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Vince Cable snaps
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"Or are all the really greasy power hungry politicians dumping their beliefs for populist policies so that they can keep snouts in the feeding trough?" I'd never trust the LibDems after they sold out a lot of their voters by propping up Cameron's government. Locally, we have a councillor, currently Independent who has been: LibDem Plaid Cymru And unsuccessfully stood as a Tory Surely, they can't change their political beliefs that often! The trough has a lot to offer, it seems! | |||
"Or are all the really greasy power hungry politicians dumping their beliefs for populist policies so that they can keep snouts in the feeding trough? I'd never trust the LibDems after they sold out a lot of their voters by propping up Cameron's government. Locally, we have a councillor, currently Independent who has been: LibDem Plaid Cymru And unsuccessfully stood as a Tory Surely, they can't change their political beliefs that often! The trough has a lot to offer, it seems! " True. And as Cable is no longer an MP it seems he can now give his honest opinion of immigration | |||
"Or are all the really greasy power hungry politicians dumping their beliefs for populist policies so that they can keep snouts in the feeding trough?" From Farage to Cameroon they are all bottom feeders.  | |||
"Or are all the really greasy power hungry politicians dumping their beliefs for populist policies so that they can keep snouts in the feeding trough? I'd never trust the LibDems after they sold out a lot of their voters by propping up Cameron's government. Locally, we have a councillor, currently Independent who has been: LibDem Plaid Cymru And unsuccessfully stood as a Tory Surely, they can't change their political beliefs that often! The trough has a lot to offer, it seems! True. And as Cable is no longer an MP it seems he can now give his honest opinion of immigration" So, he lacks integrity doesn't he. Which I've thought for some time. | |||
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"Or he could just be stating the bleeding obvious like 27% of births are now to mother's born outside the UK. . . We've never been honest about immigration, there's benefits and non benefits and an honest conversation at the beginning about numbers and integrating would have been a better start. Instead we get this government line where only 4000 Romanians would come here and Farages side where the whole of Romania will come here and probably live in my front garden..... It's child like politics "We were told by the Labour government around 2003-04 that only around 35,000 Poles would come to the UK, then in the real event over a million of them came here. Jack Straw, Alan Johnson, David Blunkett and many other former Labour MP's from that time have openly admitted they seriously underestimated the numbers and they totally got it wrong. | |||
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"I note that Cable does not use the words 'disaster for Britain' This is something the Sun has added. " Not at all like The Scum to scaremonger. I am quite surprised  | |||
"It would seem they are all back pedalling now, politicians, the Bank of England, Economists, the IMF, how could anybody have fallen for them " | |||
"Or he could just be stating the bleeding obvious like 27% of births are now to mother's born outside the UK. . . We've never been honest about immigration, there's benefits and non benefits and an honest conversation at the beginning about numbers and integrating would have been a better start. Instead we get this government line where only 4000 Romanians would come here and Farages side where the whole of Romania will come here and probably live in my front garden..... It's child like politics
We were told by the Labour government around 2003-04 that only around 35,000 Poles would come to the UK, then in the real event over a million of them came here. Jack Straw, Alan Johnson, David Blunkett and many other former Labour MP's from that time have openly admitted they seriously underestimated the numbers and they totally got it wrong."They couldn't have got it wrong.... They employed experts to forecast the numbers..... | |||
"Or he could just be stating the bleeding obvious like 27% of births are now to mother's born outside the UK. . . We've never been honest about immigration, there's benefits and non benefits and an honest conversation at the beginning about numbers and integrating would have been a better start. Instead we get this government line where only 4000 Romanians would come here and Farages side where the whole of Romania will come here and probably live in my front garden..... It's child like politics "I agree. The original intention of free movement was between nations of much closer economic level where language and culture were somewhat more of a barrier and it would be unlikely that immigration would be large. However, with the new Eastern European states, although similar on an international scale there was a sufficiently large economic gradient to attract them. Their home nations were still pretty grim, they spoke English, transport links were much improved and there was nothing to lose. Also the UK decided not to control immigration at the onset when it was possible so once so many came it was natural for others to join well established communities. You can criticise the Lib Dems or anyone else for "selling out" but once your beliefs meet finance or reality you may have to move your position. Principles can be a luxury and a conceit. I don't think it makes any difference where your parents come from though. Who really cares? Children don't. We could have been a bit more thoughtful with immigration and asked for EU funding to support infrastructure spending as everyone was caught out by the scale. We didn't though. We started ranting... | |||
" Also the UK decided not to control immigration at the onset when it was possible so once so many came it was natural for others to join well established communities. " Genuine question, you say the UK decided not to control immigration. I honestly had no idea the UK ever had that option. Could you tell me,When that decision was made, And how it would have worked, within the framework of the EU. Thank you in advance | |||
"Or he could just be stating the bleeding obvious like 27% of births are now to mother's born outside the UK. . . We've never been honest about immigration, there's benefits and non benefits and an honest conversation at the beginning about numbers and integrating would have been a better start. Instead we get this government line where only 4000 Romanians would come here and Farages side where the whole of Romania will come here and probably live in my front garden..... It's child like politics
I agree. The original intention of free movement was between nations of much closer economic level where language and culture were somewhat more of a barrier and it would be unlikely that immigration would be large.
However, with the new Eastern European states, although similar on an international scale there was a sufficiently large economic gradient to attract them. Their home nations were still pretty grim, they spoke English, transport links were much improved and there was nothing to lose. Also the UK decided not to control immigration at the onset when it was possible so once so many came it was natural for others to join well established communities.
You can criticise the Lib Dems or anyone else for "selling out" but once your beliefs meet finance or reality you may have to move your position.
Principles can be a luxury and a conceit.
I don't think it makes any difference where your parents come from though. Who really cares? Children don't.
We could have been a bit more thoughtful with immigration and asked for EU funding to support infrastructure spending as everyone was caught out by the scale.
We didn't though. We started ranting...". In A globalised world nation states no longer have a captive market. With a 27% increase in births in a socialised country comes expenditure, an expenditure that you can't guarantee you'll get a return on as people move internationally. My fear is the obvious pressure will be to go to a non govt expenditure, You pay for schools you pay for medical, you pay for everything, if you decide to move, it's no loss to the state....I don't know, maybe it will work out for the better, the goal however was always for a usa 2.0 , and that would never work with socialism, it's what gives the USA it's productivity advantage, people follow the work!. This could never work with European socialist countries and personally I think that's been the overhaul plan for the European union, internal markets only work for a limited period with growth models.... To break out of that is hard | |||
" Also the UK decided not to control immigration at the onset when it was possible so once so many came it was natural for others to join well established communities. Genuine question, you say the UK decided not to control immigration. I honestly had no idea the UK ever had that option. Could you tell me,When that decision was made, And how it would have worked, within the framework of the EU. Thank you in advance " . We had an option on limiting eastern Europeans on their entry into the EU... Most of the EU took it up, I think only the UK and Sweden didn't. The idea was to give a few years to stabilise it....I think it was 7 years but to be honest it needed to be about 20 | |||
"In A globalised world nation states no longer have a captive market. With a 27% increase in births in a socialised country comes expenditure, an expenditure that you can't guarantee you'll get a return on as people move internationally. My fear is the obvious pressure will be to go to a non govt expenditure, You pay for schools you pay for medical, you pay for everything, if you decide to move, it's no loss to the state....I don't know, maybe it will work out for the better, the goal however was always for a usa 2.0 , and that would never work with socialism, it's what gives the USA it's productivity advantage, people follow the work!. This could never work with European socialist countries and personally I think that's been the overhaul plan for the European union, internal markets only work for a limited period with growth models.... To break out of that is hard" So your assumption here is that the children being born to foreign born parents will leave with their parents?) before they become economically active? ONS data indicates a falling birth rate overalloverall. 1.83 per woman. Less than the replacement rate: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2015-07-15 I have no data to confirm this of course, but my contention would be that those wanting to return home are not the ones starting families. Once children have started schooling, once they've started to become British I find it difficult to imagine that parents will take the decision to go "home". The UK is home for those children. Even if their parents intend to retire in the motherland it is.often the case that this will no longer be the country that they left and they end up staying too. | |||
"In A globalised world nation states no longer have a captive market. With a 27% increase in births in a socialised country comes expenditure, an expenditure that you can't guarantee you'll get a return on as people move internationally. My fear is the obvious pressure will be to go to a non govt expenditure, You pay for schools you pay for medical, you pay for everything, if you decide to move, it's no loss to the state....I don't know, maybe it will work out for the better, the goal however was always for a usa 2.0 , and that would never work with socialism, it's what gives the USA it's productivity advantage, people follow the work!. This could never work with European socialist countries and personally I think that's been the overhaul plan for the European union, internal markets only work for a limited period with growth models.... To break out of that is hard So your assumption here is that the children being born to foreign born parents will leave with their parents?) before they become economically active? ONS data indicates a falling birth rate overalloverall. 1.83 per woman. Less than the replacement rate: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2015-07-15 I have no data to confirm this of course, but my contention would be that those wanting to return home are not the ones starting families. Once children have started schooling, once they've started to become British I find it difficult to imagine that parents will take the decision to go "home". The UK is home for those children. Even if their parents intend to retire in the motherland it is.often the case that this will no longer be the country that they left and they end up staying too." . Of course I'm saying they may leave, to deny that is to deny the millions that have already left or the millions that have retired abroad. Nation states used to be captive to both capital and people... Those days are long gone. The question is what do you do now you don't have a guaranteed return on your expenditure? | |||
