lunge

Err, you sure about that? As I seem to remember that immigrants are a huge net contributor to the economy. I guess it could be that 5% contribute enough to make up for 95% who don’t but I can’t see that myself.

I have no ideas what percent… nor do I give a monkey’s.
I’m simply stating the overall percentage is actually very low and that of those here the overwhelming contribution both financially (easy to prove) and culturally (harder to prove) is positive.

The whole Faragist (is that a new word) immigrant that comes and steals your job whilst claiming your benefits and claiming for their 15 kids elsewhere is a tri-oxymoron (a new word where any 2 of 3 things are an oxymoron) ..

However some immigrants (like anyone else) do not contribute positively to either… or some may (like everyone else) be both positive and negative.

Fundamentally WE ARE ALL HUMANS … PEOPLE …. and trying to make out that everyone is good/bad is beyond pointless BUT what it does do is split a load of HUMANS one way or another…

When politicians resort to blaming immigrants, you know they've run out of ideas. pic.twitter.com/LqYdjOzOJa

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) November 14, 2019

Accelerating the flow of people will simply make this worse

Wait a minute there. That does not follow at all.

Who wants to come to the UK? Vagrants and benefit seekers? Homeless? Not really.

Most immigrants come to work or are refugees. The former pay for themselves (and grow our economy thereby icreasing the amount of money available for homeless), the latter we need to help regardless.

Most of the homeless I see in Cardiff are white and by the sound of it local. Not a scientific survey, I appreciate.

There’s plenty being said on the positive benefits of immigration – access to skills and capacity that’s required for our economy to grow and deliver the services we need.

What’s also being said is that this needs to be done in a controlled way, not just for the benefit of people who are already here (including recent migrants) but also for those that have yet to come.

Given the unavoidable lead time in building infrastructure (housing, school buildings, hospitals) that in many cases have 5-10 year delivery times, and the need to recruit and train the additional staff to run them (4-7 years to train a teacher to competency, 8-15 years for specialist medics) etc etc, uncontrolled immigration just creates problems all round – which is why every country in the world has some form of control.

By contrast, Corbyn has committed to:

– easing freedom of movement further
– extending the automatic right for family members to join
– creating new automatic entitlements to very costly public services e.g. healthcare..

….and all of this at a time when we have a housing crisis.

Corbyn committed to building 500,000 houses a year (I think Torys are promising 300,000 a year & the NPPF is allowing the planning permission for that number, and more).

Both parties want to increase the population so they can have a massive program of building (which is one of the few economic activities that can’t be outsourced abroad) to grow the GDP. GDP, not GDP per capita. It’s a massive ponzi-scheme & it’s turning the vast areas of the country into conurbations.

Scotland has net immigration of a mere 21,000 in a space 3/5ths the size of England which due to a nice low birthrate leaves net population increase of just ~13,300. Would that be so bad in the rest of the Uk?

Both parties want to increase the population so they can have a massive program of building (which is one of the few economic activities that can’t be outsourced abroad) to grow the GDP. GDP, not GDP per capita. It’s a massive ponzi-scheme & it’s turning the vast areas of the country into conurbations.

Scotland has net immigration of a mere 21,000 in a space 3/5ths the size of England which due to a nice low birthrate leaves net population increase of just ~13,300. Would that be so bad in the rest of the Uk?

but you are missing out or demographic problems

with an ageing population how do you cope without young healthy tax paying immigrants?

@Kelvin

Oh…

https://twitter.com/MysteriosoX/status/1195290975733714944?s=19

but you are missing out or demographic problems
with an ageing population how do you cope without young healthy tax paying immigrants?

Using young healthy tax paying immigrants just shifts the problem away a few years, it doesn’t solve it. One day immigration will stop and that problem will have to be managed. So we might as well manage it now. Like all ponzi schemes it will stop one day, better to stop it sooner.

I shouted loudly about that at the time @CaptainFlashheart … Labour under both Miliband and Corbyn have done their fair share of trying to ride the anti-immigrant wave. Only this week I pointed out that McClusky and others within the Labour movement are still at it. Labour are far from immune to trying this approach.

You understand what a ponzi scheme is right ?

Not this Ponzi scheme bullshit again. I can’t be bothered… just go and read all the migration related parts of the EU thread, rather than repeating all that nonsense again here, please.

Have I created 3 acres by having two kids? How odd.

No, but you and your wife will die and free up 3 acres for them. Now, if you’ve been irresponsible and had three I’d be asking where the 1.5 acres you owe us are!

If you’d had one or zero the Green party would (quite rightly) give you a medal.

We have 3 acres?!?

Yeah, you have three acres of land somewhere dedicated to you! It’s not all in one place and it moves around, but it’s there. (Rain forest was cut down to provide some of it.)

Plus the bit you live on.

You also take up a bit of space, I dunno, a couple of metres square, say.

…and if you’re standing on a hill top or a beach alone, nobody else can stand on that beach or hilltop alone.

Selfish bastard!

The drawback of a party that harvests votes from the underdog is that to win it has create underdogs in freshly made sink estates.

The advantage of a party that harvests votes from successful working people with a bricks and mortar stake in society is that to win it has to create more successful working people with a bricks and mortar stake in society.

