the economy sloshing about in the good times, is that it will tend to be inflationary where supply is constrained, where business is unable to respond to extra demand, so it’s up to government to unlock supply. An obvious example is doing things to ensure more housebuilding, say. It can also invest in more counter-inflationary things, including energy. (Though there is an argument that investing in green energy won’t reduce prices by as much as hoped, as it will increase demand for and hence push up prices on things like lithium and cobalt. Then again, there are new battery technologies able to avoid cobalt and to use sodium in place of lithium etc.) |
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 15:12:42 GMT
Newspaper that paid a 16 year old girl to leave school so that they could publish topless photos of her, says with a straight face that it's a scandal that a man pays £35000 for photos of a 17 year old.
|
|
|
|
Post by crossbat11 on Jul 11, 2023 15:22:22 GMT
If we ever did get a form of PR for GEs (highly unlikely in my lifetime IMO) The chances certainly aren't improved by all the people who say they support electoral reform, but carry on voting for parties that are opposed - and try to insist that everyone else should too. An interesting thought, and I suspect you are including the Labour Party in the parties that are "opposed" to electoral reform. I think that's a bit of a stretch. The current leadership are lukewarm but there is huge support for electoral reform within the party itself; its members, MPs and affiliated trade unions. Also leading and influential figures like Andy Burnham are strongly in favour. I think the momentum is ultimately unstoppable irrespective of the leadership's current ambivalence. As I said yesterday, unless millions of voters are going to suddenly decamp to the Liberal Democrats and Greens and sweep them into Downing Street, a Labour Government would appear to be the best chance of making some political progress on the issue. I've said before that one of my reasons for favouring a minority Labour Government reliant on Lib Dem, maybe even Green, parliamentary support, is that it might be the best way to hasten constitutional and electoral reform. Going back to my snooker metaphor, this is my initial shot when I get a chance to vote. Get Labour into office and then keep campaigning within that party for it to adopt electoral reform as a policy. The one political party implacably opposed to electoral reform, the Tories, are then out of office. Seems like the first essential step in the game to me. I'm working hard with others to bring this about within the party. I'm not carping or cavilling from the sides, just doing as best I can, as I see it anyway, to make it happen within our current voting system. I'm engaging with the democracy and politics as they are now not how I'd ideally like them to be. Assuming you are supportive of electoral reform, what's your plan? Voting Lib Dem or Green and hoping they form a Government? |
|
|
|
Post by alec on Jul 11, 2023 15:27:47 GMT
athena - "I can't claim to be confident that we'll succeed in getting the global population down to a sensible level in a managed way or to particularly like any of the methods I can think of for doing so, but that doesn't alter my conviction that this is what we need to do." Fully with you on the need to dramatically control the global population. Realistically, I can see no humanity inspired route for this to happen, because as a species we appear uniquely stupid and inherently selfish. Unnecessary reproduction is little more than individuals pursuing their own selfish desires to have families without regard for others around them. (Oops, that's going to spark an almighty pile on I suspect, but it's true. Those choosing to have children are every bit as selfish as those choosing the freedom of being child free - we're all doing what suits us, but the child rearers have a tendency to elevate their choice to breed to something akin to sainthood.) Diversion over. I have also felt (since I worked it out in a moment of revelation when I was 14) that we will face unstoppable mass migration into the global north, unless we achieve that population decline. There's nothing whatsoever we can do about, aside from suck it up or have armed guards at every border point and sit back and watch migrants starve or drown trying to break in. On a happier note, nature may be riding to the rescue here, as I'm reading increasing data showing male fertility impacts from covid. The majority of males experience a significant reduction in their ability to generate happy and active sperm after even asymptomatic infections, with this impact lasting between 3 - 6 months. That in itself is likely to put a dent in the global birthrate, but so far, the studies I've seen only relate to a single infectious episode. With repeat multiple infections, the ability of covid to disrupt the functioning of the testicles on a more permanent basis isn't yet known, although there are increasing reports of post covid penile thrombosis during erections caused by micro clots in the penis (very painful, apparently, and makes all forms of sex eye watering in a not-at-all pleasant way). So I think there's at least a chance that our own stupidity as a species will do us proud in the end. Meanwhile, Honduras brings back mandatory indoor masking and social distancing after a further surge of covid threatens. All going swimmingly. Unless you're an infected sperm, in which case, it's just round and round in aimless circles.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2023 15:41:05 GMT
I liked this:
“ Kinnock says the government has “sent more home secretaries to Rwanda than they have asylum seekers” “
|
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 15:48:25 GMT
@fecklessmiser
"Lib Dem Tim Farron says bill is 'worst piece of legislation' he has ever seen
Now it is the turn of Tim Farron, the former Liberal Democrat leader, who says the bill is “comfortably the worst piece of legislation” he has seen come to the House of Commons.
He said:
This remains, in my 18-plus years in this place, comfortably the worst piece of legislation I have seen come to this house.
This, he says, is because it is based on “several bogus understandings of the truth” and that it has a “deplorable bias to the inhumane”.
|
|
steve
Member
Posts: 12,624
|
Post by steve on Jul 11, 2023 16:00:11 GMT
I have to conclude that the reason why sky news has had almost uninterrupted coverage of the possible potential offence that isn't currently being investigated by any one by an unnamed celebrity,for the last six hours, while totally ignoring the parliamentary debate on the government's xenophobic legislation ,is because it involves a commercial rival.