" We had an option on limiting eastern Europeans on their entry into the EU... Most of the EU took it up, I think only the UK and Sweden didn't. The idea was to give a few years to stabilise it....I think it was 7 years but to be honest it needed to be about 20" That's something that I find particularly sad. The EU aren't to blame for the immigration shock that pockets of the UK have suffered. It was a decision made by our sovereign government. A purely British decision. It can be argued that we benefited economically in a big way from this. The low productivity but high economic growth of the UK has been down to cheap labour relative to the rest of western Europe. Does this balance the unsettling social change? Apparently not. However, we could have been more creative and required English qualifications before the full set of benefits were made accessible. The only catch would be UK nationals would have to meet the same criteria. Not necessarily a bad thing... | |||
" Of course I'm saying they may leave, to deny that is to deny the millions that have already left or the millions that have retired abroad. Nation states used to be captive to both capital and people... Those days are long gone. The question is what do you do now you don't have a guaranteed return on your expenditure?" I don't think that the children of immigrants are any more likely to leave than those of "native" British. Not that I believe that's a meaningful term anymore. What will keep children here when they grow up isn't their parents, it's economic opportunity and how they view society. The irony is that these are the people more in favour of EU membership... | |||
" We had an option on limiting eastern Europeans on their entry into the EU... Most of the EU took it up, I think only the UK and Sweden didn't. The idea was to give a few years to stabilise it....I think it was 7 years but to be honest it needed to be about 20 That's something that I find particularly sad. The EU aren't to blame for the immigration shock that pockets of the UK have suffered. It was a decision made by our sovereign government. A purely British decision. It can be argued that we benefited economically in a big way from this. The low productivity but high economic growth of the UK has been down to cheap labour relative to the rest of western Europe. Does this balance the unsettling social change? Apparently not. However, we could have been more creative and required English qualifications before the full set of benefits were made accessible. The only catch would be UK nationals would have to meet the same criteria. Not necessarily a bad thing..." The sad thing is, Everything you have ever posted on brexit, has been shown to be untrue. Our sovereign government made no decision. The truth is,since 2013,no country within the EU, Have any rights to restrict immigration from eastern European countries. | |||
"Ex Lib dem MP and a leading light for the Lib dems for many years Vince Cable has ripped up years of Lib dem thinking by declaring mass immigration may have been a disaster for Britain. The ex business secretary during the coalition government (2010 - 2015) said he had "serious doubts that EU free movement is tenable or even desirable" and said it may not, as he used to claim, make the UK richer. Mr Cable also said mass EU immigration also unfairly discriminated against migrants from outside the EU. He added "For the receiving country, the benefits are less obvious, a bigger economy but not necessarily a richer one. Immigrants may be more productive than the indigenous workers but they have dependents too". Writing in the New Statesman he said migrants are usually young and likely to contribute more in tax than they take in welfare. But he went on "They get older so these benefits are non recurring". The intervention plunged Vince Cable (who lost his MP seat in 2015) into conflict with Lib dem leader Tim Farron. A spokesperson for Tim Farron said "Vince's views are his own. He is not an MP and does not speak for the party". " Cable, in that same article said 'I was (and am) a Remainer.' 'Seen globally, more migration is undeniably a positive.' 'People moving from high unemployment, low productivity countries to areas of labour scarcity and higher productivity produce economic gains. But the benefits accrue mainly to migrants themselves (and business owners).' MAINLY. And he still acknowledges benefits, not handicaps. 'For the receiving country, the benefits are less obvious: a bigger economy but not necessarily a richer one.' Less obvious, but still there then? Not 'necessarily' a richer one, but not poorer either, by the sounds of it. 'Immigrants may be more productive than indigenous workers but they have dependents too. They are usually young people and therefore likely to be more flexible, more mobile and more likely to work contributing more in tax than they take out in benefits and subsidised services. But they grow older so these benefits are non-recurring.' FFS. Good then, on balance. 'Critics complain that immigrant workers depress wages and reduce job opportunities for natives. Undoubtedly, this happens in some occupations, like building and taxi driving. But there are other areas where immigrants are not competing and bring complementary skills, creating jobs. When I was secretary of state I commissioned studies to evaluate this. The conclusions were sufficiently reassuring that the Home Office blocked my department’s wish to publish them.' Good on the whole then. 'There is no great argument of liberal principle for free EU movement; the economics is debatable; and the politics is conclusively hostile. The argument for free movement has become tactical: it is part of a package that also contains the wider economic benefits of the single market. Those benefits are real, which is why the government must prioritise single market access and shared regulation. Yet that may not be possible to reconcile with restrictions on movement. The second-best option is customs union status, essential for supply chain industries.' So if it really comes down to it (which it will) he advocates single market and free movement. 'I do not see much upside in Brexit, but one is the opportunity for a more rational immigration policy.' So, he is quite clearly against Brexit, but if it does happen then at least there are some minor good things we can do to slightly counter balance the almighty fuck up we are gonna experience. | |||
"Ex Lib dem MP and a leading light for the Lib dems for many years Vince Cable has ripped up years of Lib dem thinking by declaring mass immigration may have been a disaster for Britain. The ex business secretary during the coalition government (2010 - 2015) said he had "serious doubts that EU free movement is tenable or even desirable" and said it may not, as he used to claim, make the UK richer. Mr Cable also said mass EU immigration also unfairly discriminated against migrants from outside the EU. He added "For the receiving country, the benefits are less obvious, a bigger economy but not necessarily a richer one. Immigrants may be more productive than the indigenous workers but they have dependents too". Writing in the New Statesman he said migrants are usually young and likely to contribute more in tax than they take in welfare. But he went on "They get older so these benefits are non recurring". The intervention plunged Vince Cable (who lost his MP seat in 2015) into conflict with Lib dem leader Tim Farron. A spokesperson for Tim Farron said "Vince's views are his own. He is not an MP and does not speak for the party". Cable, in that same article said 'I was (and am) a Remainer.' 'Seen globally, more migration is undeniably a positive.' 'People moving from high unemployment, low productivity countries to areas of labour scarcity and higher productivity produce economic gains. But the benefits accrue mainly to migrants themselves (and business owners).' MAINLY. And he still acknowledges benefits, not handicaps. 'For the receiving country, the benefits are less obvious: a bigger economy but not necessarily a richer one.' Less obvious, but still there then? Not 'necessarily' a richer one, but not poorer either, by the sounds of it. 'Immigrants may be more productive than indigenous workers but they have dependents too. They are usually young people and therefore likely to be more flexible, more mobile and more likely to work contributing more in tax than they take out in benefits and subsidised services. But they grow older so these benefits are non-recurring.' FFS. Good then, on balance. 'Critics complain that immigrant workers depress wages and reduce job opportunities for natives. Undoubtedly, this happens in some occupations, like building and taxi driving. But there are other areas where immigrants are not competing and bring complementary skills, creating jobs. When I was secretary of state I commissioned studies to evaluate this. The conclusions were sufficiently reassuring that the Home Office blocked my department’s wish to publish them.' Good on the whole then. 'There is no great argument of liberal principle for free EU movement; the economics is debatable; and the politics is conclusively hostile. The argument for free movement has become tactical: it is part of a package that also contains the wider economic benefits of the single market. Those benefits are real, which is why the government must prioritise single market access and shared regulation. Yet that may not be possible to reconcile with restrictions on movement. The second-best option is customs union status, essential for supply chain industries.' So if it really comes down to it (which it will) he advocates single market and free movement. 'I do not see much upside in Brexit, but one is the opportunity for a more rational immigration policy.' So, he is quite clearly against Brexit, but if it does happen then at least there are some minor good things we can do to slightly counter balance the almighty fuck up we are gonna experience." Why is Tim Farron disagreeing with Vince Cable then and trying to distance himself and the Lib dems from Vince Cable's comments? | |||
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" Of course I'm saying they may leave, to deny that is to deny the millions that have already left or the millions that have retired abroad. Nation states used to be captive to both capital and people... Those days are long gone. The question is what do you do now you don't have a guaranteed return on your expenditure? I don't think that the children of immigrants are any more likely to leave than those of "native" British. Not that I believe that's a meaningful term anymore. What will keep children here when they grow up isn't their parents, it's economic opportunity and how they view society. The irony is that these are the people more in favour of EU membership..." . I wasn't taking about children of immigrants....I was taking about everybody!. Were losing middle class skills to low tax or better environment countries on a very very large scale and have been for nigh on twenty years!... Australia, Dubai, Indonesia, Singapore, honk Kong, new Zealand, Canada. You could compete with them by lowering our taxes... Alot. But that's the end to government services | |||
" We had an option on limiting eastern Europeans on their entry into the EU... Most of the EU took it up, I think only the UK and Sweden didn't. The idea was to give a few years to stabilise it....I think it was 7 years but to be honest it needed to be about 20 Our sovereign government made no decision. The truth is,since 2013,no country within the EU, Have any rights to restrict immigration from eastern European countries. " . I'm afraid in the context of the accession of the eastern block countries that's exactly what happened, everybody else backed out of the open borders policy for 7 years and only us and Sweden carried on with it. That's why predominantly the UK got a tad more than the I think 15,000 govt estimates | |||
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" I wasn't taking about children of immigrants....I was taking about everybody!. Were losing middle class skills to low tax or better environment countries on a very very large scale and have been for nigh on twenty years!... Australia, Dubai, Indonesia, Singapore, honk Kong, new Zealand, Canada. You could compete with them by lowering our taxes... Alot. But that's the end to government services" I had this quote of yours in mind "Or he could just be stating the bleeding obvious like 27% of births are now to mother's born outside the UK." There is an inevitability about losing progressively more skilled jobs to other countries because, happily for them, they are becoming healthier and better educated. They naturally want what we have. How do we stay ahead? We innovate and invent. We have to push into new technologies. We do that. The problem is for the unskilled and semi skilled. The honest truth is that a lot of people don't want to do unpleasent but necessary jobs or are able to do intellectually difficult ones. That's why we have immigration. Perhaps it will need to be a national wage because automation is also on it's way. Finland is starting that experiment... | |||
