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Complaining that asylum seekers cost the tax payer, while saying we have to keep the current system of not allowing them to work.
I don't know if you're attempting to respond to me, but I was referring to the massive cost of people ineligible for asylum in the UK who have had their claims finally denied, and who don't still don't leave the UK.
Are you suggesting that those people should also be allowed to live and work in the UK?
Does it cost more to support failed asylum seekers or something then? Why does that figure apply for people with rejected applications but not those awaiting a decision? Or does that £30,000 figure include the costs of trying to stop those people living and working here? Or is it just a made up number with no report or analysis for us to look at, thrown out there by a Home Secretary looking to other these people to try and save the political fortunes of her party?
I could listen to Ann Pettifor for hours as she explains the the “why’s” of the economic shitshow we are in, very interesting
Public sector wages boom as private sector workers take yet another hammering
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cddgrg87ly5o
Public sector pay rises need to be ahead of private sectors pay rises as the slow process of restoring real wage levels for key public sector workers takes place, especially in the NHS and schools. I hope this is the pattern over the next 5 years (speaking as a patient, not a public sector worker).
Reform UK currently in the House, trying to table a motion (guess why...) to have a referendum on the Chagos deal.
You couldn't make this shizzle up, could you?
Public sector pay rises need to be ahead of private sectors pay rises as the slow process of restoring real wage levels for key public sector workers takes place, especially in the NHS and schools. I hope this is the pattern over the next 5 years (speaking as a patient, not a public sector worker).
I can see why they might need to rise if they've fallen behind inflation. At 7.8% they must be a good chunk of the way there now.
Can't see why they need to be ahead of private sector pay though? How do Starmer's relentless attacks on private sector workers help public sector workers at all?
Can't see why they need to be ahead of private sector pay though
To retain and employ for public purpose rather where private sector may have not delivered. (Don't forget the public sector has suffered for many years up until this recent catch up.)
Private sector wage growth is currently slowing.
Also if the private sector starts to crumble the government needs to pick up slack with jobs and wages to fend off economic downturns.
When things move again - they can move back into the private sector.
Can I politely point out that tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of public sector workers have been getting lower wage deals than nurses and teachers.
They deserve it, of course. But those less popular public servants, like the tax collectors who help provide the money for the rest, or the social workers who protect the most vulnerable are getting even further behind
Yep, all public sector employees pay increases should be linked to inflation. Anything less means the salaries are decreasing.
Reform UK currently in the House, trying to table a motion (guess why...) to have a referendum on the Chagos deal.
Will the ballot paper include a map and require the voter to indicate where this place is?
But those less popular public servants, like the tax collectors who help provide the money for the rest, or the social workers who protect the most vulnerable are getting even further behind
It's because they aren't as valuable to society as resident doctors.
As Starmer has abandoned so many of his previous pledges, it is surely now the time to kick his idiotic pledge "no customs union and no freedom of movement" pledges into the wastebin of history. Time to admit what a disaster brexit has been, and start negotiations to re-entry.
Now more than ever do we need closer ties to our neighbours, especially given how much misinformation and propaganda came from the same american platforms and financial interests in distorting the brexit vote. Along with a very public investigation to reveal that misinformation, propaganda and political finance.
Where they want to build a society of inequality, hate and fear we should do the opposite, government needs to be taking the lead in building, equality, togetherness and worth for all. We should be improving healthcare, housing, education and financial worth for everyone, building links to our neighbours instead of poverty and separation at the bequest of a now all too obvious enemy trying to destroy us.
And ****ing start by capping any political donations by any individual or organisation to 500 a year, see how long the far right last when the oligarchy money dries up.
Roll on what's left of the May elections to really give them a rocket up the arse. (A rocket that goes out probably.)
Can't see it though - they're out of ideas and constrained by the failings of neoliberalism to make any sort of difference.
Good job Trump is stealing all the bad news currently.
Pleased greens are moving from strength to strength.
Are there actually going to be elections in the UK in May?
Does it cost more to support failed asylum seekers or something then?
It costs more than what should be spent on (in your words) "failed asylum seekers", which is £0, because they have no right to be in the UK and no well-funded fear of persecution at home.
Obviously there's a cost to supporting asylum seekers and refugees, which is fair enough and just part of being a country (although reducing the amount shovelled into the accounts of shitty hotel landlords would be great).