The numbers don’t back that up too well do they. And don’t assume that all successful working people are all selfish tory tossers. Some of us realise we have just been lucky and still care about the underdogs…

Both parties want to increase the population so they can have a massive program of building

What, that’s the only reason? FFS

The drawback of a party that harvests votes from the underdog is that to win it has create underdogs in freshly made sink estates.

Jesus. Seriously – what the hell? Why do you assume that they’ll create sink estates? Lessons have been learned from the 60s. Other countries have done both social and high density private housing very well (I’ve lived in it).

You really need to calm down and think rationally about all of this, preferably from an apolitical standpoint.

Not this Ponzi scheme bullshit again. I can’t be bothered… just go and read all the migration related parts of the EU thread, rather than repeating all that nonsense again here, please.

It’s nothing to do with the EU or immigrants…. Kimbers was asking

with an ageing population how do you cope without young healthy tax paying immigrants?

It’s a ponzi scheme…. how we cope is immaterial. It has nothing to do with anything other than raking in money from victims and/or raking in political capitol.

Our council core dev plan identified we need 2/3 bed homes… our council are pushing through 1100
new slum flats, in 8x 10 story slums, mostly studio high rise (of which we have hundreds empty) in a area of bungalows… along side 8 other high rise projects (and have already exceeded their quota) … with <5% affordable… and all to an impassioned plea from our council leader about kids sleeping rough this Christmas

Walk around any new estate.

1) I live on a new estate. There are rental homes, there are professionals, it’s a mix. I’ve got a 12 year old Passat, my neighbour has a 2 year old BMW 650d.

2) There are bad estates, but estates don’t have to be bad. Like I said – it works in other countries because they do it right.

3) What are you even proposing? Not building houses at all?

EDIT

new slum flats, in 8x 10 story slums, mostly studio high rise

Again – blocks of flats don’t have to be slums.

Estates of semis can end up quite down at heal, not that any of this is forms a useful discussion really.

Again – blocks of flats don’t have to be slums.

No and I’ve lived in flats elsewhere and city centres but they have been planned and needed.
However
“new slum flats, in 8×10 story slums, mostly studio high rise”

Our council already WAY exceeded it’s quota anyway but what we NEED is 2/3 bedroom houses not studio flats outside of town overlooking (actually wrapped around) a 10,000 seater football stadium that today has a scout hut, snooker club and community facilities (and a private gym they are relocating).

The stated goal of the CEO is to turn Woking (pop 100,000) into Singapore…so this is just one of many high rise towers. The council earn almost double per sq. m in infrastructure levy by locating these tower blocks outside the town centre… it is in direct contravention to their dev plan and allocation and doesn’t meet the affordable housing goals by 50% or required housing by 90%…(and quite honestly, how many families want to live overlooking a 10,000 seater stadium)

Its miles from the town centre and public transport isn’t a viable* option because of the river, railway and canal….(unless someone pays for new bridges etc. which the favoured (only developer to submit) is exempted from)

In fact far from learning from errors in the past this is pretty much a mirror of the 60’s tower blocks I was brought up in and around…and this is located between two of the areas where we won the award for most violent crime places to live in Surrey according the the police statistics. (I appreciate that’s not the highest bar but ….)

I do occasionally wonder if the Uk’s housing crisis is related to the expectation of having an actual house as opposed to apartment (especially in built up areas), the norm for our mainland neighbors.

Perhaps, maybe it’s circumstantial. Apartment blocks are common in Europe for sure, and they aren’t all slums. Why this would be isn’t clear to me.

I’ve lived in Finland and Germany, both times in what would be considered grim blocks of flats here. But they were working as designed – full of private tenants or owners of all ages and social standing.

In Finland, most of the suburbs are apartment blocks – but this is because there was a mass exodus from the countryside to the city after WWII when huge areas of the country were burned to the ground – it had been a mostly rural population. So massive housing projects were needed, they were built, and people lived in them. Full of families and professionals and all.

In Germany (Munich) the stock seemed mostly to be blocks of flats or nice bespoke houses. So it seems to me that the apartment building is in lieu of our ‘modern housing estate’ and is correspondingly populated. I know less about the situation there though.

I didn’t hear about this until today but apparently Tories are promising to start reversing Beeching cuts. A massive undertaking (as it’s been discussed before many times) but interesting. I doubt he’d ever do it though but it’s a nice thought.

ONe thing I’m still not understanding is that tehe conserviatives are getting trashed in locals, but then we have this just now:

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 43% (+3)
LAB: 30% (-)
LDEM: 15% (-)
BREX: 5% (-3)
GRN: 2% (-1)

I know people say that people vote differtently in locals to GEs but I cant quite wrap my head round such a disparity.

Recent locals:

St Mary’s (Powys) result:
Labour GAIN from Conservative.

Goodrington with Roselands (Torbay) result:
Conservative GAIN from Liberal Democrat.

Culverden (Tunbridge Wells) result:
Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative.

Shap (Eden) result:
Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative.

Dunfermline East (Fife) first preferences:
SNP GAIN from Conservative.

Rosyth (Fife) first preferences:
SNP HOLD.

Rhos (Neath Port Talbot) result:
Plaid Cymru GAIN from Labour.