" I wasn't taking about children of immigrants....I was taking about everybody!. Were losing middle class skills to low tax or better environment countries on a very very large scale and have been for nigh on twenty years!... Australia, Dubai, Indonesia, Singapore, honk Kong, new Zealand, Canada. You could compete with them by lowering our taxes... Alot. But that's the end to government services I had this quote of yours in mind "Or he could just be stating the bleeding obvious like 27% of births are now to mother's born outside the UK." There is an inevitability about losing progressively more skilled jobs to other countries because, happily for them, they are becoming healthier and better educated. They naturally want what we have. How do we stay ahead? We innovate and invent. We have to push into new technologies. We do that. The problem is for the unskilled and semi skilled. The honest truth is that a lot of people don't want to do unpleasent but necessary jobs or are able to do intellectually difficult ones. That's why we have immigration. Perhaps it will need to be a national wage because automation is also on it's way. Finland is starting that experiment..." . Well obviously any increase in expenditure requires some pay back at a later date(is 24% increase in births), that's my point in a globalised world that's no longer a given, people can and will work where they either get paid more (we could that) pay less tax (we could that) or have a better standard living (we could that but again that requires more tax) competing in lower taxes is the easiest solution which is why you see most of the countries I listed do just that... GDP is a measure of a countries wealth but not really of our wealth GDP per capita gives a better idea, Japan has been increasing GDP per capita while shrinking their population, this notion that you can expand forever is false, sooner or later you can't. Unlimited unregulated immigration tends to looking at the figures to boost GDP but lower GDP per capita... You get a small gain but a bigger gain in people sharing. Your absolutely right that innovation and technology is key and your also absolutely right that we should be instilling the attitude of work even if it's a shit job... Japan does this just fine, you can see anybody from young kids to old people brushing streets in Tokyo!. | |||
" Well obviously any increase in expenditure requires some pay back at a later date(is 24% increase in births), that's my point in a globalised world that's no longer a given, people can and will work where they either get paid more (we could that) pay less tax (we could that) or have a better standard living (we could that but again that requires more tax) competing in lower taxes is the easiest solution which is why you see most of the countries I listed do just that... GDP is a measure of a countries wealth but not really of our wealth GDP per capita gives a better idea, Japan has been increasing GDP per capita while shrinking their population, this notion that you can expand forever is false, sooner or later you can't. Unlimited unregulated immigration tends to looking at the figures to boost GDP but lower GDP per capita... You get a small gain but a bigger gain in people sharing. Your absolutely right that innovation and technology is key and your also absolutely right that we should be instilling the attitude of work even if it's a shit job... Japan does this just fine, you can see anybody from young kids to old people brushing streets in Tokyo!. " I think your starting point may be wrong then. We have a falling birth rate as of 2014. 1.8ish per woman according to the latest ONS figures. I'm not sure what the 24% refers to. There's both pride in the job and the ability to live your life and raise a family on what you earn. That's where the rage lies... | |||
" I think your starting point may be wrong then. We have a falling birth rate as of 2014. 1.8ish per woman according to the latest ONS figures. I'm not sure what the 24% refers to. There's both pride in the job and the ability to live your life and raise a family on what you earn. That's where the rage lies..." . Sorry to confuse 24% is the live births born to non born UK mother's. The birthrate has been falling steadily since the mid 70s(along with most of the industrialised world, it went from about 2 children per mother to about 1.6 in 2002 and since then has picked up to about 1.9 ish (still a long term negative)... Actual numbers from year to year show about a 0.2% increase in births in England but a drop of about 3% in Scotland(Probably because Scotland had no where near as much immigration as England). | |||
" We had an option on limiting eastern Europeans on their entry into the EU... Most of the EU took it up, I think only the UK and Sweden didn't. The idea was to give a few years to stabilise it....I think it was 7 years but to be honest it needed to be about 20 Our sovereign government made no decision. The truth is,since 2013,no country within the EU, Have any rights to restrict immigration from eastern European countries. . I'm afraid in the context of the accession of the eastern block countries that's exactly what happened, everybody else backed out of the open borders policy for 7 years and only us and Sweden carried on with it. That's why predominantly the UK got a tad more than the I think 15,000 govt estimates" I'm afraid any information I can find on this, completely contradicts your premise. | |||
" We had an option on limiting eastern Europeans on their entry into the EU... Most of the EU took it up, I think only the UK and Sweden didn't. The idea was to give a few years to stabilise it....I think it was 7 years but to be honest it needed to be about 20 Our sovereign government made no decision. The truth is,since 2013,no country within the EU, Have any rights to restrict immigration from eastern European countries. . I'm afraid in the context of the accession of the eastern block countries that's exactly what happened, everybody else backed out of the open borders policy for 7 years and only us and Sweden carried on with it. That's why predominantly the UK got a tad more than the I think 15,000 govt estimates I'm afraid any information I can find on this, completely contradicts your premise." Not sure where you looked. Try the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3513889.stm | |||
" We had an option on limiting eastern Europeans on their entry into the EU... Most of the EU took it up, I think only the UK and Sweden didn't. The idea was to give a few years to stabilise it....I think it was 7 years but to be honest it needed to be about 20 Our sovereign government made no decision. The truth is,since 2013,no country within the EU, Have any rights to restrict immigration from eastern European countries. . I'm afraid in the context of the accession of the eastern block countries that's exactly what happened, everybody else backed out of the open borders policy for 7 years and only us and Sweden carried on with it. That's why predominantly the UK got a tad more than the I think 15,000 govt estimates I'm afraid any information I can find on this, completely contradicts your premise. Not sure where you looked. Try the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk//hi/world/europe/3513889.stm" Did you actually read this link. Even your own links prove you completely wrong. | |||
" Not sure where you looked. Try the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk//hi/world/europe/3513889.stm Did you actually read this link. Even your own links prove you completely wrong. " I did. It confirms the principle doesn't it? We had discretion to limit immigration and we chose not to. It confirms exactly what I actually wrote. "That's something that I find particularly sad. The EU aren't to blame for the immigration shock that pockets of the UK have suffered. It was a decision made by our sovereign government. A purely British decision." | |||
"Or he could just be stating the bleeding obvious like 27% of births are now to mother's born outside the UK. . . We've never been honest about immigration, there's benefits and non benefits and an honest conversation at the beginning about numbers and integrating would have been a better start. Instead we get this government line where only 4000 Romanians would come here and Farages side where the whole of Romania will come here and probably live in my front garden..... It's child like politics
I agree. The original intention of free movement was between nations of much closer economic level where language and culture were somewhat more of a barrier and it would be unlikely that immigration would be large.
However, with the new Eastern European states, although similar on an international scale there was a sufficiently large economic gradient to attract them. Their home nations were still pretty grim, they spoke English, transport links were much improved and there was nothing to lose. Also the UK decided not to control immigration at the onset when it was possible so once so many came it was natural for others to join well established communities.
You can criticise the Lib Dems or anyone else for "selling out" but once your beliefs meet finance or reality you may have to move your position.
Principles can be a luxury and a conceit.
I don't think it makes any difference where your parents come from though. Who really cares? Children don't.
We could have been a bit more thoughtful with immigration and asked for EU funding to support infrastructure spending as everyone was caught out by the scale.
We didn't though. We started ranting.... In
A globalised world nation states no longer have a captive market.
With a 27% increase in births in a socialised country comes expenditure, an expenditure that you can't guarantee you'll get a return on as people move internationally.
My fear is the obvious pressure will be to go to a non govt expenditure, You pay for schools you pay for medical, you pay for everything, if you decide to move, it's no loss to the state....I don't know, maybe it will work out for the better, the goal however was always for a usa 2.0 , and that would never work with socialism, it's what gives the USA it's productivity advantage, people follow the work!.
This could never work with European socialist countries and personally I think that's been the overhaul plan for the European union, internal markets only work for a limited period with growth models.... To break out of that is hard"Capitalism will make nation states obsolete. It is happening, and is inevitable. Obviously, theres a certain irony in the politics of most nationalists, given this. | |||
"Or he could just be stating the bleeding obvious like 27% of births are now to mother's born outside the UK. . . We've never been honest about immigration, there's benefits and non benefits and an honest conversation at the beginning about numbers and integrating would have been a better start. Instead we get this government line where only 4000 Romanians would come here and Farages side where the whole of Romania will come here and probably live in my front garden..... It's child like politics
I agree. The original intention of free movement was between nations of much closer economic level where language and culture were somewhat more of a barrier and it would be unlikely that immigration would be large.
However, with the new Eastern European states, although similar on an international scale there was a sufficiently large economic gradient to attract them. Their home nations were still pretty grim, they spoke English, transport links were much improved and there was nothing to lose. Also the UK decided not to control immigration at the onset when it was possible so once so many came it was natural for others to join well established communities.
You can criticise the Lib Dems or anyone else for "selling out" but once your beliefs meet finance or reality you may have to move your position.
Principles can be a luxury and a conceit.
I don't think it makes any difference where your parents come from though. Who really cares? Children don't.
We could have been a bit more thoughtful with immigration and asked for EU funding to support infrastructure spending as everyone was caught out by the scale.
We didn't though. We started ranting.... In
A globalised world nation states no longer have a captive market.
With a 27% increase in births in a socialised country comes expenditure, an expenditure that you can't guarantee you'll get a return on as people move internationally.
My fear is the obvious pressure will be to go to a non govt expenditure, You pay for schools you pay for medical, you pay for everything, if you decide to move, it's no loss to the state....I don't know, maybe it will work out for the better, the goal however was always for a usa 2.0 , and that would never work with socialism, it's what gives the USA it's productivity advantage, people follow the work!.
This could never work with European socialist countries and personally I think that's been the overhaul plan for the European union, internal markets only work for a limited period with growth models.... To break out of that is hard
Capitalism will make nation states obsolete.
It is happening, and is inevitable.