But the reality of this "system" is practically no-one leaves the UK whatever the outcome of their asylum application, and (to bring us back to where we started) refugees and asylum seekers are not going to solve the UK's skills shortage - they are less educated, less Anglophone, less skilled and more long term benefits-reliant than both UK-born people and labour migrants - for obvious reasons.
Roll on what's left of the May elections to really give them a rocket up the arse. (A rocket that goes out probably.)
Burnham seems to be launching his leadership campaign. Reported he has now officially gone for that Denton seat.
Going to be interesting but there's many issues in the way - especially with the NEC seemingly going to make it pretty awkward.
Do you understand the chain of events that might need to happen?
I'm looking into now. Any sort of block I'd imagine will drop Labour down to single digits.
But at this point - this is an extremely interesting move.
Just clapping my hands that someone is making a play. (Even if Burnham has not previously had much form in former years - he's got a load better in the last few months and talks exactly about the politics we need.)
I don't doubt Starmer will bring something up about Putin. Exactly like he did with the Green MP that asked him about filthy rivers. He will claim this is a time not to mess with blah blah national security. Etc.
https://twitter.com/i/status/2014025671262011489
I'm looking into now. Any sort of block I'd imagine will drop Labour down to single digits.
There has been a lot of groundwork put in to try and stop it being blocked so be interesting to see what happens.
I am guessing he will get selected though at which point I feel sorry for the poor people of Denton who are going to be absolutely swamped by canvassers and press.
It was a pretty safe seat but assume Reform and Greens in particular are likely to launch aggressive campaigns. Libdems probably and then tories maybe.
Disappointed in Burnham personally, he was doing a decent job in Manchester but is prepared to chuck it away and take some huge risks personally and with his party to move h8s career forward. There's no guarantee he will win this seat, the mayor role could go to Reform and everything he's doing will tear the already fragile Labour Party apart, at a time when they need to be focused. All feels rather reminiscent of Johnsons power grab.
Even if all comes off and he ends up as PM I'm not sure it will stabilise Labours falling popularity, a more left wing PM may make the leftys happy (although he's no doubt no where near left wing enough and they are never happy anyway) but im not sure that's what voters want.
Disappointed in Burnham personally
Locally online, there's a fair bit of: "It's disappointing, but he's a politician, what d'you expect?"
don't be fooled into thinking Burnham is any sort of solution. A careerist wethervane politician prepared to say anything ti get elected. He is only interested in himself
My thoughts entirely stumpyjon. If this does go through, I will lose a lot of respect for Burnham. It is a very high risk, selfish venture that could backfire spectacularly.
He's not a total solution (but he would at least be popular and has a brain on economics) but these people need knocking into shape.
The current leadership have bought a whole load of trouble on themselves.
Starmer is a total disaster and has made poor judgement, lied, taken the electorate for granted and done nothing but worsen the Labour party's chances in the future.
I say disrupt away.
A careerist wethervane politician prepared to say anything ti get elected
That is the very definition of the tedious berk that is in charge.
Without disruption into doing something better Labour will continue to sink the country.
(I will add this - at this stage absolutely anything can happen - and politics has a nasty habit of doing unpredictable things.)
If he stands. If he wins. If he then forces a leadership contest. At that point he finds out that much of his “support” will vanish when other candidates feel “forced to stand”. He won’t become PM.
He has successfully transformed himself politically to suit MCR, and in my opinion the people of GM have benefited from that. As has he. He (and other directly elected mayors) are in a great position to influence the party and make change nationally as well as locally. That’s a lot to give up just to lose another leadership battle.
Let him run and if he wins make him minister for European reintegration.
Again, I find myself agreeing with Kelvin also. Burnham, I believe, has found his level as mayor of Manchester and seems to have a good working relationship with other mayor in the northwest. If he follows what many seem to believe he will, it will be for personal enrichment only and could backfire with serious consequences for the region.
don't be fooled into thinking Burnham is any sort of solution. A careerist wethervane politician prepared to say anything ti get elected. He is only interested in himself
Having heard him interviewed a few times I disagree. He's one of the very few politicians around who seemed to answer both honestly and eloquently, something none of the front bench on either side can manage.
he has never held a principled position inhis life. Yes he can speak well but he is a weathervane in the way he operates and his playing the race card in his first mayoral election was disgusting. This has been whitewashed now
Burnham is only interested in power for himself
He just has abetter public image than Starmer but cut from the same cloth
Burnham is only interested in power for himself
Hilarious. I don't remember you saying something similar when you were banging on about how Starmer was the solution a couple of years ago. He's a politician, of course he wants power, that's the whole bloody point. A politician who doesn't want power is pointless. The question is not why he wants power, the question is what he'll do with it? Will he use it to defend the interests of the business and bureaucratic elite as Starmer has, or will he use it to improve the lives of working people across the country as he has in Manchester?
