Off Topic The Politics Thread

Fixed it for you!

 

Shouldn't it be 52%? I hope they enjoy their lavish party/celebrations/gifts while so many people in the EU live in poverty.

 

Fixed properly

 

Depends on your point of view, Ellers - either percentage will do.

Sadly, EU bureaucrats are no different to the establishment in the UK. When they celebrate something, it's usually on the public expense account.

 

I don't think he was carrying a taser, Tooting - he might have had a truncheon. He ran to intercept the intruder. If he'd had a sidearm, he could have drawn it and held it down by his side ready for use. He was ex-army so presumably had dealt with firearms.

More (not necessarily all) police need to be armed in my view. Particularly in the provinces, where it could take an armed police unit in excess of 20 minutes to get to a terrorist incident. All armed police should have body cameras which will help assist an enquiry if an officer shoots an alleged perpetrator. In fact, all police should have body cameras - there's been a marked reduction in claims by members of racial minorities that say they have been racially abused by the police. As soon as the complainant realises an incident is on film, their allegation is not pursued.

 

Or, because they are wearing a camera that will show what happened, police who might have done so before no longer racially abuse members of the public. Or any other form of abuse or lack of respect, for that matter. It's a good thing and makes for a better world.

 

Because police and the public know that their recorded interaction may come before a court, a rash of politeness may break out...

 

World's richest countries 2016 by GDP per capita - based on population size

source: www.worldsrichestcountries.com
1. Qatar
2. Luxembourg - EU
3. Macao
4. Singapore
5. Brunei
6. Kuwait
7. Ireland - EU
8. Norway
9. UAE
10. San Marino
11. Switzerland
12. Hong Kong
13. United States
14. Saudi Arabia
15. The Netherlands - EU
16. Bahrain
17. Sweden - EU
18. Australia
19. Germany - EU
20. Iceland
21. Austria - EU
22. Taiwan
23. Denmark - EU
24. Canada
25. Belgium - EU
26. Oman
27. United Kingdom - about to leave the EU

That makes the UK only the 9th richest country in the EU and the 27th richest in the world. Where is the poverty that you speak about????

 

Thanks to Tony Blair, the UK had a massive influx of poor migrants from Eastern Europe. Even if they're the nicest and most hard working people you can meet, it pushes the UK down the list. And there are the ghettos made up of those immigrants from outside the EU.

As to the EU, try adding Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and even Spain to the list.

 

By head of population, Ireland took in the highest numbers of Eastern Europeans from 2004 to date. Nearly 10% of our population is Polish without adding in the rest. It didn't do us any harm did it? My point to Ellers was, in terms of wealth, the UK is only average compared to other EU countries. No more or less. Ellers seems to be under the illusion that the UK is the richest country in the EU or something and everybody else is starving, which they are not.

 

Fingy, stop running down my country!

 

It depends on the nature and state of a country's economy whether a huge influx of impecunious immigrants is an enhancement. It may have worked for Ireland because you hadn't had huge influxes before that, as the UK had.

As to rich countries, you're right there are richer countries than the UK in the EU, and there are also many poorer. The effect of the Euro is that richer countries like Germany and others in the north of Europe have grown richer, and poorer countries are becoming desolate. All their bright and thrusting youth in Greece are leaving to go to north EU. We've all heard of the welfare state. Greece is THE Welfare State, existing on handouts determined by Germany and the Central Bank. Incredibly unhealthy

 

I agee with you Goldy. Greece is a basket case despite getting half it's debt written off. Most (not all) countries are below the European average in terms of wealth when they enter the EU. We are a classic example of that. With assistance from the stronger countries, the weaker countries get stronger and the countries who helped them get stronger also reap the benefits in terms of increased trade. That is what the club is all about.

 

But that's not happening in the Euro, Fing. North EU is flourishing, at the expense of the Southern states. The differential is increasing. It cannot be good for a country like Greece to subsist on handouts. It's bad for individual confidence and national pride

I hope the EU flourishes (so long as they are reasonable on Brexit...) but this north/south divide is a big problem for it going forward and there's no ready solution in sight.

 

The influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe has enhanced our economic welfare, Goldie. I sympathise with your point about immigrants from outside the EU though.

 

Are you saying that immigration to fill a need is positive? If so most people would agree with that and also with the opposite principle that if there are no jobs for them to do (jobs which the natives either won't do, because they don't like hard work or won't do for the money on offer) they should not be allowed in?

 

By and large, yes. I think the immigration arguments in the referendum campaign were mostly bogus. People are understandably concerned about immigration, but it seems to me that the focus should be more on those from outside the EU. Free movement of labour should be just that.

 

We've always had the ability to control immigration of non-EU economic migrants. Mrs May was unable to do so in her 6 years as Home Secretary, so I don't have much confidence in what will happen once we can control all immigration unless something changes for the better.

There is a lot of S**t-stirring in the press about freeloading immigrants on benefits, but it is far more rare than some people would have us believe. Most immigrants pay their way and contribute to our country. Yes, those who do not should be asked to go home. I'd be OK about an entry system that required immigrants to have work lined up and their right to remain depending on continuing to work and contribute - as long as that didn't give employers the right to exploit these people by generating fear that they'll be fired and deported if they don't accept reduced standards of safety and wages. It takes a bit of thought, but it should be possible to get it right.

Take temporary agricultural workers... The narrative in the media here is these people are OK about hard work and will work at jobs that Brits won't do and are happy to accept lower wages because they get more money here than they would at home. Well, employers would encourage that view, wouldn't they? It makes the poor employers look like Brits are too lazy and their plucky businesses would fail if it wasn't for the foreign workers. The reality is that - in this industry - large "agribusiness" farms deliberately recruit low-paid foreign workers for this job, using agencies to find and bring them to the UK and house them in crappy caravans on the farm to permit their businesses to run more profitably. Some people in this country point out at the way Saudis treat their foreign workers (and they should) yet remain ignorant of what's happening on their doorstep.

I'm not anti-employer, BTW, but I am anti some of the business practices of some employers in some industries. This is one of them.

How to fix it? I dunno. Things are never as simple as they seem, nor are the solutions as obvious, unless you are a simple person.

 

I agree - it's not at all simple. I work with companies that recruit a lot of migrant labour - the wages are not that bad yet they cannot recruit locally because locals will not do the work. I also work with a lot of employers who have difficulty with a significant minority of their local kids who simply cannot toe the line during their apprenticeships - a lot of them seem to think that the world owes them a living. Come the brave new world and there are two possibilities as I see it. Either the government bottles it and allows employers to continue to recruit foreign labour but primarily from outside the EU or the government stands up and deals with it probably by slashing social security benefits to the bone.

And of course there is the elephant in the room which is beginning to come into sharper focus. The task of government has to be to work out a method of keeping fully occupied those who are inevitably going to lose their jobs to robots in the next twenty years without punishing or condemning them financially. This is a ticking time bomb for as long as politicians devote all their energies into promises to tackle unemployment without planning for a future in which there will be less of it available.

There is one obvious solution namely the creation of a 4 day or even 3 day week.

 

Please please please Finglas, tell me you didn't post this as a reply to my post? You have just put up a list of rich countries based on population. Just because a country is rich doesn't mean there isn't poverty. Are you saying there is no poverty in Macao or the US? Have you seen some areas of the US?
Sorry mate you are well off the mark with that reply.