Do you want to discuss boring politics? (123 Viewers)

[skybluetony176]

My mum told me that she’d ‘heard’ if we had safe and legal routes then we would have 5 million extra people here within a year. I said that would be equivalent to 13,500 people every single day in a calendar year arriving on boats or at airports claiming asylum which all of a sudden didn’t stack up…..
She’s completely brainwashed into believing the scaremongering shit that gets pedalled with no concept about what these numbers look like in reality.

Probably from the same source that earlsdon got his 50M number from he’s having nightmares about.

 

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[Earlsdon_Skyblue1]

Probably from the same source that earlsdon got his 50M number from he’s having nightmares about.

What 50M number is that?

 

[skybluetony176]

I don't know how anyone can be foolish enough to believe that. I honestly am astounded at some of the responses from people on here who are concerned about the NHS.

Let's import 50 million people. The NHS is going to be better off is it?

Don't make me laugh.

This 50M

 

[Earlsdon_Skyblue1]

This 50M

To be honest, if I was making points as intellectually disabled, and devoid of any common sense as you, I would be picking fun at theoretical numbers to make a point as well. It's about all you have got.

Funnily enough though, despite picking a number out of thin air, if you do the actual maths; The current trajectory would be about 40M in a lifetime. 500k a year at present, with the average UK life expectancy being 80. I'm sure it will all be fine though, definitely going to be no problems with that.

Ironically, refusing to discuss any genuine issues with uncontrolled mass-migration is exactly what pushed many people to vote against you in the Brexit referendum. The thing that clearly still occupies your mind for 23 hours a day, most days. You're only playing yourself with these kind of juvenile orientations and I genuinely feel sorry for you.

 

[shmmeee]

Still think restricting births makes more sense if that’s you’re concern. More births each year than immigrants, both mother and child require expensive care, babies can’t work, costs in child benefit and maternity. If you think stopping people coming into the country are a threat to infrastructure you should be supporting forced sterilisation until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

 

[SBT]

Really going for the ‘hearts and minds’ approach here I see.

 

[shmmeee]

To be honest, if I was making points as intellectually disabled, and devoid of any common sense as you, I would be picking fun at theoretical numbers to make a point as well. It's about all you have got.

Funnily enough though, despite picking a number out of thin air, if you do the actual maths; The current trajectory would be about 40M in a lifetime. 500k a year at present, with the average UK life expectancy being 80. I'm sure it will all be fine though, definitely going to be no problems with that.

Ironically, refusing to discuss any genuine issues with uncontrolled mass-migration is exactly what pushed many people to vote against you in the Brexit referendum. The thing that clearly still occupies your mind for 23 hours a day, most days. You're only playing yourself with these kind of juvenile orientations and I genuinely feel sorry for you.

500k isn’t a normal number though, you’ve got Brexit, ending of lockdown, Ukraine and Hong Kong which all happened at once. It’s more like half that normally. And half of those are student visas.

And Brexit was always going to end up in increased migration. You’re swapping mostly well off nations for the entire world. A huge amount of Asians voted Brexit exactly because it would make it easier for family to immigrate.

 

[Earlsdon_Skyblue1]

Still think restricting births makes more sense if that’s you’re concern. More births each year than immigrants, both mother and child require expensive care, babies can’t work, costs in child benefit and maternity. If you think stopping people coming into the country are a threat to infrastructure you should be supporting forced sterilisation until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

500k isn’t a normal number though, you’ve got Brexit, ending of lockdown, Ukraine and Hong Kong which all happened at once. It’s more like half that normally.

And Brexit was always going to end up in increased migration. You’re swapping mostly well off nations for the entire world. A huge amount of Asians voted Brexit exactly because it would make it easier for family to immigrate.

Restricting births, killing the elderly, spending efficiently, funding better - All things that are either not going to happen, or are completely ridiculous suggestions. Limiting numbers on immigration is realistic however, as is making a more efficient and healthy society, as well as training home-grown citizens to work within its health service. I really don't understand why people aren't getting this.

You can argue net migration will go down, I can just as easily argue it will go up. No one can predict the future. The Ukraine war or Hong Kong can happen in different forms, alternative disasters could occur, or political changes could mean anything. The UK is still a desirable place to come to and it could very likely swing upwards as well as stay the same, or go down. As the global population rises, they'll be a natural inflation as well. It isn't really the point though. Even using averages, the UK population will nearly double in the average lifetime, it is fucking crazy to suggest that this won't impact the health service the way it is going.