Obviously, theres a certain irony in the politics of most nationalists, given this. ".. I couldn't agree with you more in the long run.... It's the transitional period which will see the fun... So to speak | |||
" Not sure where you looked. Try the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk//hi/world/europe/3513889.stm Did you actually read this link. Even your own links prove you completely wrong. I did. It confirms the principle doesn't it? We had discretion to limit immigration and we chose not to. It confirms exactly what I actually wrote. "That's something that I find particularly sad. The EU aren't to blame for the immigration shock that pockets of the UK have suffered. It was a decision made by our sovereign government. A purely British decision."" . I'm not sure I agree there, yes a British government position but not a British person position. The debate about immigration is a little bit skewed by... How shall I say this... Not immigration in general but Islamic immigration,I think all things being equal, we'd probably just have squeezed the referendum except for that Islamic immigration.... That's not a blame thing, that's just an observation | |||
" I'm not sure I agree there, yes a British government position but not a British person position. The debate about immigration is a little bit skewed by... How shall I say this... Not immigration in general but Islamic immigration,I think all things being equal, we'd probably just have squeezed the referendum except for that Islamic immigration.... That's not a blame thing, that's just an observation" The EU Islamic immigration from, er, Turkey and Syria?  | |||
" I'm not sure I agree there, yes a British government position but not a British person position. The debate about immigration is a little bit skewed by... How shall I say this... Not immigration in general but Islamic immigration,I think all things being equal, we'd probably just have squeezed the referendum except for that Islamic immigration.... That's not a blame thing, that's just an observation The EU Islamic immigration from, er, Turkey and Syria? "Pretty much the whole of the EU put together really. And seeing as Angela Merkel just let in over a million Islamic refugees just last year alone, once they get German citizenship, they would all be free to come to the UK under the EU free movement of people rules if they wanted to. | |||
" Pretty much the whole of the EU put together really. And seeing as Angela Merkel just let in over a million Islamic refugees just last year alone, once they get German citizenship, they would all be free to come to the UK under the EU free movement of people rules if they wanted to. " Pretty much the whole EU wants to come here or are Muslim? All or the majority or even some Muslim refugees from Germany want to come here? Muslims are bad because they all want to blow us up? | |||
" I'm not sure I agree there, yes a British government position but not a British person position. The debate about immigration is a little bit skewed by... How shall I say this... Not immigration in general but Islamic immigration,I think all things being equal, we'd probably just have squeezed the referendum except for that Islamic immigration.... That's not a blame thing, that's just an observation The EU Islamic immigration from, er, Turkey and Syria? ". I think that wether we like it or not very different foreign cultures are worrying too people and I don't mean just the UK, I'm taking more generally about the EU as a whole. I don't think there's an easy solution to these things to be honest, lots of it is just human nature | |||
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" I'm not sure I agree there, yes a British government position but not a British person position. The debate about immigration is a little bit skewed by... How shall I say this... Not immigration in general but Islamic immigration,I think all things being equal, we'd probably just have squeezed the referendum except for that Islamic immigration.... That's not a blame thing, that's just an observation The EU Islamic immigration from, er, Turkey and Syria? .
I think that wether we like it or not very different foreign cultures are worrying too people and I don't mean just the UK, I'm taking more generally about the EU as a whole.
I don't think there's an easy solution to these things to be honest, lots of it is just human nature"There is a very simple solution. Education. It is human nature to be afraid or worried of the unknown. By educating people and getting them to understand other people better I think we can overcome this. This is very much not helped by the right wing news encouraging xenophobia and racism. As a student I was involved in a student organisation who's big fluffy goal was to make the world a better place. The concrete steps they were going to help that was to get people to experience different countries, cultures, and people. And to do that, they were organising work exchanges for people. You don't really experience a foreign culture by sitting on their beach or in their hotels. You experience it by working alongside those people. It was a fantastic example of a positive step towards understanding other people and their viewpoints. Imagine if there was some way (yes, I know practicalities aside) that everyone in the world could somehow get to spend even just a week or two living and working alongside someone in a different country and culture. Just think how different this world would be? -Matt | |||
" I'm not sure I agree there, yes a British government position but not a British person position. The debate about immigration is a little bit skewed by... How shall I say this... Not immigration in general but Islamic immigration,I think all things being equal, we'd probably just have squeezed the referendum except for that Islamic immigration.... That's not a blame thing, that's just an observation The EU Islamic immigration from, er, Turkey and Syria? .
I think that wether we like it or not very different foreign cultures are worrying too people and I don't mean just the UK, I'm taking more generally about the EU as a whole.
I don't think there's an easy solution to these things to be honest, lots of it is just human nature
There is a very simple solution. Education. It is human nature to be afraid or worried of the unknown. By educating people and getting them to understand other people better I think we can overcome this. This is very much not helped by the right wing news encouraging xenophobia and racism.
As a student I was involved in a student organisation who's big fluffy goal was to make the world a better place. The concrete steps they were going to help that was to get people to experience different countries, cultures, and people. And to do that, they were organising work exchanges for people. You don't really experience a foreign culture by sitting on their beach or in their hotels. You experience it by working alongside those people. It was a fantastic example of a positive step towards understanding other people and their viewpoints.
Imagine if there was some way (yes, I know practicalities aside) that everyone in the world could somehow get to spend even just a week or two living and working alongside someone in a different country and culture. Just think how different this world would be?
-Matt"Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims | |||
" I don't think there's an easy solution to these things to be honest, lots of it is just human nature" This is nothing to do with the EU though, is it? | |||
" Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims" This is prejudice by any definition I'm afraid. I find that disappointing. I agree that integration is a problem which could be solved most simply by a requirement that everybody including British born residents, achieves a minimum level of English and at least understands the basics of civility. The latter is lacking on a Saturday night in any British town centre at the end of the month. However, to pretend that only or even mainly Muslims fail to integrate is utterly unsupported. It depends very much where you live and to how shrill the intolerant voices from any side are. Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim. | |||
" I don't think there's an easy solution to these things to be honest, lots of it is just human nature This is nothing to do with the EU though, is it?" . No not really, what they faced was unprecedented, many times it's not what you do but that you are seen to be doing something and I think that's where the center ground politics was lost in the EU as they looked like they were faffing and arguing about what could be done!. | |||
" Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim." . I get into many arguments with lots of people on here including Catholics, I can assure you it's got nothing to do with skin tone | |||
" Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims This is prejudice by any definition I'm afraid. I find that disappointing. I agree that integration is a problem which could be solved most simply by a requirement that everybody including British born residents, achieves a minimum level of English and at least understands the basics of civility. The latter is lacking on a Saturday night in any British town centre at the end of the month. However, to pretend that only or even mainly Muslims fail to integrate is utterly unsupported. It depends very much where you live and to how shrill the intolerant voices from any side are. Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim." the truth is prejudice? Who else doesn't integrate? And your idea of civility might differ from theirs. Stop making excuses for them it helps nobody | |||
" Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims This is prejudice by any definition I'm afraid. I find that disappointing. I agree that integration is a problem which could be solved most simply by a requirement that everybody including British born residents, achieves a minimum level of English and at least understands the basics of civility. The latter is lacking on a Saturday night in any British town centre at the end of the month. However, to pretend that only or even mainly Muslims fail to integrate is utterly unsupported. It depends very much where you live and to how shrill the intolerant voices from any side are. Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim. the truth is prejudice? Who else doesn't integrate? And your idea of civility might differ from theirs. Stop making excuses for them it helps nobody" Chinese Indians Irish Travellers Polish ummm... depending on how you define it pretty much any immigrant group. Any what is the common factor with all of them? The UK. The British. The 'other side' of the interaction. -Matt | |||
" Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims This is prejudice by any definition I'm afraid. I find that disappointing. I agree that integration is a problem which could be solved most simply by a requirement that everybody including British born residents, achieves a minimum level of English and at least understands the basics of civility. The latter is lacking on a Saturday night in any British town centre at the end of the month. However, to pretend that only or even mainly Muslims fail to integrate is utterly unsupported. It depends very much where you live and to how shrill the intolerant voices from any side are. Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim. the truth is prejudice? Who else doesn't integrate? And your idea of civility might differ from theirs. Stop making excuses for them it helps nobody Chinese Indians Irish Travellers Polish ummm... depending on how you define it pretty much any immigrant group. Any what is the common factor with all of them? The UK. The British. The 'other side' of the interaction. -Matt" Chinese possibly but then they see every other race as inferior. But this is why the people you support in politics are losing everywhere, you will not listen or face reality. Until you/they have the honest debate they will be in the wilderness for years | |||
" Chinese possibly but then they see every other race as inferior. " This is not prejudice?  | |||
" Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims This is prejudice by any definition I'm afraid. I find that disappointing. I agree that integration is a problem which could be solved most simply by a requirement that everybody including British born residents, achieves a minimum level of English and at least understands the basics of civility. The latter is lacking on a Saturday night in any British town centre at the end of the month. However, to pretend that only or even mainly Muslims fail to integrate is utterly unsupported. It depends very much where you live and to how shrill the intolerant voices from any side are. Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim. the truth is prejudice? Who else doesn't integrate? And your idea of civility might differ from theirs. Stop making excuses for them it helps nobody Chinese Indians Irish Travellers Polish ummm... depending on how you define it pretty much any immigrant group. Any what is the common factor with all of them? The UK. The British. The 'other side' of the interaction. -Matt Chinese possibly but then they see every other race as inferior. But this is why the people you support in politics are losing everywhere, you will not listen or face reality. Until you/they have the honest debate they will be in the wilderness for years" Fair enough. I'm not going to support Farage, Le Pen, Trump, etc just because the rest of the world is heading right-wing. My, personal, view is that many of the parties I would like to see in power are losing because they have so far based much of their campaigning on facts, reality, and sense. Which doesn't work at all when the electorate decide that that is not what they want. It is like the situation with aircraft hijacking. Until a decade or so ago the assumption was always that a hijacker wanted to live, and so all policy and safety measures were designed with that assumption. Then as soon as that assumption went away and hijackers no longer cared if they died in the process then that made all rules, policies and measures ineffective. There is a whole new era of politics that has begun that relies on mis-information and playing to the heart... not reason and fact. -Matt | |||
" Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims This is prejudice by any definition I'm afraid. I find that disappointing. I agree that integration is a problem which could be solved most simply by a requirement that everybody including British born residents, achieves a minimum level of English and at least understands the basics of civility. The latter is lacking on a Saturday night in any British town centre at the end of the month. However, to pretend that only or even mainly Muslims fail to integrate is utterly unsupported. It depends very much where you live and to how shrill the intolerant voices from any side are. Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim. the truth is prejudice? Who else doesn't integrate? And your idea of civility might differ from theirs. Stop making excuses for them it helps nobody Chinese Indians Irish Travellers Polish ummm... depending on how you define it pretty much any immigrant group. Any what is the common factor with all of them? The UK. The British. The 'other side' of the interaction. -Matt Chinese possibly but then they see every other race as inferior. But this is why the people you support in politics are losing everywhere, you will not listen or face reality. Until you/they have the honest debate they will be in the wilderness for years Fair enough. I'm not going to support Farage, Le Pen, Trump, etc just because the rest of the world is heading right-wing. My, personal, view is that many of the parties I would like to see in power are losing because they have so far based much of their campaigning on facts, reality, and sense. Which doesn't work at all when the electorate decide that that is not what they want. It is like the situation with aircraft hijacking. Until a decade or so ago the assumption was always that a hijacker wanted to live, and so all policy and safety measures were designed with that assumption. Then as soon as that assumption went away and hijackers no longer cared if they died in the process then that made all rules, policies and measures ineffective. There is a whole new era of politics that has begun that relies on mis-information and playing to the heart... not reason and fact. -Matt" Point proven. Keep kidding yourself | |||
" Chinese possibly but then they see every other race as inferior. This is not prejudice? "Is it not true fan gwai lo? | |||
