Off Topic The Politics Thread

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Should the UK remain a part of the EU or leave?

  • Stay in

    Votes: 56 47.9%

  • Get out

    Votes: 61 52.1%
  • Total voters
    117
  • Poll closed .
Goldhawk-Road said:
1930's Germany was removing a whole section of its citizens from the country, stealing their possessions before it did so

2023 Tory splinter group wants to reduce immigration to ensure proper integration of those coming here and avoid culture wars farther down the road

See the difference?
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That’s rather selective of the content of yesterday’s speeches. Much of it was reminiscent of the worst regimes in European history. It’s not limited to the UK either. Meloni and Orban have come out with similar. Trump too. Ideally I’d like us to be better than that.
 
Goldhawk-Road said:
That supports what I said. GDP per capita has scarcely moved since 2005, which gives the lie to the claim that mass immigration is doing wonders for the economy. We just have more people to house and service.

Quote of the day from the jamboree yesterday. Suella Braverman "Given Starmer's view on what a woman is, Labour may just have its first female leader" <laugh>

Step forward Keira Starmer...
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For the uninitiated, like me, could you explain the causal relationship between immigration and per capita GDP? And while you are at it explain why, if immigration is the cause of static GDP in the U.K., why Germany, with over a million immigrants a year since 2013 hasn’t seen the same effect, quite the reverse in fact.

Could it be that low productivity allied to low investment by business, plus an economy over reliant on the financial services sector, might also be relevant?

Real problem for socially conservative capitalists these pesky immigrants. Pure capitalists want them because they know that immigration drives growth and exponential growth for eternity is their target, no matter how damaging and nuts this might be. Social conservatives want the growth without the foreigners…..nah, ain’t going to work. But the National Conservatives have the answer! More breeding by indigenous Brits, get kids out of education into fruit picking!
 
sb_73 said:
For the uninitiated, like me, could you explain the causal relationship between immigration and per capita GDP? And while you are at it explain why, if immigration is the cause of static GDP in the U.K., why Germany, with over a million immigrants a year since 2013 hasn’t seen the same effect, quite the reverse in fact.

Could it be that low productivity allied to low investment by business, plus an economy over reliant on the financial services sector, might also be relevant?

Real problem for socially conservative capitalists these pesky immigrants. Pure capitalists want them because they know that immigration drives growth and exponential growth for eternity is their target, no matter how damaging and nuts this might be. Social conservatives want the growth without the foreigners…..nah, ain’t going to work. But the National Conservatives have the answer! More breeding by indigenous Brits, get kids out of education into fruit picking!
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The NatCs don’t seem to have a plan for the next 20 years when this policy makes things worse nor how they’ll incentivise young people to have more kids via cheaper housing or cheaper childcare. At least Orban is giving huge tax incentives.

Maybe we shouldn’t have vilified poor people with several kids for decades.
 
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kiwiqpr said:
Is there any money in fruit picking or is it just a job for lowly paid foreigners
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I think it’s the conditions that put people off more than the pay, which is **** considering the level of skill and hard work required. **** transport links to farms in the arse end of nowhere won’t help either.
 
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sb_73 said:
For the uninitiated, like me, could you explain the causal relationship between immigration and per capita GDP? And while you are at it explain why, if immigration is the cause of static GDP in the U.K., why Germany, with over a million immigrants a year since 2013 hasn’t seen the same effect, quite the reverse in fact.

Could it be that low productivity allied to low investment by business, plus an economy over reliant on the financial services sector, might also be relevant?

Real problem for socially conservative capitalists these pesky immigrants. Pure capitalists want them because they know that immigration drives growth and exponential growth for eternity is their target, no matter how damaging and nuts this might be. Social conservatives want the growth without the foreigners…..nah, ain’t going to work. But the National Conservatives have the answer! More breeding by indigenous Brits, get kids out of education into fruit picking!
Click to expand...

As I say, I'm no economist, but I'll have a stab at it. Immigration hasn't caused the GDP per capita in the UK, but it hasn't improved it either. With annual legal immigration running at more than I million, people are entitled to ask if it's helping. Germany is different because it economy is largely manufacturing, whereas ours is, as you say, vastly dominated by services, I'd guess mostly financial.So Germany might well have more use for unskilled migrants.

We know productivity in UK manufacturing, agriculture etc is poor. But I'm not sure why you say there's an over reliance on services. We cannot compete with low paid labourers that countries like China produce. And nor, it seems, can Germany now, which may be in technical recession.

In a post-Brexit UK, and having joined the Trans Pacific partnership, the great advantage of services over manufacturing is that it is as easy to trade with Singapore as it is with Ireland. The internet means location is an irrelevance. The immigrants we bring in should be highly skilled, and able-bodied UK benefits recipients should be expected to take on eg seasonal jobs, while waiting for a permanent job....imho
 
We could make the unemployed do jobs such as fruit-picking.

We’d have to get them there first.
Train them, and re-imburse businesses for doing so.
Compensate businesses if the worker is less productive than the person they’ve replaced.
Accept that by spending X hours per week in a field they can’t spend X hours per week looking for a more stable job they’re more productive in, interview etc.
 
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Leftie publications like The Times and Telegraph coming down on the self-proclaimed party of low taxation.
 
Goldhawk-Road said:
Simplistic. He says we would not have been any better off staying in EU. But he is critical of Tory implimentation, which may mean he is preparing to join Reform, or Reclaim for the next GE
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Might as well fail in eight elections if you’re going to fail in seven.

Though he couldn’t have dreamed of the Tories going this far UKIP so I guess he’s the real winner at our expense.
 
Pete
@post_liberal


Progressives are weirdly rattled about the NatCon conference.
A bunch of social/cultural cons talking about the importance of faith/family/nation.
Standard conservative fare but to listen to progs on Twitter you would think it was Munich 1923.
Political hypochondriacs basically.
 
kiwiqpr said:
Pete
@post_liberal


Progressives are weirdly rattled about the NatCon conference.
A bunch of social/cultural cons talking about the importance of faith/family/nation.
Standard conservative fare but to listen to progs on Twitter you would think it was Munich 1923.
Political hypochondriacs basically.
Click to expand...

Apart from the creepily fascist bits it was a fine meeting of minds.
 
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Staines R's said:
Not my cup of tea but you’re correct……it definitely isn’t fascism. Just because you or I find what thay are saying abhorrent and dislike the rhetoric, it doesn’t make it “fascist”. Or am I missing something ?
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The Hampstead to Hackney thing could be construed as a trope and the rest of it, as with the previous speeches, rather echoes many unsavoury right wing regimes.
 
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