 

[shmmeee]

Restricting births, killing the elderly, spending efficiently, funding better - All things that are either not going to happen, or are completely ridiculous suggestions. Limiting numbers on immigration is realistic however, as is making a more efficient and healthy society, as well as training home-grown citizens to work within its health service. I really don't understand why people aren't getting this.

You can argue net migration will go down, I can just as easily argue it will go up. No one can predict the future. The Ukraine war or Hong Kong can happen in different forms, alternative disasters could occur, or political changes could mean anything. The UK is still a desirable place to come to and it could very likely swing upwards as well as stay the same, or go down. As the global population rises, they'll be a natural inflation as well. It isn't really the point though. Even using averages, the UK population will nearly double in the average lifetime, it is fucking crazy to suggest that this won't impact the health service the way it is going.

Why not? We’ve tried to do it and almost ground the economy to a halt as a result as business can’t get labour.

And we can predict the future. That’s what modellers do all the time. We’ve got historic data and we can look at why this year is an outlier. Who do you cut exactly? The students? Who pump far more than most into the economy in fees and spending and take virtually nothing? Skilled workers that business needs? What’s your plan here?

Just saying “no more please”? Cos we tried that last one the last ten years and it doesn’t seem very effective.

Immigration is a natural part of a successful economy. The NHS is on its arse because it’s been underfunded for a decade. We know this because we has large amounts of immigration in the early 2000s and the NHS was stronger than ever.

You seem to think there’s some switch we can throw to stop people entering the country with no impact at all and all will be well.

What’s your plan exactly? Which tier visas would you cut? Which rules would you change? What number do you want?

We’ve had 13 years of govenrment with your exact view on immigration and none of them have managed it, why do you think that is?

 

[skybluetony176]

500k isn’t a normal number though, you’ve got Brexit, ending of lockdown, Ukraine and Hong Kong which all happened at once. It’s more like half that normally. And half of those are student visas.

And Brexit was always going to end up in increased migration. You’re swapping mostly well off nations for the entire world. A huge amount of Asians voted Brexit exactly because it would make it easier for family to immigrate.

Exactly this. In 2020 there was only 32000 nett migration into the UK so a correction was always coming.

 

[skybluetony176]

Also worth pointing out that there was the highest recorded emigration from the UK in 2022.

 

[Earlsdon_Skyblue1]

Why not? We’ve tried to do it and almost ground the economy to a halt as a result as business can’t get labour.

And we can predict the future. That’s what modellers do all the time. We’ve got historic data and we can look at why this year is an outlier. Who do you cut exactly? The students? Who pump far more than most into the economy in fees and spending and take virtually nothing? Skilled workers that business needs? What’s your plan here?

Just saying “no more please”? Cos we tried that last one the last ten years and it doesn’t seem very effective.

Immigration is a natural part of a successful economy. The NHS is on its arse because it’s been underfunded for a decade. We know this because we has large amounts of immigration in the early 2000s and the NHS was stronger than ever.

You seem to think there’s some switch we can throw to stop people entering the country with no impact at all and all will be well.

What’s your plan exactly? Which tier visas would you cut? Which rules would you change? What number do you want?

We’ve had 13 years of govenrment with your exact view on immigration and none of them have managed it, why do you think that is?

Right, it is getting even more silly now. Did we predict Ukraine or Hong Kong ten years in advance? You have absolutely no idea what will happen. Neither do the 'experts'. The world can change at a moments notice.

Immigration in a healthy balanced way is perfectly fine. What is going on at the moment is anything but that (remember we haven't even discussed illegal immigration), particularly when the infrastructure of the country cannot keep up. It has become a disaster, and will continue to be. This is becoming a really, really stupid argument now and the bubble that can be found on this thread, and in a minority of society is completely devoid of any basic common sense. I appreciate that you have at least tried to have a debate compared to some others, but a lot of people on here will still be there in ten years scratching their heads as to what is going wrong, and wondering why that side of politics is consistently being rejected. I think I will leave it at that.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

I was agreeing that, historically at least, migrants are net contributors. I can’t comment on recent years pre and post pandemic as I’ve not seen any data. Unfortunately if they’re contributing more but we have more inactive working age people, then there probably isn’t the additional cash to build the infrastructure for an ever increasing population

I’d argue that the current situation is backwards logic. There was a decision, I think under Blair but continued under Tories to increase the population but with no forward planning. logic would be recognising we need say 200k per annum net migration and then putting the infrastructure in first (or at least starting !) and planning for a larger population. At the moment it’s like a Ponzi scheme of getting more people in to pay for the aging, inactive population, without addressing the increased populations needs. As I’ve said if net migration is 400k per annum, there are new schools, GP practices, hospitals etc that need to be built and staffed annually. Even if enough money was directed into those areas, without proper forward planning you’re always have a lag of massive strains on public services….and that’s without throwing a pandemic into the mix or over austerity friendly governments of the past

But that just shows that immigration isn't the cause of the problem and that reducing it massively will not only not solve it but likely make it worse.