It's an utterly disproportionate response and undermines the concept of responsible journalism.
At worst a minor scandal by a celebrity is being given exclusivity over legislation that if passed unchanged will kill people , forcibly rendition others and leave the UK as a pariah state akin to Belarus.
|
|
domjg
Member
Posts: 5,123
|
Post by domjg on Jul 11, 2023 16:13:23 GMT
@fecklessmiser "Lib Dem Tim Farron says bill is 'worst piece of legislation' he has ever seen Now it is the turn of Tim Farron, the former Liberal Democrat leader, who says the bill is “comfortably the worst piece of legislation” he has seen come to the House of Commons. He said: This remains, in my 18-plus years in this place, comfortably the worst piece of legislation I have seen come to this house. This, he says, is because it is based on “several bogus understandings of the truth” and that it has a “deplorable bias to the inhumane”. Yet that d*h* who wrote the article in the New Statesman we were discussing yesterday apparently thinks Britain is a beacon of liberalism in Europe.. Well of course he doesn't really and just wanted to write a provocative article. |
|
|
|
Post by crossbat11 on Jul 11, 2023 16:21:19 GMT
Newspaper that paid a 16 year old girl to leave school so that they could publish topless photos of her, says with a straight face that it's a scandal that a man pays £35000 for photos of a 17 year old. I heard an extraordinary interview about this yesterday with the Sun's former editor, Kelvin McKenzie. The Gammon's gammon. He was advising the BBC presenter to end the speculation and reveal himself to the public. He thought it might be the best course of action for him in the long run. As if McKenzie cares about the presenter's interests. Kelvin McKenzie on his high horse. Pass the sick bag Alice. I think it's high time Liverpool gave him the freedom of the city. An unescorted walk from Anfield on a match day would be a good place for him to start. |
|
Mr Poppy
Member
Teaching assistant and now your elected PM
Posts: 3,774
|
Post by Mr Poppy on Jul 11, 2023 16:26:15 GMT
I'm always hesitant to get involved in debates about migration. Fundamentally I'm strongly in favour of a drastic reduction in the global population (because it makes tackling the climate crisis so much easier). I'm also strongly in favour of shrinking the UK population - our island is too urbanised, too densely populated and its biodiversity is appallingly depleted already. As others have said, the never-ending growth paradigm is broken, so we shouldn't be importing healthy young people to boost the economy, nor to look after our ageing population. On the other hand, assuming that the UK remains relatively habitable as the climate catastrophe unfolds, we should expect to take in climate refugees, even if that means controls on the reproduction of people who're already here. I can't claim to be confident that we'll succeed in getting the global population down to a sensible level in a managed way or to particularly like any of the methods I can think of for doing so, but that doesn't alter my conviction that this is what we need to do. I'm not going to join my voice with the xenophobic anti-immigrant brigade, but perhaps a first step towards stabilising and then shrinking the UK population would be to curtail immigration drastically. As a concomitant we should do much more to tackle refugee problems at source and to help the world's centres of population growth improve living standards without further population growth (to reduce an important driver of economic migration). It's a long time since I looked at any figures, but it certainly used to be the case that women have fewer children when they have access to reliable contraception, when infant mortality falls and when economic prosperity reduces the contribution of child labour to the household economy. I would also like us to take as many refugees as possible directly from their country of origin, because if we only or mostly take those who are able to make their way to these shores we discriminate against women, young children, older people and anyone who is frail or disabled - in other words those who are most vulnerable. If we took enough refugees directly from their region of origin I could probably live with a draconian approach to unauthorised arrivals.UK already has a very low 'reproduction rate' (1.56 per woman) without whatever you wish to consider as 'controls' at 1.56 per woman*. IE we'd have a shrinking population with net zero immigration and hence I'm OK with some immigration. As per comments made by colin and shevii then with global warming and fairly easy ability to travel between continents then the second of the highlighted comments is not "xenophobic or anti-immigrant". I fully agree we need to 'curtail immigration' although not necessarily 'drastically'. IMO we need to control immigration with stuff like a 'points based immigration' policy. I expect you'd find a lot of people who also agree with your final point but obviously that is not as easy as it sounds. Comments about 'queue jumping', 'economic migrants', 'criminal gangs', etc as well as the human suffering and risk to life from 'small boat' crossings are portrayed as "xenophobic or anti-immigrant" by some people but if we don't do anything to 'stop the boats' then we'll be taking in so many immigrants via illegal/irregular routes that we'll have to start curtailing the legal/regular routes (and refugees from legal routes). I'd also suggest people take notice of the swing to the Far-Right in some EU countries who are at the entry points to Europe. If the 'illegal/irregular' immigration issue is not dealt with by 'centre'(ish) govts then folks will start to consider Alternatives in places like Deutschland, etc. It would be incredibly naive to assume that couldn't happen in UK if we don't get a grip on the situation soon - changing the law to deal with the issue and implementing Rwanda scheme asap. I hope Rishi doesn't think he can "dither+delay" on the Illegal Immigration Bill now it has been 'ping ponged' back to HoC. * Hover over UK to see UK number. Also note the countries with rapidly rising populations (ie numbers > 2) data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?view=map |
|