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" Is it not true fan gwai lo?" No idea what does the phrase mean? I don't mean what you translate it as, but what does it actually mean to someone Chinese? Do you happen to know if all of China's 1.5bn people and the hundreds of millions of expats have this opinion which you are so certain of? | |||
" Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims This is prejudice by any definition I'm afraid. I find that disappointing. I agree that integration is a problem which could be solved most simply by a requirement that everybody including British born residents, achieves a minimum level of English and at least understands the basics of civility. The latter is lacking on a Saturday night in any British town centre at the end of the month. However, to pretend that only or even mainly Muslims fail to integrate is utterly unsupported. It depends very much where you live and to how shrill the intolerant voices from any side are. Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim. the truth is prejudice? Who else doesn't integrate? And your idea of civility might differ from theirs. Stop making excuses for them it helps nobody Chinese Indians Irish Travellers Polish ummm... depending on how you define it pretty much any immigrant group. Any what is the common factor with all of them? The UK. The British. The 'other side' of the interaction. -Matt Chinese possibly but then they see every other race as inferior. But this is why the people you support in politics are losing everywhere, you will not listen or face reality. Until you/they have the honest debate they will be in the wilderness for years Fair enough. I'm not going to support Farage, Le Pen, Trump, etc just because the rest of the world is heading right-wing. My, personal, view is that many of the parties I would like to see in power are losing because they have so far based much of their campaigning on facts, reality, and sense. Which doesn't work at all when the electorate decide that that is not what they want. It is like the situation with aircraft hijacking. Until a decade or so ago the assumption was always that a hijacker wanted to live, and so all policy and safety measures were designed with that assumption. Then as soon as that assumption went away and hijackers no longer cared if they died in the process then that made all rules, policies and measures ineffective. There is a whole new era of politics that has begun that relies on mis-information and playing to the heart... not reason and fact. -Matt" I am sure that most people have the ability to investigate facts where that is considered to be necessary . Why would the information supplied by one political party be any more reliable than others ? Luckily we live in a free society and people can express opinions as they see fit . You do not always need full facts in order to form a valisd opinion. In many cases carefull scanning of other people's opinions should be more than sufficient especially if it is not a life and death situation. If I am buying a new central heating boiler I do not check all the facts . Why would I waste my time doing that. ? I subscribe to Which and it does all the work for me. | |||
" Is it not true fan gwai lo? No idea what does the phrase mean? I don't mean what you translate it as, but what does it actually mean to someone Chinese? Do you happen to know if all of China's 1.5bn people and the hundreds of millions of expats have this opinion which you are so certain of?" it is a common slang term used in a derogatory racist way to describe westerners. To someone Chinese it means something like ghost/devil. They have a similar term for the Japanese, which I forget but translates as something like 'ocean devils' | |||
" Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims This is prejudice by any definition I'm afraid. I find that disappointing. I agree that integration is a problem which could be solved most simply by a requirement that everybody including British born residents, achieves a minimum level of English and at least understands the basics of civility. The latter is lacking on a Saturday night in any British town centre at the end of the month. However, to pretend that only or even mainly Muslims fail to integrate is utterly unsupported. It depends very much where you live and to how shrill the intolerant voices from any side are. Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim. the truth is prejudice? Who else doesn't integrate? And your idea of civility might differ from theirs. Stop making excuses for them it helps nobody Chinese Indians Irish Travellers Polish ummm... depending on how you define it pretty much any immigrant group. Any what is the common factor with all of them? The UK. The British. The 'other side' of the interaction. -Matt Chinese possibly but then they see every other race as inferior. But this is why the people you support in politics are losing everywhere, you will not listen or face reality. Until you/they have the honest debate they will be in the wilderness for years Fair enough. I'm not going to support Farage, Le Pen, Trump, etc just because the rest of the world is heading right-wing. My, personal, view is that many of the parties I would like to see in power are losing because they have so far based much of their campaigning on facts, reality, and sense. Which doesn't work at all when the electorate decide that that is not what they want. It is like the situation with aircraft hijacking. Until a decade or so ago the assumption was always that a hijacker wanted to live, and so all policy and safety measures were designed with that assumption. Then as soon as that assumption went away and hijackers no longer cared if they died in the process then that made all rules, policies and measures ineffective. There is a whole new era of politics that has begun that relies on mis-information and playing to the heart... not reason and fact. -Matt I am sure that most people have the ability to investigate facts where that is considered to be necessary . Why would the information supplied by one political party be any more reliable than others ? Luckily we live in a free society and people can express opinions as they see fit . You do not always need full facts in order to form a valisd opinion. In many cases carefull scanning of other people's opinions should be more than sufficient especially if it is not a life and death situation. If I am buying a new central heating boiler I do not check all the facts . Why would I waste my time doing that. ? I subscribe to Which and it does all the work for me. " Pat, you are the perfect example of why so many people who don't investigate the facts. You actively discourage checking them even. You believe that all pharma companies are trustworthy because they are 'big and successful'. You believe all newspapers tell the whole complete truthful story. You believe Trump will be a great president because he is a 'successful businessman' despite all his bankruptcies, opaque financials, and conflict of interests. Why would the information supplied by one political party be more reliable than another?! Where do you even start with that one. Politics by its very nature concerns itself with the influence of power of a person or group of people over another. So of course information is going to be skewed for a particular purpose or goal. And do you know why you are fine to just pick a boiler from Which? Because there are legal regulations about the construction and installation of boilers for your safety. Oh and there are also EU regulations about energy efficiency of those boilers to help protect our environment and save you money too. -Matt | |||
" Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims This is prejudice by any definition I'm afraid. I find that disappointing. I agree that integration is a problem which could be solved most simply by a requirement that everybody including British born residents, achieves a minimum level of English and at least understands the basics of civility. The latter is lacking on a Saturday night in any British town centre at the end of the month. However, to pretend that only or even mainly Muslims fail to integrate is utterly unsupported. It depends very much where you live and to how shrill the intolerant voices from any side are. Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim. the truth is prejudice? Who else doesn't integrate? And your idea of civility might differ from theirs. Stop making excuses for them it helps nobody Chinese Indians Irish Travellers Polish ummm... depending on how you define it pretty much any immigrant group. Any what is the common factor with all of them? The UK. The British. The 'other side' of the interaction. -Matt Chinese possibly but then they see every other race as inferior. But this is why the people you support in politics are losing everywhere, you will not listen or face reality. Until you/they have the honest debate they will be in the wilderness for years Fair enough. I'm not going to support Farage, Le Pen, Trump, etc just because the rest of the world is heading right-wing. My, personal, view is that many of the parties I would like to see in power are losing because they have so far based much of their campaigning on facts, reality, and sense. Which doesn't work at all when the electorate decide that that is not what they want. It is like the situation with aircraft hijacking. Until a decade or so ago the assumption was always that a hijacker wanted to live, and so all policy and safety measures were designed with that assumption. Then as soon as that assumption went away and hijackers no longer cared if they died in the process then that made all rules, policies and measures ineffective. There is a whole new era of politics that has begun that relies on mis-information and playing to the heart... not reason and fact. -Matt I am sure that most people have the ability to investigate facts where that is considered to be necessary . Why would the information supplied by one political party be any more reliable than others ? Luckily we live in a free society and people can express opinions as they see fit . You do not always need full facts in order to form a valisd opinion. In many cases carefull scanning of other people's opinions should be more than sufficient especially if it is not a life and death situation. If I am buying a new central heating boiler I do not check all the facts . Why would I waste my time doing that. ? I subscribe to Which and it does all the work for me. Pat, you are the perfect example of why so many people who don't investigate the facts. You actively discourage checking them even. You believe that all pharma companies are trustworthy because they are 'big and successful'. You believe all newspapers tell the whole complete truthful story. You believe Trump will be a great president because he is a 'successful businessman' despite all his bankruptcies, opaque financials, and conflict of interests. Why would the information supplied by one political party be more reliable than another?! Where do you even start with that one. Politics by its very nature concerns itself with the influence of power of a person or group of people over another. So of course information is going to be skewed for a particular purpose or goal. And do you know why you are fine to just pick a boiler from Which? Because there are legal regulations about the construction and installation of boilers for your safety. Oh and there are also EU regulations about energy efficiency of those boilers to help protect our environment and save you money too. -Matt" Hi. An interesting post . As we are in cyberland ( which is not the real world ) I am slightly surprised that you are able to evaluate my thought process and what I may or may not believe in . I am aware of the issues which some Pharma companies face and the limitations of certain pieces of information from newspapers . However no one is going to compell me to make my judgement based on a few isolated errors or mistakes . My judgement is based on the overall package , not a few isolated errors which some people love to sensationalise . With regard to investigating facts , I could of course state that maybe some people are so busy investigating them that they fail to anticipate what is happening around them and as such are unable to predict the results of events such as the referendum campaign . With regard to Pharm and Medical research companies , I have a considerable personal interest in what they do . Monitoring the risks that they are running and the perforamnce of clinical trials is important to me . It is interesting to see that we agree that information from political parties may be shewed for a particular purpose of goal . A prime example of this is probably the Labour Party . I am happy to accept that Trump will be a great President . This is not just my opinion , it is the opinion of the residents of America . As far as I am aware , Trump has never been declared bankrupt , I am assuming some of his companies may have been liquidated . However I have difficulting accepting that you can just liquidate a company and start afresh . In the circumstances ( and in common with the majority ) of the voters of the USA ) I will ignore these issues and base my opinion on the performance of his businness empire . You raise an interesting point about the EU regulations on boilers and energy efficiency . These regulations have resulted in substantial increases in our power bills in addition to making it difficult or impossible to buy certain types of light bulbs . I refuse to buy the EU energy saving ones and as such have to buy ones with a marking on the box which states that they they are not suitable for household illumination . Another completely pointless piece of EU regulation . I have six boilers of various differnt types . I have no desire for the EU to tell me how energy efficient or inefficient my boilers are . While modern condensing boilers may be a lot more energy efficient , their life span is a lot less than that of a conventional boiler and consequently it is questionable if there are any long term savings . Combi boilers are a lot more expensive but repair costs are high should they go wrong . In answer to your original point , I believe it is a much more efficient use of time to allow others to investigate the facts and my behalf and I will use my common sense ( or lack of it ) to assess the validity of their opinions . Where necessary I will subscribe to specialist publications or seek a seecond opinion . One thing I have noticed on these forums is that those who are so keen on quoting facts are quite happy to ignore facts that go against their point . There was even one poster ( not you ) who was paranoid to distiguish between facts and opinions . His comments were rather derogatory and his remarks tended to assume that members were incapable of distinguihing between facts and opinion . Luckily on these forums we are in cyberland so what anyone says is of no significance in any event . The forums are simply used to pass a bit of idle time . Different approaches work for different members . From what I can see , those who quote facts tend to think that their views are superior and more valid than those who do not . Other members may be too busy completing productive work to have time to spend investigating facts ( which in many cases are cherry picked to back a posters opinion ) and are happy to use their experience skill and knowledge to rely on the opinions of others . It maybe that they have sufficient confidence in their judgement and do not see the necessity to review the facts . Possibly they are making use of their sparetime in the most effective manner possible by allowing others to do the work for them . | |||
" Do you happen to know if all of China's 1.5bn people and the hundreds of millions of expats have this opinion which you are so certain of? it is a common slang term used in a derogatory racist way to describe westerners. To someone Chinese it means something like ghost/devil. They have a similar term for the Japanese, which I forget but translates as something like 'ocean devils'" I've been called a "pakki". Chinese are called "chinks". There's "whop", "frog", "kraut", "nip" and "nigger". There's also "bitch", "hommo" and all manner of other derogatory terms. What does that tell me about the British? Absolutely nothing. I might learn something about some individuals. That's all. | |||
" I'm not sure I agree there, yes a British government position but not a British person position. The debate about immigration is a little bit skewed by... How shall I say this... Not immigration in general but Islamic immigration,I think all things being equal, we'd probably just have squeezed the referendum except for that Islamic immigration.... That's not a blame thing, that's just an observation The EU Islamic immigration from, er, Turkey and Syria? .