I supported him when he stood against Corbyn but was very disappointed and shocked to see him abandon his core beliefs and parrot the centre right talking points about aspiration and immigration which ulitmately was why he lost. He seems to have learned that lesson while Mayor of Manchester so as long as he sticks to that we can be confident that he would do a much better job than Starmer and his pathetic excuse of a Labour Govt.
Also, I see Starmer allies are already talking bollocks about the bond markets and interest rates, like Burham being an MP is going to crash the economy. It's laughable and tells you everything you need to know about Starmer and his supporters.
And there you go, they've blocked him, and ensured their defeat at the next election. Why would anyone vote for Labour now when its leadership subverts the democratic process in their interests and doesn't have the courage and conviction to stand behind their own record? Starmer's just handed the country to Farage on a plate.
they've blocked him, and ensured their defeat at the next election
That's a bit of a leap, I can't see Burnham being anymore appealing to Reform voters than Starmer. This is internal Labour Party politics and irrelevant to most voters. I can't see the PLP have broken their own rules by blocking him. The Labour Starmer haters won't like this but they generally don't like anything. Burnham standing had a very limited chance of working and changing the fortunes of the party and myriad opportunities to make a bad situation worse.
Burnham should have known better.
I think Starmer knows he's toast whatever he did, he just wanted to ensure that whoever succeeds him wasn't Burnham. No interest in what's best for the party or country, just petty personal spite. When he loses the Gorton by-election he'll be gone. Burnham will get another chance in any case, and now he's free to speak his mind from the outside.
Absolute madness! 8 to one vote on the exec comittee too with one abstention.
The obvious winner from This is Andy Burnham, who will walk his re-election as manchester mayor with his usual huge majority (he got 67% of the vote last time out)
I can't see Burnham being anymore appealing to Reform voters than Starmer.
Andy sort of defies the usual political rules and has an appeal to all kinds of voters outside tribal labour ones.
They were doing some vox pops about Andy on the North West news the other night and it highlighted why people think he's labours only hope. A woman said 'I've never voted labour at a general election, but I really like Andy and voted for him as mayor'. This is a quite commonly expressed view. When asked why she sited the massive improvement in public transport infrastructure since he took over control of it. Plus Manchester is boomtown as is obvious if you just stroll around the city centre. Significant year on year growth in the economy for years now. So this is all tangable stuff that is making peoples lives better. Something this government are really struggling with.
If they think this in any way shores up Starmers position, they need their bumps feeling. He looks like he's weak and is running scared and I'm sure we'll now see an even further retreat into the Number Ten bunker. As Daz said, if they lose Gorton, he's gone
Has there ever been a case of any government squandering a huge majority like this?
Honestly, I despair!
That's a bit of a leap
Oh come on. Starmer has written Reform and the Tories election campaign strategy for them. "Starmer is a coward who can't even hang on to his position without fiddling the system". "Starmer is clinging on to his position even though his own party doesn't want him". "Starmer is terrfied of his own MPs and Mayors" etc etc..
He'll be gone by the summer, he might not even last to the local elections if the Gorton by-election is lost to Reform. Streeting will be ramping up his campaign and any authority Starmer could claim to have will be gone.
They were doing some vox pops about Andy on the North West news the other night and it highlighted why people think he's labours only hope. A woman said 'I've never voted labour at a general election, but I really like Andy and voted for him as mayor'.
Burnham was wise to leave parliament after losing to Corbyn in his last leadership battle. Staying away from Westminster during the years of Labour opposition proved to be the right move for him. He’s popular as Mayor in a way he would never have been if he’d had to fight the last few general elections as an MP. But why people think he has an automatic right to stand for parliament again now they are in government, in an obvious move to try and come back and become leader and PM, I don’t know. He’s been a great Mayor IMHO, as have both Kahn & Brabin. Time for them all to double down and try get more for their regions. Any of them forcing a Mayoral by-election in what is looking likely to be a losing year for Labour would be a bonkers move. To do so to try and ride in and become PM is obviously going to look bad to their voters, and be resisted by many in the party.
