Politics at Westminster | BREAKING: UKIP

I suspect this is just a case of the Tories pandering to the racists who are going to vote for UKIP in 2015.

It is comments just like that which have repeatedly marred any open and reasonable debate on sustainable immigration in this country.

That dismissive air and refusal to engage on the issue for good or bad only lead to further ignorance and fear amongst sections of society.
 
Immigration is an issue that's never going to be solved. As long as Britain is one of the best countries in the world, people less fortunate will want to come here. The only way to solve immigration is to use the world resources to make the entire world a better place, but for a plethora of reasons (some of which are outside the UK's control) it won't happen in our lifetime.

Both sides can only pander. And I prefer the pandering of the left wing, as I find it to be a little bit more compassionate.
 
Immigration is an issue that's never going to be solved. As long as Britain is one of the best countries in the world, people less fortunate will want to come here. The only way to solve immigration is to use the world resources to make the entire world a better place, but for a plethora of reasons (some of which are outside the UK's control) it won't happen in our lifetime.

Both sides can only pander. And I prefer the pandering of the left wing, as I find it to be a little bit more compassionate.

It isn't so much about solving immigration as managing it better and having sustainable policies.

Has it been compassion in the UK arena or for all too many exploitation dressed up in a pleasing surface level ideology? Some on the right will admit to a cold financial motive whereas their left leaning counterparts either pretend that it isn't happening/gloss over it.
 
Immigration is an issue that's never going to be solved. As long as Britain is one of the best countries in the world, people less fortunate will want to come here. The only way to solve immigration is to use the world resources to make the entire world a better place, but for a plethora of reasons (some of which are outside the UK's control) it won't happen in our lifetime.

Both sides can only pander. And I prefer the pandering of the left wing, as I find it to be a little bit more compassionate.


Make the world a better place? Have I been transported into primary school? Thanks for confirming that within our lifetimes, Britain will probably be a better place than Somalia. Maybe you could explain some of those reasons at some point. I'd love to hear them.

You're like a parody. In one post you manage to get in 'people who are less fortunate' and 'I'm left-wing because, you know what, I'm a compassionate person.' It's leftie bingo.

Have you ever considered that there might be people on the right who are compassionate too, or are we all after financial gain? Why would us Tories even want immigrants to leave? Who's going to clean my house while I'm running my hedgefund?
 
Make the world a better place? Have I been transported into primary school? Thanks for confirming that within our lifetimes, Britain will probably be a better place than Somalia. Maybe you could explain some of those reasons at some point. I'd love to hear them.

You're like a parody. In one post you manage to get in 'people who are less fortunate' and 'I'm left-wing because, you know what, I'm a compassionate person.' It's leftie bingo.

Have you ever considered that there might be people on the right who are compassionate too, or are we all after financial gain? Why would us Tories even want immigrants to leave? Who's going to clean my house while I'm running my hedgefund?


Heh.
 
http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2013/jul/21/lynton-crosby-cameron-lizard-oz


Crosby and Textor, along with a willing Howard, have been attributed the dubious distinction of introducing "wedge" politics into Australia.

The wedge is all about splitting groups away from the opponent's party by sending messages on issues that stir the emotions, such as race, immigration or taxes.

Howard and Crosby used a Queenslander, Pauline Hanson, to assist during the 1990s when "battlers" felt threatened by Aboriginal gains of land and other rights.

The Liberals endorsed Hanson for a seat in the March 1996 election lead-up, then had to dump her over criticisms of government support for Aborigines. She then won the seat for the rightwing One Nation party.

In her maiden speech, Hanson said that "mainstream Australians" experienced "reverse racism".
Knowing she was tapping a deep vein of fear in the electorate, Howard, the Liberal prime minister, refused to criticise her and instead attacked political correctness, saying people could now speak freely. They did. An era notable for an outpouring of racist sentiment followed.

Intriguing and somewhat worrying stuff.
 
Crosby seems like a right standup guy. Someone you'd really want to associate yourself with.
 