It seems that what is being said is:
"These new people are paying in. But there's others that are already here who aren't so therefore we can't afford extra capacity so to fix the problem we should get rid of these new people that are paying in and stop any more like them coming". It's crazy logic.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

To be honest, if I was making points as intellectually disabled, and devoid of any common sense as you, I would be picking fun at theoretical numbers to make a point as well. It's about all you have got.

Funnily enough though, despite picking a number out of thin air, if you do the actual maths; The current trajectory would be about 40M in a lifetime. 500k a year at present, with the average UK life expectancy being 80. I'm sure it will all be fine though, definitely going to be no problems with that.

Ironically, refusing to discuss any genuine issues with uncontrolled mass-migration is exactly what pushed many people to vote against you in the Brexit referendum. The thing that clearly still occupies your mind for 23 hours a day, most days. You're only playing yourself with these kind of juvenile orientations and I genuinely feel sorry for you.

Migration isn't uncontrolled. It's just papers like the Mail that say it is to scaremonger.

And if it was, don't you think the party of law, order and sensible migration should have fixed it in the last decade? Especially if they're putting so much strain on resources. Or are bleeding heart liberals like Patel and Braverman stopping them?

 

[chiefdave]

Immigration in a healthy balanced way is perfectly fine.

So what are you actually proposing. Which immigrants or refugees that are currently in the country legally do you think shouldn't be allowed in?

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Right, it is getting even more silly now. Did we predict Ukraine or Hong Kong ten years in advance? You have absolutely no idea what will happen. Neither do the 'experts'. The world can change at a moments notice.

Immigration in a healthy balanced way is perfectly fine. What is going on at the moment is anything but that (remember we haven't even discussed illegal immigration), particularly when the infrastructure of the country cannot keep up. It has become a disaster, and will continue to be. This is becoming a really, really stupid argument now and the bubble that can be found on this thread, and in a minority of society is completely devoid of any basic common sense. I appreciate that you have at least tried to have a debate compared to some others, but a lot of people on here will still be there in ten years scratching their heads as to what is going wrong, and wondering why that side of politics is consistently being rejected. I think I will leave it at that.

Well the difference is that your side of politics hasn't been rejected and has led us to this position. The last time the other side of politics weren't rejected the NHS was providing the best service it has for ages. And it didn't do that because of massive cuts to immigration. In fact immigration was high. What they did was increase funding.

Now your side has been back in charge for a decade and everything's got worse again. if you want to look for a correlation with performance I think you'll find a closer one with expenditure than immigration.

Can you not see how saying we should get rid of a group of people who add money to the system and also provide a great deal of the workforce is just an utterly crazy 'solution'? Yet every other thing that causes the problem just has to be accepted as being unfixable according to you.

Let's say a company is seeing increased demand but can't meet it currently. Is the correct course of action to reduce investment into the business and tell potential new customers willing to pay in cash and work for the company to help meet that demand to fuck off so they can continue to supply current customers who are massively in arrears?

 

[PVA]

If immigration is the problem how come we can't fill all the vacancies in the NHS?

Should be easy to fill them with all this mass surplus of people coming over.

It's clearly spending not being aligned with the growing and aging population that is the issue, not the number of people itself.

 

[Skybluefaz]

Almost 3/10 people in the UK have negative feelings towards immigration. The other 7 are positive or not arsed.

7/10 doesn't sound like a minority to me.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

Why are we still talking immigration? Why are we letting this distract from the NHS?

 

[Skybluefaz]

Why are we still talking immigration? Why are we letting this distract from the NHS?

Good point

 

[clint van damme]

It's clearly spending not being aligned with the growing and aging population that is the issue, not the number of people itself.

Couple that with the governments sticking plaster approach and we're heading for disaster.

It needs a long term, cross party strategy implementing so we're not ripping up the current plan and starting again every time there's a new cabinet.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

Couple that with the governments sticking plaster approach and we're heading for disaster.

It needs a long term, cross party strategy implementing so we're not ripping up the current plan and starting again every time there's a new cabinet.