I think that wether we like it or not very different foreign cultures are worrying too people and I don't mean just the UK, I'm taking more generally about the EU as a whole.
I don't think there's an easy solution to these things to be honest, lots of it is just human nature
There is a very simple solution. Education. It is human nature to be afraid or worried of the unknown. By educating people and getting them to understand other people better I think we can overcome this. This is very much not helped by the right wing news encouraging xenophobia and racism.
As a student I was involved in a student organisation who's big fluffy goal was to make the world a better place. The concrete steps they were going to help that was to get people to experience different countries, cultures, and people. And to do that, they were organising work exchanges for people. You don't really experience a foreign culture by sitting on their beach or in their hotels. You experience it by working alongside those people. It was a fantastic example of a positive step towards understanding other people and their viewpoints.
Imagine if there was some way (yes, I know practicalities aside) that everyone in the world could somehow get to spend even just a week or two living and working alongside someone in a different country and culture. Just think how different this world would be?
-Matt"You try embracing that new foreign culture,when your new foreign mates,now doing your job. Or when your money,makes massive contributions to build another countries infrastructure. Then the factory you worked in, tell you,you now have no job, cause they are moving the factory to that country,due to it's new improved infrastructure. It's much harder to get misty eyed, thinking about how different this world would be. When your sitting on kerb, Looking at how your money, made life better, for everyone else. It's not the fault of the people,and it's not the fault of any other country. It's the fault of a system, that thinks we should be happy too contribute, to our own demise. | |||
" Education isn't simple, we've had that for thousands of years and right wing news isn't as big a problem as the people who don't want to/won't integrate, ie mainly muslims This is prejudice by any definition I'm afraid. I find that disappointing. I agree that integration is a problem which could be solved most simply by a requirement that everybody including British born residents, achieves a minimum level of English and at least understands the basics of civility. The latter is lacking on a Saturday night in any British town centre at the end of the month. However, to pretend that only or even mainly Muslims fail to integrate is utterly unsupported. It depends very much where you live and to how shrill the intolerant voices from any side are. Before anyone makes an assumption based on my skin-tone; no I am not Muslim. the truth is prejudice? Who else doesn't integrate? And your idea of civility might differ from theirs. Stop making excuses for them it helps nobody Chinese Indians Irish Travellers Polish ummm... depending on how you define it pretty much any immigrant group. Any what is the common factor with all of them? The UK. The British. The 'other side' of the interaction. -Matt Chinese possibly but then they see every other race as inferior. But this is why the people you support in politics are losing everywhere, you will not listen or face reality. Until you/they have the honest debate they will be in the wilderness for years Fair enough. I'm not going to support Farage, Le Pen, Trump, etc just because the rest of the world is heading right-wing. My, personal, view is that many of the parties I would like to see in power are losing because they have so far based much of their campaigning on facts, reality, and sense. Which doesn't work at all when the electorate decide that that is not what they want. It is like the situation with aircraft hijacking. Until a decade or so ago the assumption was always that a hijacker wanted to live, and so all policy and safety measures were designed with that assumption. Then as soon as that assumption went away and hijackers no longer cared if they died in the process then that made all rules, policies and measures ineffective. There is a whole new era of politics that has begun that relies on mis-information and playing to the heart... not reason and fact. -Matt I am sure that most people have the ability to investigate facts where that is considered to be necessary . Why would the information supplied by one political party be any more reliable than others ? Luckily we live in a free society and people can express opinions as they see fit . You do not always need full facts in order to form a valisd opinion. In many cases carefull scanning of other people's opinions should be more than sufficient especially if it is not a life and death situation. If I am buying a new central heating boiler I do not check all the facts . Why would I waste my time doing that. ? I subscribe to Which and it does all the work for me. Pat, you are the perfect example of why so many people who don't investigate the facts. You actively discourage checking them even. You believe that all pharma companies are trustworthy because they are 'big and successful'. You believe all newspapers tell the whole complete truthful story. You believe Trump will be a great president because he is a 'successful businessman' despite all his bankruptcies, opaque financials, and conflict of interests. Why would the information supplied by one political party be more reliable than another?! Where do you even start with that one. Politics by its very nature concerns itself with the influence of power of a person or group of people over another. So of course information is going to be skewed for a particular purpose or goal. And do you know why you are fine to just pick a boiler from Which? Because there are legal regulations about the construction and installation of boilers for your safety. Oh and there are also EU regulations about energy efficiency of those boilers to help protect our environment and save you money too. -Matt Hi. An interesting post . As we are in cyberland ( which is not the real world ) I am slightly surprised that you are able to evaluate my thought process and what I may or may not believe in . I am aware of the issues which some Pharma companies face and the limitations of certain pieces of information from newspapers . However no one is going to compell me to make my judgement based on a few isolated errors or mistakes . My judgement is based on the overall package , not a few isolated errors which some people love to sensationalise . With regard to investigating facts , I could of course state that maybe some people are so busy investigating them that they fail to anticipate what is happening around them and as such are unable to predict the results of events such as the referendum campaign . With regard to Pharm and Medical research companies , I have a considerable personal interest in what they do . Monitoring the risks that they are running and the perforamnce of clinical trials is important to me . It is interesting to see that we agree that information from political parties may be shewed for a particular purpose of goal . A prime example of this is probably the Labour Party . I am happy to accept that Trump will be a great President . This is not just my opinion , it is the opinion of the residents of America . As far as I am aware , Trump has never been declared bankrupt , I am assuming some of his companies may have been liquidated . However I have difficulting accepting that you can just liquidate a company and start afresh . In the circumstances ( and in common with the majority ) of the voters of the USA ) I will ignore these issues and base my opinion on the performance of his businness empire . You raise an interesting point about the EU regulations on boilers and energy efficiency . These regulations have resulted in substantial increases in our power bills in addition to making it difficult or impossible to buy certain types of light bulbs . I refuse to buy the EU energy saving ones and as such have to buy ones with a marking on the box which states that they they are not suitable for household illumination . Another completely pointless piece of EU regulation . I have six boilers of various differnt types . I have no desire for the EU to tell me how energy efficient or inefficient my boilers are . While modern condensing boilers may be a lot more energy efficient , their life span is a lot less than that of a conventional boiler and consequently it is questionable if there are any long term savings . Combi boilers are a lot more expensive but repair costs are high should they go wrong . In answer to your original point , I believe it is a much more efficient use of time to allow others to investigate the facts and my behalf and I will use my common sense ( or lack of it ) to assess the validity of their opinions . Where necessary I will subscribe to specialist publications or seek a seecond opinion . One thing I have noticed on these forums is that those who are so keen on quoting facts are quite happy to ignore facts that go against their point . There was even one poster ( not you ) who was paranoid to distiguish between facts and opinions . His comments were rather derogatory and his remarks tended to assume that members were incapable of distinguihing between facts and opinion . Luckily on these forums we are in cyberland so what anyone says is of no significance in any event . The forums are simply used to pass a bit of idle time . Different approaches work for different members . From what I can see , those who quote facts tend to think that their views are superior and more valid than those who do not . Other members may be too busy completing productive work to have time to spend investigating facts ( which in many cases are cherry picked to back a posters opinion ) and are happy to use their experience skill and knowledge to rely on the opinions of others . It maybe that they have sufficient confidence in their