What to do with all the migrants in Italy & Greece? Once you save them from the waters, take them ashore and give them treatment, food etc, what then? Do you turn them back to sea and dock them back in Libya? Or do you absorb them into an a Europe/UK that's already considerably populated by brown skinned people with primitive beliefs? Make no mistake, the biggest argument against the latter is mainly due to skin pigmentation. Their religion doesn't help either. If this was a migrant problem from somewhere where the asylum seekers where white and Christian/secular, there'd be more willingness to let them in. We can cope with a Mediterranean tanned colour, just about. Move further south where the people become Arabic and distinctly dark and it becomes a big problem. Trek on further still and the blacker they become, the less we want them. Chuck in a belief system that appears to us to be from the middle ages and we want little to do with these savages. So, what to do?
Clever budget. I think the abolition of welfare for more than two children (going forward) is important to set an example. World population has doubled in 40 years from 1959 (3 billion) to 1999 (6 billion). Great to see the living wage brought in for low paid workers. And increases in Defence spending - we live in an increasingly dangerous world, sadly.
If it was down to me, take in a generously fair share of refugees, help them integrate and rebuild their lives and improve our international reputation along the way (ie that we're more than long-distance meddlers). That, to me would start to show a Great Britain that isn't just clinging to the coat tails of the big boys while churning out anectdotes of former achievements. In terms of this forum, you're swinging a baseball bat at a tidal wave because people might end up not quite so well off and have to endure some foreign types speaking foreign languages.
Indeed.................let us hope that they dont starve to death whilst they wait the 5 years to get it! Green Party MP Caroline Lucas Today's Budget will go down as a pivotal moment in the dismantling of the welfare state, where the government's own advisers saying that slashing the benefits cap will throw 40,000 more children into poverty.
I don't know. We took in 40,000 Ugandan Asians in the 70s with no problem, a very honourable thing to do. But the mood has changed in the UK nowadays. I don't think its about colour though, we also had hysteria about the Romanians and Bulgarians, (though we seem ok with Poles now). The religion is trickier. But no matter, unless the Greeks and Italians grant these refugees the status to let them move freely around Europe (which I would do if I were them) Cameron is turning a blind eye to it. Don't you lot still lose a lot to emigration? Perhaps you could repopulate Connemara.
I don't think you can criticise Osborne for this budget - its a Tory budget and for good or ill we elected a Tory government. I would be more worried by the pathetic nature of the opposition response and the boorish behaviour during his delivery, if this is Her majesty's Opposition we are screwed, no viable alternatives. I didn't vote for them Pils, but you could not reasonably expect anything different. Budget balancing more important than people for these blokes, and we all knew that and they don't hide it.
I didnt vote for them either SB - in fact I didnt vote for any of them and spoilt my ballot paper with a few choice comments! Even got a letter from the returning officer afterwards saying that my spoilt ballot was null and void as i didnt sign it or confirm my date of birth! Having been on the receiving end of Tory budgets in the past I think we all got off pretty lightly with this one and even some of the traditional middle class Tory voters actually got it to a degree - am thinking particularly BTL landlords ( certainly didnt see that one coming!) Having said that, it still appears that the working poor, unemployed and disabled are shouldering far more than is fair as usual............ so no change there then! As for opposition I can see a decade, minimum without any substance from opposing parties. Labour are pretty much dead in the water and to be honest it serves them right for going after the centre ground votes. Tony Blair was probably Magret Thatchers finest creation! There will be a lot of unrest I think once these cuts start to really kick in.
Osborne is smarter than I thought he was - there is enough in the budget that I would go along with to make it seem almost reasonable. On closer inspection, however, there is a reassuring underlying nastiness.
The withdrawal of tax credits will have a devastating effect on many low income families. Bear in mind these are not 'scroungers', they are working people that are not being paid enough to live on. http://www.theguardian.com/business...-tax-credit-claimants-1000-worse-off-says-ifs
This is the most inarticulate panel I can remember. Chukka Ummannnana is the living embodiment of the death of the Labour Party. The hideous UKIP woman and Boris' sister can barely get a word out. That Scottish bloke looks like he needs a drink and a smoke sharpish. Unbearable, time for Family Guy.
Why are the audience so thick? Agree as well that UkIP woman is awful as well as stupid. Chukka doesn't even want to be there. The bloke with the dodgy eyebrows keeps playing with his hands.
Omunna supports Liz Kendall - there's a thing. I'm going to join the Tory subversives, pay my £3 and vote Corbyn.
I think this agreement with Iran is quite a big deal. Though the whole thing is bonkers if you think 'sovereignty' has any credence - why should some countries have nuclear power/weapons and others not? Don't get me wrong the fewer nuclear weapons around the better, but I don't get the logic of 'us yes, you no'. What is does do is isolate Israel, which could be very dangerous, and irritate the Saudis, so it has to be good news. If individuals have shaped the world that we live in today I'd rank the Ayatollah Khomeni up there with Reagan (unwittingly, and with his handmaiden Thatcher), the voodoo economists Hayek and Friedman, Deng Xiao Peng and the nameless game theorists of the cold war Rand Corporation. All of them having an almost wholly malign influence of course.
Perhaps, but much less likely than the Israelis? So you would accept other countries telling the UK what type of power it can generate/weapons it can have at it's disposal? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for negotiated control of nasty stuff, but it doesn't sit right with notions of 'sovereignty'. As the Greeks are finding out in another way.
Israel is pretty safe anyway. If another country's weapons move an inch towards them they'll be blown off the planet by the US so it's all good.