As an aside i think it is worth acknowledging the proposals to expand the fuel subsidy for those rural communities in other parts of the UK.

It is three years late and should be larger in scope than even these improvement but it is something, the previous Labour government were would have continued to be wholly absent on the matter.
 
It isn't so much about solving immigration as managing it better and having sustainable policies.

Has it been compassion in the UK arena or for all too many exploitation dressed up in a pleasing surface level ideology? Some on the right will admit to a cold financial motive whereas their left leaning counterparts either pretend that it isn't happening/gloss over it.
If it were up to me, I'd congratulate people and give them a passport the moment they manage to sneak into the country, but as no one is ever going ever take that stance I'm generally going to be on the side of whoever comes closest.

I'm not going to pretend exploitation doesn't exists, and I do think there should be harsh punishments for people who exploit others, in any capacity.


Make the world a better place? Have I been transported into primary school? Thanks for confirming that within our lifetimes, Britain will probably be a better place than Somalia. Maybe you could explain some of those reasons at some point. I'd love to hear them.

You're like a parody. In one post you manage to get in 'people who are less fortunate' and 'I'm left-wing because, you know what, I'm a compassionate person.' It's leftie bingo.

Have you ever considered that there might be people on the right who are compassionate too, or are we all after financial gain? Why would us Tories even want immigrants to leave? Who's going to clean my house while I'm running my hedgefund?

Corruption of third world politics, making it hard for some countries to flourish. Religious fundamentalism, making it hard for women to free themselves from many horrible circumstances. Financial greed, because it's more important that Apple has $70bn in a bank in an Island somewhere than a child in Ethiopia having a meal tonight. And continued national separatism because the hundreds of billions the US (and probably over a trillion when you consider the rest of the world) armies spend on "defense" every year are more important than helping others. Those are just four of the reasons why the world won't be a better place within our lifetime.

And I've considered it, but the phrase "go home" is a distinctly racist one, and anyone who uses it is a cnut by my reckoning. There might be compassionate individuals, but as a side, you're sorely lacking.
 
Good lord, even Farage thinks the government's gone over the top with the latest anti-immigration push. Even with his agenda, that's saying something.
 
The whole idea of compassion is an interesting one. If you welcome illegal immigrants with open arms, it has negative effects on almost every public service there is; hospitals, police, the ambulance service and so on.

If you look at some of the supposed mistreatment of patients in certain NHS hospitals, you can link it to the hospitals being understaffed for the demand of the area. Having very loose border controls makes it virtually impossible for some hospitals to cope.

So therefore you get many very conscientious people who work in a wide range of public services, who have more compassion than anyone, who beg that immigration be controlled and run efficiently so they can adequately care for those who need it most.

It's all very well claiming to be compassionate when you don't see the effects of initial kindness turning into a nightmare.
 
Good lord, even Farage thinks the government's gone over the top with the latest anti-immigration push. Even with his agenda, that's saying something.
I like Farage, but the chances are he was just distancing himself from an unpopular decision.

The whole idea of compassion is an interesting one. If you welcome illegal immigrants with open arms, it has negative effects on almost every public service there is; hospitals, police, the ambulance service and so on.

If you look at some of the supposed mistreatment of patients in certain NHS hospitals, you can link it to the hospitals being understaffed for the demand of the area. Having very loose border controls makes it virtually impossible for some hospitals to cope.
This genuinely doesn't seem to be registering. I didn't watch the NHS programme the other night, but from what I could gather, everyone came to a similar conclusion that the NHS staff are overworked. Their is too much demand and not enough supply. Silva seems to think that anyone from anywhere should be entitled to our free healthcare. I just cannot work it out.
 
I find it strange that it's even a political issue.

Countries have to have borders. You can try to be all academic about it and go on about how all borders are man-made and that it's all just a construct. Well, you know what, the world needs segmenting. If you want health-care, and public services in general, you have to show some level of common sense about quite how many people are using them.