That's a bit of a leap, I can't see Burnham being anymore appealing to Reform voters than Starmer.
How about labour voters, how about all the voters who want change that labour are ignoring, this is all the centrists have to offer now failure and disenfranchisement. No plan to fix anything other than rig elections to prevent any challenge to neoliberal dogma.
Starmer won a landslide by losing voters, he got lucky, how many more millions do you think he can afford to lose.
binners you're local to Manchester and must have seen all the stories about traditional Mancunians being pushed out oif the city centre and being left behind. Burnham has ridden (successfully) the boom, he hasn't created it. The tram network predates him and is still slow, expensive and often unreliable. Driving into Manchester is still a nightmare as is the congestion and pollution within the M60. Then theres all the memorials to the failed emissions scheme, yes I know that was pushed by the Torys, still cost a huge amount for no result. Andy failed to block the waste of money.
I get it, Starmer has the charisma and backbone of a slug, I'm massively disappointed in him as well, but Burnham was not the answer. He might play well in the North West but his manc persona won't work so we'll with the rest of the country.
Nice bit of whataboutery there MSP, you think Burnham would have been any better than Starmer as leader after causing carnage to get there.
but his manc persona won't work so we'll with the rest of the country.
He was born on Merseyside, grew up in Warrington and is a passionate Everton supporter. Manc persona? Are you having a laugh?
. that's because i never said thatHilarious. I don't remember you saying something similar when you were banging on about how Starmer was the solution a couple of years ago.
happy to help
i love the ignoring of Burnham playing the race card and weathervaneing his positions.
stumpyjon - don't get me wrong fella. I'm not suggesting that he was the answer at national level. And I think the idea of him taking over and instantly resolving all Labours issues is just pure fantasy.
Since public transport (not just trams) was taken under the oversight of the combined authority, the service has got masssively better and theres loads more investment to come. Whether Andy is reponsible for the economic boom or not, its all happened under his watch, so this economic success appeals to more traditional Tory voters.
Personally I'm glad he's staying in Manchester. I never thought he'd want to return to Westminster, I thought he was just playing games.
He was born on Merseyside, grew up in Warrington and is a passionate Everton supporter. Manc persona? Are you having a laugh?
Alright his North West persona, point still stands he plays well to the region but that may not work so well in Somerset, Norfolk or the home counties.
@binners, fair enough, that's a pretty reasonable take on Burnhams achievements and potential.
Oh come on. Starmer has written Reform and the Tories election campaign strategy for them. "Starmer is a coward who can't even hang on to his position without fiddling the system". "Starmer is clinging on to his position even though his own party doesn't want him". "Starmer is terrfied of his own MPs and Mayors" etc etc..
Good grief, parroting the right's attack lines, i thought trotting out the arguments of the right was a no no on here. Ultimately Starmer didn't make the decision did he, the NEC did. And if it was Starmer who made the NEC take that decision it just shows he has a tight grip on the party mechanisms.
i love the ignoring of Burnham playing the race card and weathervaneing his positions.
TJ - every time he is mentioned you come out with this twoddle. You say he plays the race card and I ask you to provide any evidence of that. You have never, ever produced a shred of evidence to back that accusation up. Not once. So I'll ask you again...
Though I don't know why I still bother
Andy is many things, but he isn't a racist
He was born on Merseyside, grew up in Warrington and is a passionate Everton supporter. Manc persona? Are you having a laugh?
He's from Leigh, which is part of Greater Manchester, 10 miles out of Manchester City Centre down the East Lancs. He then repersented this constituancy when he was an MP. We both went to the same school in Warrington because we're left footers and that was the nearest catholic school
And what on earth has what footy team he supports got to do with anything?
Alright his North West persona, point still stands he plays well to the region but that may not work so well in Somerset, Norfolk or the home counties.
What's this bullshit regional racism, are you really trying to suggest a "northerner" can't be PM, FFS trying to spin that as a concern is a sign of desperation, you have got to have really drunk the Kool-Aid if that's all you can offer up.