judgement and do not see the necessity to review the facts . Possibly they are making use of their sparetime in the most effective manner possible by allowing others to do the work for them ." Pat, all of my opinion above is based on what you have said on here. You say this is not real life. If you have different beliefs and act differently online and off that is your call. I can only go by what I see on here. You are right about Trump not being personally bankrupt. It is only his string of failed businesses that have had bankruptcies. He always comes out smelling like roses in the wake of his failures. That is no more reassuring. You say you are aligning your opinion with the majority of US voters. Please remember that the majority of US voters did not vote for him. And so far he has one of the lowest opinion rankings of any President-elect. You say those who quote facts think their opinions are superior than others. Everyone has a right to their opinion and that is what is wonderful about here. The world would be a very dull place if we all had the same opinion on everything. However I still contend that those able to provide evidence and back up their opinions with facts may be closer to reality than those who's views cannot be substantiated. Eg. Your view is that EU energy saving regulations have resulted in us having higher energy bills. That is your opinion, but what facts substantiate that? And if that is the case, what other benefits are there? Personally, I'd prefer to pay a bit more for something that is more efficient with our natural resources. So, for me, I'd still value energy saving regulations even if they resulted in higher costs. -Matt | |||
" You try embracing that new foreign culture,when your new foreign mates,now doing your job. Or when your money,makes massive contributions to build another countries infrastructure. Then the factory you worked in, tell you,you now have no job, cause they are moving the factory to that country,due to it's new improved infrastructure. It's much harder to get misty eyed, thinking about how different this world would be. When your sitting on kerb, Looking at how your money, made life better, for everyone else. It's not the fault of the people,and it's not the fault of any other country. It's the fault of a system, that thinks we should be happy too contribute, to our own demise. " You present a zero-sum world view. For someone else to do well you will have to do badly. That we cannot maintain our standard of living and also contribute to improving the life chances of people in other parts of the world. If you trade and develop the economies of other countries everyone gets wealthier. It has happened. The world is richer. As a country we say we will pay more for British made goods and to improve services. The reality is that when we get to the checkout or voting booth don't. The "short-term" economic pain and job losses that many have said is worth the pain of achieving Brexit is going to produce exactly what you've just railed against. Then what? a) We pay more for European goods and services and sell fewer of ours to them b) We pay less for goods from elsewhere in the world and open our market up to even more of the price competition that you don't want c) We isolate ourselves and essentially attempt to become self,sufficient d) The world buys all of our stuff and we don't ever buy anything that threatens jobs in the UK Credible? The world changes. One of the government's roles is to smooth that change by finding how re-skill people for the next phase of development but in return the people need to commit to the change. It's an attitude that can be developed and is what you see in the most successful and innovative economies and sectors of economies. | |||
 | |||
" You try embracing that new foreign culture,when your new foreign mates,now doing your job. Or when your money,makes massive contributions to build another countries infrastructure. Then the factory you worked in, tell you,you now have no job, cause they are moving the factory to that country,due to it's new improved infrastructure. It's much harder to get misty eyed, thinking about how different this world would be. When your sitting on kerb, Looking at how your money, made life better, for everyone else. It's not the fault of the people,and it's not the fault of any other country. It's the fault of a system, that thinks we should be happy too contribute, to our own demise. You present a zero-sum world view. For someone else to do well you will have to do badly. That we cannot maintain our standard of living and also contribute to improving the life chances of people in other parts of the world. If you trade and develop the economies of other countries everyone gets wealthier. It has happened. The world is richer. As a country we say we will pay more for British made goods and to improve services. The reality is that when we get to the checkout or voting booth don't. The "short-term" economic pain and job losses that many have said is worth the pain of achieving Brexit is going to produce exactly what you've just railed against. Then what? a) We pay more for European goods and services and sell fewer of ours to them b) We pay less for goods from elsewhere in the world and open our market up to even more of the price competition that you don't want c) We isolate ourselves and essentially attempt to become self,sufficient d) The world buys all of our stuff and we don't ever buy anything that threatens jobs in the UK Credible? The world changes. One of the government's roles is to smooth that change by finding how re-skill people for the next phase of development but in return the people need to commit to the change. It's an attitude that can be developed and is what you see in the most successful and innovative economies and sectors of economies." read the your last paragraph again. That is exactly what the EU isn't doing. Maybe its time you committed to change | |||
| |||
" I'm not sure I agree there, yes a British government position but not a British person position. The debate about immigration is a little bit skewed by... How shall I say this... Not immigration in general but Islamic immigration,I think all things being equal, we'd probably just have squeezed the referendum except for that Islamic immigration.... That's not a blame thing, that's just an observation The EU Islamic immigration from, er, Turkey and Syria? .
I think that wether we like it or not very different foreign cultures are worrying too people and I don't mean just the UK, I'm taking more generally about the EU as a whole.
I don't think there's an easy solution to these things to be honest, lots of it is just human nature
There is a very simple solution. Education. It is human nature to be afraid or worried of the unknown. By educating people and getting them to understand other people better I think we can overcome this. This is very much not helped by the right wing news encouraging xenophobia and racism.
As a student I was involved in a student organisation who's big fluffy goal was to make the world a better place. The concrete steps they were going to help that was to get people to experience different countries, cultures, and people. And to do that, they were organising work exchanges for people. You don't really experience a foreign culture by sitting on their beach or in their hotels. You experience it by working alongside those people. It was a fantastic example of a positive step towards understanding other people and their viewpoints.
Imagine if there was some way (yes, I know practicalities aside) that everyone in the world could somehow get to spend even just a week or two living and working alongside someone in a different country and culture. Just think how different this world would be?
-Matt
You try embracing that new foreign culture,when your new foreign mates,now doing your job.
Or when your money,makes massive contributions to build another
countries infrastructure.
Then the factory you worked in,
tell you,you now have no job,
cause they are moving the factory to that country,due to it's new improved infrastructure.
It's much harder to get misty eyed,
thinking about how different this world would be.
When your sitting on kerb,
Looking at how your money,
made life better,
for everyone else.
It's not the fault of the people,and it's not the fault of any other country.
It's the fault of a system,
that thinks we should be happy
too contribute,
to our own demise.
"An excellent post and nicely put . Sadly quite a few posters on here fail to understand all the problems which the EU has caused . I have just finished reading a newspaper article about a convicted murderer who was allowed in to the UK because of the EU open border policy. He subsequently went on to committ numerous serious offences . | |||
| |||
| |||
"Why do you see it the role of the EU to reskill and retrain people and not that if the country's government? -Matt" what incentive is there to train people if they can just be moved around? | |||
"What nationality was the murderer? -Matt" If you mention Nationality on here you are deemed to be a racist .
Certain posters will only allow you to post good news about certain nationalities, if you mention any negative points you are immediately banded as being a racist .
Tne convicted criminal who was previously jailed in Holland for murder on release travelled to the UK . Holland was not his country of birth .
I suspect that you knew his answer to your own question already . | |||
"Why do you see it the role of the EU to reskill and retrain people and not that if the country's government? -Matt what incentive is there to train people if they can just be moved around?" Fair Point ! | |||
"What nationality was the murderer? -Matt If you mention Nationality on here you are deemed to be a racist .
Certain posters will only allow you to post good news about certain nationalities, if you mention any negative points you are immediately banded as being a racist .
Tne convicted criminal who was previously jailed in Holland for murder on release travelled to the UK . Holland was not his country of birth .