The problem is also the timescales. So, look at the crossovers of Labour to Conservative - as the investment made in the latter days of Labour comes online, Conservatives can cut the %age spent of GDP and claim efficiency savings as the effect of that cut won't be seen for a few years. Fast forward to now, and if your mate Starmer boosts the budget, the narrative will be it's being spent inefficiently if there's no upturn instantly... which there won't be.

And that's the problem with five year spells in government, the investment made them often benefits the next lot, so there's little incentive to do it as people expect instant success for their cash.

 

[shmmeee]

Right, it is getting even more silly now. Did we predict Ukraine or Hong Kong ten years in advance? You have absolutely no idea what will happen. Neither do the 'experts'. The world can change at a moments notice.

Immigration in a healthy balanced way is perfectly fine. What is going on at the moment is anything but that (remember we haven't even discussed illegal immigration), particularly when the infrastructure of the country cannot keep up. It has become a disaster, and will continue to be. This is becoming a really, really stupid argument now and the bubble that can be found on this thread, and in a minority of society is completely devoid of any basic common sense. I appreciate that you have at least tried to have a debate compared to some others, but a lot of people on here will still be there in ten years scratching their heads as to what is going wrong, and wondering why that side of politics is consistently being rejected. I think I will leave it at that.

They’re one off events. I’ll ask again though. Even if they weren’t. Who are you cutting?

 

[shmmeee]

The problem is also the timescales. So, look at the crossovers of Labour to Conservative - as the investment made in the latter days of Labour comes online, Conservatives can cut the %age spent of GDP and claim efficiency savings as the effect of that cut won't be seen for a few years. Fast forward to now, and if your mate Starmer boosts the budget, the narrative will be it's being spent inefficiently if there's no upturn instantly... which there won't be.

And that's the problem with five year spells in government, the investment made them often benefits the next lot, so there's little incentive to do it as people expect instant success for their cash.

Yet another reason I support benevolent dictators.

 

[shmmeee]

Anyway @Earlsdon_Skyblue1 youre an immigrant! Aren’t you concerned what you’re doing to the infrastructure of the NL?

 

[clint van damme]

Anyway @Earlsdon_Skyblue1 youre an immigrant! Aren’t you concerned what you’re doing to the infrastructure of the NL?

Ex pat if you don't mind!

 

[clint van damme]

The problem is also the timescales. So, look at the crossovers of Labour to Conservative - as the investment made in the latter days of Labour comes online, Conservatives can cut the %age spent of GDP and claim efficiency savings as the effect of that cut won't be seen for a few years. Fast forward to now, and if your mate Starmer boosts the budget, the narrative will be it's being spent inefficiently if there's no upturn instantly... which there won't be.

And that's the problem with five year spells in government, the investment made them often benefits the next lot, so there's little incentive to do it as people expect instant success for their cash.

Fundings definitely part of it but there also needs to be a system that's fit for purpose and adequately staffed.
It's a massive challenge.
I think closer integration between the NHS and social care providers is a must.

I know the government produced a white paper last year on the subject but not sure how far that's progressed, it was 2 prime ministers ago!

 

[Deleted member 5849]

Fundings definitely part of it but there also needs to be a system that's fit for purpose and adequately staffed.
It's a massive challenge.
I think closer integration between the NHS and social care providers is a must.

I know the government produced a white paper last year on the subject but not sure how far that's progressed, it was 2 prime ministers ago!

The problem is, such things are used as excuses to *not* fund, 'we can do more with less or the same' and people buy into that.

So start with the funding - they'd get a lot more sypathetic hearing from me atleast if they then wanted to change structural issues too.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Deacademise schools and get rid of all these MAT level executives and management figures who are on 6 figure salaries while adding zero to the front line service. Thereby releasing lots more money back into education without having to spend an extra penny.

Go on Rishi

 

[SBAndy]

Right, it is getting even more silly now. Did we predict Ukraine or Hong Kong ten years in advance? You have absolutely no idea what will happen. Neither do the 'experts'. The world can change at a moments notice.

Immigration in a healthy balanced way is perfectly fine. What is going on at the moment is anything but that (remember we haven't even discussed illegal immigration), particularly when the infrastructure of the country cannot keep up. It has become a disaster, and will continue to be. This is becoming a really, really stupid argument now and the bubble that can be found on this thread, and in a minority of society is completely devoid of any basic common sense. I appreciate that you have at least tried to have a debate compared to some others, but a lot of people on here will still be there in ten years scratching their heads as to what is going wrong, and wondering why that side of politics is consistently being rejected. I think I will leave it at that.

