Far less than there would have been pre-Brexit. The facts - that are beginning to sink in to some - are that a high level of immigration is vital for economic growth in the UK and that free movement within the EU was a perfect way of dealing with labour shortages, with people coming here to do jobs that wouldn't otherwise get done, and then going home again. Sadly, the Labour party under Starmer is too timid to say this. The right wing media can't admit that they sold us a Brexit pup though, so the immigration outrage is relatively muted currently.
This season has taken 20 years off all our lives. 40 off Balogun’s if I see him as we go to the same barber.
The blob that definitely exists but has been powerless to stop Brexit or the Tories having a huge majority or being in power for the vast majority of the last X number of years or the swathes of tax-exiled right wing propaganda outlets.
I’m sure that next week, with some more violent imagery suggesting betrayal, unfair odds stacked against ‘us’, conspiracies masterminded by the liberal elite and Soros, or Emmanuel Goldstein (one for Stainsey), Littlejohn with start the argument that ‘strong leadership’ is needed to protect our ‘traditions, values and freedoms’, the essence of ‘Britishness’. And perhaps the Mail will give away some armbands and a download of patriotic marching songs. Authoritarian populism 101. Enemies everywhere polluting our precious bodily fluids!
Wow. Food price controls. Bit Soviet Union isn’t it? Let’s add capitalists to the list of enemies undermining our greatness. Love to see a Tory government trying to intervene and control markets, warms the heart this admission that competition has failed. Up next - ration books!
As you say, not very Conservative but I don’t think it’s a bad idea necessarily at all. I honestly doubt it’ll happen. There’s a narrative building that retailers and suppliers are exploiting inflation for greed but it’s simply not true. Tesco etc. make single-digit margins overall and choose to make a loss on various food items and a reasonably large margin on others. Suppliers typically make bigger margins than that but even with the cost increases they’re putting through which aren’t entirely passed on to consumers they aren’t making the margins they did even a few years ago. They’ve been squeezed for a long time by the retailers who contrary to popular belief have tried to give consumers the best price possible and undercut each other plus obviously being squeezed in recent years by energy prices, salaries etc. In the short term though it might net out to be a good thing. Longer term it will squeeze smaller suppliers out and we’ll have less choice of brands from a few multinationals. Longer term than that you probably lose say a Morrisons and Aldi maybe fills that void but then longer term than that you move towards monopolies which risk much higher prices for us. I don’t mind it being explored though if we have bright enough people in charge to explore it. At the moment I get the feeling it’s the government shooting from the hip.
I haven’t really thought it through to be honest, it was just the spectacle of the Tories resorting to this type of tacit admission that free market capitalism leads to suffering that I found arresting. Though I suppose all the interventions during COVID, the state taking over failing rail companies and whatever they are plying at with energy prices all say the same thing - our core belief is bullshit. And we know it, but we still believe ultimately it will work. Classic doublethink.