I suspect that you knew his answer to your own question already . "Sadly there have been many similar such cases in the past. One example is the Latvian builder Arnis Zalkans who murdered schoolgirl Alice Gross in 2015, had a previous conviction for murder in Latvia, but came to the UK under EU free movement of people rules after serving a sentence in Prison in Latvia. He had also previously been arrested for sexually assaulting a young girl in the same area where Alice Gross was murdered. The day after Alice Gross body was found Arnis Zalkans committed suicide and was found hanging in a nearby park. Police later confirmed Zalkans was responsible for the murder of Alice Gross and had he been alive he would have been arrested, and charged for the murder of Alice Gross. | |||
" what incentive is there to train people if they can just be moved around?" Anyone can move around within the country at any time. Is your proposition that it's illogical to train people in case they leave one day? A country invests in the skills and education of its people because it's both an inherent good and it improves the country's economic competitiveness. A company invests in its staff so that they become more productive and earn the company more money. What additional insensitive do you suggest? Perhaps a form of indentured labour so that you can't seek work anywhere else until you've paid back your debt? | |||
" You try embracing that new foreign culture,when your new foreign mates,now doing your job. Or when your money,makes massive contributions to build another countries infrastructure. Then the factory you worked in, tell you,you now have no job, cause they are moving the factory to that country,due to it's new improved infrastructure. It's much harder to get misty eyed, thinking about how different this world would be. When your sitting on kerb, Looking at how your money, made life better, for everyone else. It's not the fault of the people,and it's not the fault of any other country. It's the fault of a system, that thinks we should be happy too contribute, to our own demise. You present a zero-sum world view. For someone else to do well you will have to do badly. That we cannot maintain our standard of living and also contribute to improving the life chances of people in other parts of the world. If you trade and develop the economies of other countries everyone gets wealthier. It has happened. The world is richer. As a country we say we will pay more for British made goods and to improve services. The reality is that when we get to the checkout or voting booth don't. The "short-term" economic pain and job losses that many have said is worth the pain of achieving Brexit is going to produce exactly what you've just railed against. Then what? a) We pay more for European goods and services and sell fewer of ours to them b) We pay less for goods from elsewhere in the world and open our market up to even more of the price competition that you don't want c) We isolate ourselves and essentially attempt to become self,sufficient d) The world buys all of our stuff and we don't ever buy anything that threatens jobs in the UK Credible? The world changes. One of the government's roles is to smooth that change by finding how re-skill people for the next phase of development but in return the people need to commit to the change. It's an attitude that can be developed and is what you see in the most successful and innovative economies and sectors of economies. read the your last paragraph again. That is exactly what the EU isn't doing. Maybe its time you committed to change" It happens in Germany right now. They also manage to export to the rest of the world far more successfully than us. However do they manage it? Just out of interest do you have anything to say about the other, more interesting and difficult points that I raised. | |||
" Sadly there have been many similar such cases in the past. One example is the Latvian builder Arnis Zalkans who murdered schoolgirl Alice Gross in 2015, had a previous conviction for murder in Latvia, but came to the UK under EU free movement of people rules after serving a sentence in Prison in Latvia. He had also previously been arrested for sexually assaulting a young girl in the same area where Alice Gross was murdered. The day after Alice Gross body was found Arnis Zalkans committed suicide and was found hanging in a nearby park. Police later confirmed Zalkans was responsible for the murder of Alice Gross and had he been alive he would have been arrested, and charged for the murder of Alice Gross. " You aren't suggesting that EU immigrants arrive likely to commit crime though are you? You are saying that, sadly, we are saddled with several hundred additional ones out of the tens of thousands that come here and behave just like you and I do? I can't find statistics for how much crime British nationals commit abroad. Any idea? Are you sure that it's any different? | |||
" Sadly there have been many similar such cases in the past. One example is the Latvian builder Arnis Zalkans who murdered schoolgirl Alice Gross in 2015, had a previous conviction for murder in Latvia, but came to the UK under EU free movement of people rules after serving a sentence in Prison in Latvia. He had also previously been arrested for sexually assaulting a young girl in the same area where Alice Gross was murdered. The day after Alice Gross body was found Arnis Zalkans committed suicide and was found hanging in a nearby park. Police later confirmed Zalkans was responsible for the murder of Alice Gross and had he been alive he would have been arrested, and charged for the murder of Alice Gross. You aren't suggesting that EU immigrants arrive likely to commit crime though are you? You are saying that, sadly, we are saddled with several hundred additional ones out of the tens of thousands that come here and behave just like you and I do? I can't find statistics for how much crime British nationals commit abroad. Any idea? Are you sure that it's any different?" A better system of doing things would be if we opted out of the free movement of people in the EU and properly vetted people who want to come and live and work in the UK. This way we can stop criminals with previous offences from entering our country. Alice Gross would still be alive today if we did not allow the unlimited free movement of EU citizens into the UK. It also has an effect on other crimes. Metropolitan Police crime figures have shown in recent years by far the biggest percentage of cashpoint card crime is committed by Eastern Europeans. | |||
" You try embracing that new foreign culture,when your new foreign mates,now doing your job. Or when your money,makes massive contributions to build another countries infrastructure. Then the factory you worked in, tell you,you now have no job, cause they are moving the factory to that country,due to it's new improved infrastructure. It's much harder to get misty eyed, thinking about how different this world would be. When your sitting on kerb, Looking at how your money, made life better, for everyone else. It's not the fault of the people,and it's not the fault of any other country. It's the fault of a system, that thinks we should be happy too contribute, to our own demise. You present a zero-sum world view. For someone else to do well you will have to do badly. That we cannot maintain our standard of living and also contribute to improving the life chances of people in other parts of the world. If you trade and develop the economies of other countries everyone gets wealthier. It has happened. The world is richer. As a country we say we will pay more for British made goods and to improve services. The reality is that when we get to the checkout or voting booth don't. The "short-term" economic pain and job losses that many have said is worth the pain of achieving Brexit is going to produce exactly what you've just railed against. Then what? a) We pay more for European goods and services and sell fewer of ours to them b) We pay less for goods from elsewhere in the world and open our market up to even more of the price competition that you don't want c) We isolate ourselves and essentially attempt to become self,sufficient d) The world buys all of our stuff and we don't ever buy anything that threatens jobs in the UK Credible? The world changes. One of the government's roles is to smooth that change by finding how re-skill people for the next phase of development but in return the people need to commit to the change. It's an attitude that can be developed and is what you see in the most successful and innovative economies and sectors of economies." In the last ten years, Within a ten mile radius of where I live. three multi national companies, Have closed their UK factories And moved to a country, Where we helped finance, improvements to their infrastructure. You try telling the thousands of people who lost their jobs, due to these closures. How happy they should be,to have improved the life chances of people in other parts of the world. Even though it's left them in the shit. Good luck with that. . Ps I wouldn't mention their "zero-sum world view" | |||
" I'm not sure I agree there, yes a British government position but not a British person position. The debate about immigration is a little bit skewed by... How shall I say this... Not immigration in general but Islamic immigration,I think all things being equal, we'd probably just have squeezed the referendum except for that Islamic immigration.... That's not a blame thing, that's just an observation The EU Islamic immigration from, er, Turkey and Syria? .
I think that wether we like it or not very different foreign cultures are worrying too people and I don't mean just the UK, I'm taking more generally about the EU as a whole.
I don't think there's an easy solution to these things to be honest, lots of it is just human nature
There is a very simple solution. Education. It is human nature to be afraid or worried of the unknown. By educating people and getting them to understand other people better I think we can overcome this. This is very much not helped by the right wing news encouraging xenophobia and racism.
As a student I was involved in a student organisation who's big fluffy goal was to make the world a better place. The concrete steps they were going to help that was to get people to experience different countries, cultures, and people. And to do that, they were organising work exchanges for people. You don't really experience a foreign culture by sitting on their beach or in their hotels. You experience it by working alongside those people. It was a fantastic example of a positive step towards understanding other people and their viewpoints.
Imagine if there was some way (yes, I know practicalities aside) that everyone in the world could somehow get to spend even just a week or two living and working alongside someone in a different country and culture. Just think how different this world would be?
-Matt
You try embracing that new foreign culture,when your new foreign mates,now doing your job.
Or when your money,makes massive contributions to build another
countries infrastructure.
Then the factory you worked in,
tell you,you now have no job,
cause they are moving the factory to that country,due to it's new improved infrastructure.
It's much harder to get misty eyed,
thinking about how different this world would be.
When your sitting on kerb,
Looking at how your money,
made life better,
for everyone else.
It's not the fault of the people,and it's not the fault of any other country.
It's the fault of a system,
that thinks we should be happy
too contribute,
to our own demise.
An excellent post and nicely put . Sadly quite a few posters on here fail to understand all the problems which the EU has caused .
I have just finished reading a newspaper article about a convicted murderer who was allowed in to the UK because of the EU open border policy. He subsequently went on to committ numerous serious offences .
"How was that a post about EU problems? It was a post about the downfalls of globalisation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fprYfInkErg | |||
" Sadly there have been many similar such cases in the past. One example is the Latvian builder Arnis Zalkans who murdered schoolgirl Alice Gross in 2015, had a previous conviction for murder in Latvia, but came to the UK under EU free movement of people rules after serving a sentence in Prison in Latvia. He had also previously been arrested for sexually assaulting a young girl in the same area where Alice Gross was murdered. The day after Alice Gross body was found Arnis Zalkans committed suicide and was found hanging in a nearby park. Police later confirmed Zalkans was responsible for the murder of Alice Gross and had he been alive he would have been arrested, and charged for the murder of Alice Gross. You aren't suggesting that EU immigrants arrive likely to commit crime though are you? You are saying that, sadly, we are saddled with several hundred additional ones out of the tens of thousands that come here and behave just like you and I do? I can't find statistics for how much crime British nationals commit abroad. Any idea? Are you sure that it's any different? A better system of doing things would be if we opted out of the free movement of people in the EU and properly vetted people who want to come and live and work in the UK. This way we can stop criminals with previous offences from entering our country. Alice Gross would still be alive today if we did not allow the unlimited free movement of EU citizens into the UK. It also has an effect on other crimes. Metropolitan Police crime figures have shown in recent years by far the biggest percentage of cashpoint card crime is committed by Eastern Europeans. " Ummmm... but we are already out of Schengen. And you have to show a passport to get in. And we already participate in EU sharing of criminal data. So how would leaving the EU in this case make it any better? Either the person was an EU citizen and we would already know they are a criminal (if we missed it that is not a fault of our border policy). Or if they are not an EU citizen then being in or out of the EU would make no difference. In fact if we leave the EU then we by default leave the agreement we currently have in place with EU-wide sharing of criminal convictions. So your person above would have been even less likely to be noticed on entry. -Matt | |||
"What nationality was the murderer? -Matt If you mention Nationality on here you are deemed to be a racist .
Certain posters will only allow you to post good news about certain nationalities, if you mention any negative points you are immediately banded as being a racist .
Tne convicted criminal who was previously jailed in Holland for murder on release travelled to the UK . Holland was not his country of birth .
I suspect that you knew his answer to your own question already . "So he was a Dutch national on a Dutch passport. What are you proposing. That we ban all Dutch from entering? -Matt | |||
"What nationality was the murderer? -Matt If you mention Nationality on here you are deemed to be a racist .
Certain posters will only allow you to post good news about certain nationalities, if you mention any negative points you are immediately banded as being a racist .
Tne convicted criminal who was previously jailed in Holland for murder on release travelled to the UK . Holland was not his country of birth .
I suspect that you knew his answer to your own question already .
So he was a Dutch national on a Dutch passport. What are you proposing. That we ban all Dutch from entering?
-Matt". Should have done that before the semis | |||
"What nationality was the murderer? -Matt If you mention Nationality on here you are deemed to be a racist .
Certain posters will only allow you to post good news about certain nationalities, if you mention any negative points you are immediately banded as being a racist .
Tne convicted criminal who was previously jailed in Holland for murder on release travelled to the UK . Holland was not his country of birth .
I suspect that you knew his answer to your own question already .
So he was a Dutch national on a Dutch passport. What are you proposing. That we ban all Dutch from entering?
-Matt"Maybe just the murderers | |||
"What nationality was the murderer? -Matt If you mention Nationality on here you are deemed to be a racist .
Certain posters will only allow you to post good news about certain nationalities, if you mention any negative points you are immediately banded as being a racist .
Tne convicted criminal who was previously jailed in Holland for murder on release travelled to the UK . Holland was not his country of birth .
I suspect that you knew his answer to your own question already .
So he was a Dutch national on a Dutch passport. What are you proposing. That we ban all Dutch from entering?
-Matt
Maybe just the murderers "Ok. So what has that got to do with us being in or out of the EU? Or are you proposing we ask everyone who enters 'are you a murder?'. -Matt | |||
