Off Topic Political Debate

The theme of immigration is subject to so many misconceptions in the UK. it is really alarming. It does not 'suit' Germany in any way, the country is overstretching itself on this for moral reasons, and, in a sense, because of its own past. Britain is not signed up to Schengen and can legally refuse to take asylum seekers irrespective of its status as a EU member. The thousands waiting in Calais would still be there whether Britain remained a member or not. Immigration would not be that much affected by the result because the majority of immigrants to the UK. are not from the EU. My worry is that the British apparently believe that the figures for Polish, Rumanian, Bulgarian etc. immigrants are up to 10 times larger than the reality. The drain on the social services through EU immigration is absolutely minimal. The biggest concern here is people voting on false information. As for the European court of human rights (another apparently contentious issue) - this is not the same as the EU. even Russia is committed to them.

 

I'm coming to the conclusion that the UK needs to leave the EU so it can adequately control its own borders with an Australian type qualification system.

You don't seem to understand the effect on some towns whose character has changed forever. The multicultural experiment has failed miserably in many locations with immigrants living within their own communities, own languages and own cultures.

 

Britain can already control its borders to all non EU immigrants (which is the majority). The multicultural experiment has very little to do with EU. membership and more to do with the fact that Britain was once a colonial power and that English is such a widespread language. I do know many of these towns and the reason why they became as multi cultural as they have was because so many of them had suffered a loss of population in the 80s and needed to be rejuvinated - were old industrial towns such as Oldham or Burnley supposed to remain empty ? If whole rows of terraced housed streets are now in asiatic hands then remember that the same streets were once working class areas - the story is not just one of immigration but also of emigration ie. the thousands who left those areas, who 'got on their bikes'.

 

Yes of course, I've always read the situation correctly enabling me to predict the consequence correctly of different policies and as such am capable of selecting the right course for society.

 

The problem is Aberdeen that once you start seeing voting as 'exclusive' rather than 'inclusive' 2 things happen - firstly you need to have some objective criteria as to who can vote and who can't, and mine is likely to be different from yours. The second is that the government elected would have even less legitimacy than it does now - and in situations like that can only hold on to power by force. One of the biggest problems in the UK. has been the first past the post system which ensures 2 things, firstly that no tradition of cross party cooperation can develop (and I take it for granted that there are able people in all parties), and secondly that the majority are always either against the government of the day, or never bothered to vote anyway - in which case the end result is political inertia and a disengagement from politics.

 

There is no inertia in the UK, the present government is following the mandate it received at the recent democratic election.

There is a tradition of cross party cooperation as highlighted last week in parliament. Unfortunately the lefty shadow chancellor withdrew it at the last minute which annoyed and disappointed his own parliamentary colleagues. The left, including the silly greens, have no intention to pay off the UK's 1.5 trillion debt.

 

The dispute is not about the repayment of debt but about how it will be paid off. On the one side through so called austerity measures (paid for by the poorest in our society) and on the other through attacking corporate tax breaks and other forms of tax evasion. The age old conflict Keynesianism vs. Monetarism ie. the one side uses the trickle down theory (or rather fairy tale) - let the rich get richer and some of this will trickle down - and the other side uses the trickle up theory ie. the only way you can secure long term stability and growth is by strengthening the base of the pyramid - strengthening spending power.

 

Sorry, but I am going to have to pull this card...

Cologne - when was the last time you visited a city or big town in England? Have you experienced the huge changes that mass uncontrolled economic migration has caused in the last 5-10 years?

Never mind, don't answer - just call me a Xenophobe.

 

Actually I will answer w_y, I have been a regular visitor to several British cities over the last few years. Do you think that the UK. is special, or unique on this ? In the UK. 8.3% of the population is classified as foreign born - that is lower than the European average - Germany is far higher. Apparently only 2.6% of the population of the UK. are running around with passports from other EU. countries - this is also lower than in other EU. nations. Yet apparently this rather insignificant number is tearing down the fabric of British society ? When was the last time you were in Cologne, or Duisburg or Düsseldorf ? The main difference between England and the rest of Europe is not immigration but rather urban displacement ie. the British cities have been emptying themselves of their native born populations for generations (how many millions have left London over our lifetimes - or at least mine ?) these have simply been replaced. How many have left the northern cities and towns over the last 40 years or so - towns like Burnley, Oldham, Blackburn etc. would be empty without immigration.

 

This thing about immigrants and immigration is so ridiculous in my view....... Look at the USA..... as a nation it functions pretty well... and is founded on equality and diversity

Most cities in the UK manage well too..... I live in one of the biggest... and next door to another town with the most curry houses per capita in the UK. The vast majority of decent people rub along together...

I am sorry but i just cant buy it... .especially as there is a colour and religion issue which emerges next.

The issue in my view is more about poverty and alienation...... 30 years ago some people here would have been slagging off the miners..... they lost their jobs their livelihood and finally their communities... not surprising really that so few people vote Tory oop north.

Teachers used to be staunch Tory voters,,,, ,and nurses too... now not so i wonder why?

red wine rant over

 

I've also had a couple of glasses of red not that I need it to see sense..

It was Scargill, sponsored by the soviets, that deserved the slagging off for his political aim of bringing down an elected government. The world price of coal made the UK's deep mines uneconomical. Scargill's actions just speeded up the closures.


If some muslims, having lived their entire life in the UK, are capable of planting bombs on trains and buses to murder innocent people then I suggest they have not integrated into our society.