You keep coming back to the point that infrastructure cannot keep up. We could choose to upgrade infrastructure and increase capacity - instead we get “40 new hospitals”. And it works on both sides of the argument as border force is also under-resourced so ‘if’ we made the decision to cut immigration, or however you’d choose to manage it, then we’d be in a position of that being largely unenforceable.

The answer is investment in public infrastructure. You don’t think that’ll happen, I don’t think that’ll happen, but there isn’t really an alternative.

 

[CCFCSteve]

The problem is also the timescales. So, look at the crossovers of Labour to Conservative - as the investment made in the latter days of Labour comes online, Conservatives can cut the %age spent of GDP and claim efficiency savings as the effect of that cut won't be seen for a few years. Fast forward to now, and if your mate Starmer boosts the budget, the narrative will be it's being spent inefficiently if there's no upturn instantly... which there won't be.

And that's the problem with five year spells in government, the investment made them often benefits the next lot, so there's little incentive to do it as people expect instant success for their cash.

Needs a cross party long term solution and for the country to recognise the nhs as was is gone unless we pay a lot more into the pot over our lifetimes and/or start looking after ourselves a lot better

Ps Clint - Ponzi scheme might’ve sounded a bit of an OTT analogy but it was intentional. what I mean is, as things stand, if you don’t keep filling the country with more and more paying into the pot* for an aging, inactive population the system could collapse, as those new people will also live longer and require more and longer care. This situation might’ve been significantly worsened by covid, although may also ultimately shorten lifespans, who knows long term.

As you say, we need a massive rethink

 

[Deleted member 5849]

You keep coming back to the point that infrastructure cannot keep up. We could choose to upgrade infrastructure and increase capacity - instead we get “40 new hospitals”. And it works on both sides of the argument as border force is also under-resourced so ‘if’ we made the decision to cut immigration, or however you’d choose to manage it, then we’d be in a position of that being largely unenforceable.

The answer is investment in public infrastructure. You don’t think that’ll happen, I don’t think that’ll happen, but there isn’t really an alternative.

We'd be spending even less proportionately for those who need care if there were less net contributors too, so the NHS would be in an even worse state than it is.

 

[clint van damme]

The problem is, such things are used as excuses to *not* fund, 'we can do more with less or the same' and people buy into that.

So start with the funding - they'd get a lot more sypathetic hearing from me atleast if they then wanted to change structural issues too.

Well, you'll be shocked to hear, that funding per head has dropped per person under the tories.

And you're right, excuses are used not to fund but even within the current framework things could be much better.

The current overseas recruitment via the temporary health and social care visas are a joke.

Of course recruitment has been hampered by a certain event that happened in 2016 which I don't want to get in to!

 

[clint van damme]

Needs a cross party long term solution and for the country to recognise the nhs as was is gone unless we pay a lot more into the pot over our lifetimes and/or start looking after ourselves a lot better

Ps Clint - Ponzi scheme might’ve sounded a bit of an OTT analogy but it was intentional. what I mean is, as things stand, if you don’t keep filling the country with more and more paying into the pot* for an aging, inactive population the system could collapse, as those new people will also live longer and require more and longer care. This situation might’ve been significantly worsened by covid, although may also ultimately shorten lifespans, who knows long term.

As you say, we need a massive rethink

Totally agree, and like I said, parking the immigration debate to one side, we'll arrive at the scenario you paint of the system collapsing at some point unless we do something even if everyone in the country is indigenous.

Soylent green anyone?!

 

[shmmeee]

The problem is, such things are used as excuses to *not* fund, 'we can do more with less or the same' and people buy into that.

So start with the funding - they'd get a lot more sypathetic hearing from me atleast if they then wanted to change structural issues too.

Also all change costs short term generally. Maybe a massive reorganisation is the best thing but in the short term it’ll be bloody expensive.

Needs a cross party long term solution and for the country to recognise the nhs as was is gone unless we pay a lot more into the pot over our lifetimes and/or start looking after ourselves a lot better

Ps Clint - Ponzi scheme might’ve sounded a bit of an OTT analogy but it was intentional. what I mean is, as things stand, if you don’t keep filling the country with more and more paying into the pot* for an aging, inactive population the system could collapse, as those new people will also live longer and require more and longer care. This situation might’ve been significantly worsened by covid, although may also ultimately shorten lifespans, who knows long term.

As you say, we need a massive rethink

I think we need to sort social care first. Do that and a lot of pressure disappears. We’ve generally got a very cheap and effective healthcare system despite people constantly telling us it can’t go on.

But like education and policing it also picks up the tab for lack of social policy elsewhere like walkable neighbourhoods.