Next general election (2024)

He's not, no.  But I think Labour should be careful on this issue.  I hope they can fix the asylum system, and "smash the gangs", but... the proof will be in the pudding.

The small boats merely replaced the backs of trucks.

The way to stop the boats is simple. Open UK asylum centres in northern France, and process claims QUICKLY, then remove those who fail back to their safe countries of origin.

It's all a distraction, anyway.
In 2023:
Just under 30,000 people crossed the channel in small boats.
84,500 people applied for asylum - so about 2/3 arrived via other routes. 74,000 asylum decisions were made. 95,000 people are awaiting decisions.
1.2m people arrived in the UK to live here - so about 93% of immigrants came with visas issued by the government.

To put the number of asylum claims into perspective, the UK ranks 19th out of (EU27+UK) 28 countries in the number of claims per capita.

Well on top of his "c**p" comment, he did also compare to the Australian system, and basically said that the ends justify the means.

Labour do need to be careful, and I think probably will be. Unless they are at the mercy of a large number of backbenchers who are significantly to the left. And I don't think that is likely to be case because of control over the candidate selection process.

Like it or not, immigration in general is a burning topic for large swathes of the population, and boat crossings from France are a totemic symbol of that. Plus for those of us for whom it is not so totemic, the horror that is associated with the boat crossings is abhorrent.

A major problem though is there simply fails - yet again - to be an adult conversation about "immigration". The UKs demographics are such that our long term prosperity - as individuals and a country - pretty much necessitates import of young people wanting to work and have a better life. Even if that is for many of them temporary. EU free movement of labour was very positive for the UK from that perspective: simple market forces could be relied on to attract skilled people to come to the UK in roles where there were shortages. And likewise the other way round. Similar applied to unskilled labour, much of it temporary e.g. for seasonal jobs. Even in more permanent situations, in many cases people stayed for a few years, often remitting payments back home, and then eventually moved back. Some didn't, and some of the UK population shifted to sunnier climes for their retirement.

Now we are left with quotas, applications for a company to bring workers in, managed by civil servants etc. etc. And any discussion on immigration focuses on "stopping the immigrants", and limiting them to some arbitrary number which has been manufactured for political sound bite reasons not based on any actual logic, etc.

And in the meantime, everyone talks about increasing the number of nurses, doctors, care home staff, police (always on the beat of course) etc.

The fear/concern of excessive immigration is widespread and real, and is not unconscionable. Not withstanding that in some quarters it is founded more in outright racism than logic. There is always going to be a balance that needs striking. But for all our sakes and our country's that really does need to be done honestly. 

Like this you mean ?



L








To put you out of your misery (as this was an issue I found some time back and wasted a fair amount of time on it). Copy the url - as you did - and then change the "x.com" element to "twitter.com".

At some point proboards will catch up, and at some point I guess Elon will stop redirecting twitter.com to x.com

Turns out this chief data officer chap is also a Tory county councillor for roun' by 'yer, out in the boonies of the Welsh borders.

No doubt it's the same one. A very clear trail via CoHo data, confirmed by his LinkedIn and county council portraits. Lives in a rather pleasant listed ex-rectory with 41 (yes, forty one) acres of grounds, it seems...

As for this. Its lovely to see mainstream media squirming around trying to bash their least favourite candidate. He called May "Merkel's Bitch" and in this Woke world that isn't acceptable (but it is acceptable to ship billions of dollars of weaponry to a warzone).

I didn't read the others - that was the first quote I came across.

Even the Daily Mail is trying its best to stop Farage destroying the Tory party. Read any article on it and you'l see its full of Farage bashing. Then scroll down to the comments, order by "most liked" and you'll see the readership loves him. So, there is proof right there of a newspaper not caring about making money but attempting to be influential by spouting what its owners want its readership to believe. Sadly, I assume they don't publish the comments in the printed edition.

I get the impression that if the public face of Reform was a bit more user friendly then they would do a lot better.