Teachers are normally lefties now because of the indoctrination received going through teacher training colleges, that is why the government is trying to recruit trainees with other life experiences.

I'm sure not many oop north will vote Labour next time with comrade Corbyn in charge.

 

Sadly red wine clouds my judgement!

I think there are some Christians who are capable of murder too...

Total baloney about teacher training college and indoctrination... I did post grad teacher training and not a word of politics was seen or heard. I know black and white 60s dramas portrayed things a certain way but on my course people were more concerned with their wall displays and lesson plans.

I think Corbyn will bring out a lot of disaffected voters... and most likely a lot will vote lib dem etc etc

Enough..... back to the serious stuff... cheers

 

It was quite amazing to see that the decision that the coal was too deep and too expensive was only made in the 1980s, and that the effective deindustrialization of the Uk. happened in such a short time. In Germany there were also old mining areas such as Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Bochum - the largest and deepest in Europe was between the 3. Solingen was the equivalent of Sheffield ie. a steel city. It all disappeared there as well but........it was all done in a planned way over a much longer period, and with the necessary investments in new infrastructures and new industries.

 

I used to buy steel from Sheffield, but basically it became too expensive compared with imports, at that time from Italy. The British steel was far better quality, but in order to keep my business competitive I had to use some of the cheaper material. The Italian government was providing assistance to their manufacturers to such a scale that there was a very sudden decline in the demand for British steel, and although they tried to compete they could not match the prices. While there is a mismatch in wages, government aid, etc. in the global market there will always be these changes. One of the last jobs I did in the UK was to design an extension to a listed building. Roof slates were demanded by the conservation officer and I gave him samples of two, one Welsh and the other Chinese. The imports were 25% of the price and he chose them not on the grounds of cost, but because they looked better. Sometimes it is difficult with larger companies to change direction quickly when they realize they are losing their market, but I have seen examples where there have been a series of new enterprises start from the failed old one.

 

The demise of the UK coal industry probably would have been slower had Scargill not been allowed to play politics with people's lives.
Many of the unfortunate areas have reinvented themselves with new cleaner industries. Can it be right to send anybody down the pits anymore?

I would have though the 'greens' would support all pit closures, very dirty fuel. Pity the Chinese are opening so many coal fired power stations.

 

Greens do tend to support the idea of pit closures for obvious reasons. Germany still produces a large amount of its electricity through Lignite open caste mining (probably the worst type of mining for the environment) - the biggest hole in Europe is the Garzweiler open caste quarry between Cologne, Mönchengladbach and Aachen - around 66 sq. km. A horrific sight - like being on another planet (I know this because I have been on a demo. there). The Greens, when in government, are always in coalition and the government of NRW (Nordrheinwestfalen) is an SPD - Green coalition so compromises have to be made. The area will be transformed into Germany's largest freshwater lake over a 20 year timespan (a project that will employ more people than the original use) - that is the compromise, and I don't think it's a bad one. A very big problem in old mining areas (the area around us was mined for zinc and cadmium in the past) is land subsidance - our local farmer was shocked recently because a part of one of his fields disappeared into a big hole (fortunately his cows weren't around at the time).

 

Qualification to be vote could be based on a balanced test. Our government is totally legitimate, it played by the rules and won the right to govern. Analogy in football is teams play by the rules and one wins and they don't moan that if they'd been able to pick up the ball and run with it the other team would have won so not fair. Cross party co-operation exists very well thanks, too much co-operation in the last government where LibDem energy policies have resulted in energy insecurity and poor economic conditions for heavy industry. If people disengage from their own future that's their problem and they lose the right to complain about the result. There will always be a large sector in society who just can't be bothered and I count some close relatives in that group!!!

 

Just to set things rolling again......although I agree with more or less everything on Jeremy Corbyn's agenda, other than that he is not far enough to the left. The question remains regarding his age. Since Margaret Thatcher's period Britain seems to have had a fetish with the so called 'celebrity culture' and maybe a part of this is the increase of personality/tv orientated politics. Since she was PM. we have had 3 Prime ministers aged in their 40s - (Major, Blair and Cameron), also the age of the parliamentary parties is younger than ever - and this at a time when we are all getting older. Corbyn is very much of an exception. Up to now the oldest winner of an election in the UK. was Henry John Temple (the 3rd Viscount Palmerston) who became PM. aged 70 years, 3 months and 17 days - Corbyn will exceed this if he wins in 2020. He would, in effect, be asking the electorate for a mandate which would see him PM up to the age of 76 (at least). The oldest person ever to win a democratic national election was Konrad Adenauer who became chancellor of Germany in 1949 (aged 73) but this was at a time when there were very few candidates not tarnished by their past. In the age of 'new' 'sexy' politics, where being photogenic (nice pictures taken with huskies) and good on TV. is infinitely more important than having content, Corbyn is a bit of an anathema. Will his age be an advantage or a disadvantage ? (Or is this an ageist question which is not pc. enough?)

 

Sorry, couldn't resist!

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I don't think anyone is concerned about his age whatsoever.
It is his old fashioned class war politics that has alienated his own MP's and a large percentage of the Labour Party. If by some disaster he ever became prime minister the new government would have to resort to that old Labour policy of currency control to try to prevent the massive amount of investment leaving the country.

I'm positive he will be ousted way before the next election or the Tories can look forward to the next three terms in office.