I feel great sympathy for those who live in countries that don't have these services, but the work we do should not be to encourage them to use ours when they are already heaving, but to encourage their development in the countries from which these immigrants are coming.

I don't like the term 'Go Home' because I think it's unnecessarily inflammatory. But for our public services to run efficiently, the illegal immigrants are going to have to. You can't run a society any other way.
 
Or, if you can't find them and deport them by fair means, you can invite them into society and get them paying taxes for those services they use. Sending trucks out saying "Go home" is as pathetic as it is sinister.
 
It is comments just like that which have repeatedly marred any open and reasonable debate on sustainable immigration in this country.

That dismissive air and refusal to engage on the issue for good or bad only lead to further ignorance and fear amongst sections of society.


Agree with you on that Nick. Whenever someone raised the immigration issue when Labour were in power, they just kept on saying stuff like "That's racist" or "That's xenophobic" as ways to stop people raising concerns with the levels of immigration at the time.
 
Or, if you can't find them and deport them by fair means, you can invite them into society and get them paying taxes for those services they use. Sending trucks out saying "Go home" is as pathetic as it is sinister.


I've said 'Go Home' is ill-advised. That's not up for debate here.

I hate to say this, but illegal immigrants are very unlikely to be skilled. The reason they're coming here is probably because they've been oppressed in another country, with little access to education.

They're not going to be paying a significant amount of tax. The chance that they'll be taking more from the state than they provide is high.
 
Agree with you on that Nick. Whenever someone raised the immigration issue when Labour were in power, they just kept on saying stuff like "That's racist" or "That's xenophobic" as ways to stop people raising concerns with the levels of immigration at the time.


:lol: Haha, you quoted Nick. But it was a good post which I'd be happy to take credit for.

EDIT - You spotted it. Whoops.
 
Meanwhile, the minister responsible for immigration, Mark Harper, said all the inspections at train stations had resulted from direct intelligence.
“I absolutely refute the suggestion that we are targeting people because of their race, or we are doing racial profiling – we are doing nothing of the sort,” he said.
“We are using intelligence to target our operations. We can only lawfully do that if we have intelligence that suggests we are going to encounter immigration offenders, and I am confident having reviewed our operations that we are absolutely operating within the law.”


As I predicted.
 
I've said 'Go Home' is ill-advised. That's not up for debate here.

I hate to say this, but illegal immigrants are very unlikely to be skilled. The reason they're coming here is probably because they've been oppressed in another country, with little access to education.

They're not going to be paying a significant amount of tax. The chance that they'll be taking more from the state than they provide is high.


I haven't seen the statistics, you'll have to link them, but I think I'd rather encourage people to participate be on the same system as everyone else, rather than hide away and skulk in the shadows.
 
I haven't seen the statistics, you'll have to link them, but I think I'd rather encourage people to participate be on the same system as everyone else, rather than hide away and skulk in the shadows.


But you must accept that the current situation isn't a long-term solution? Look at our services. They're overrun.
 
For what it's worth, I don't think the issue here is the number of immigrants, necessarily. The problems stem from their distribution across the country. I was in a hospital in the west country recently where there were about six people in A&E on a Friday night.
 
Holy shit, just seen that the tories have hired Jim Messina (Obama's 2012 campaign manager) as an advisor. That's a little unsettling.
 
You're all going to have to accept it's a Tory government in 2015.

Labour are dead in the water. It's over guys.


Both parties are pretty dead right now, it's more a case of who can smell the least bad in 18 months time.
 
If it was a presidential system, sure. But if there an election next month Labour would wipe the floor. 2015 is going to depends entirely on whether or not Osborne can get growth in the economy.
 
They wouldn't wipe the floor. Their lead was down to 3 and when elections happen, there's normally a 5 or so swing to the incumbent. For the opposition to get a majority, you generally need a 7-10 point lead in the polls. Labour, to be fair, have recorded those gaps in the past, but they've been heading in the wrong direction for a while now.
 
Even that's not going to be enough on its own, he's going to have to go into the election saying there will be more cuts after being elected to eliminate the deficit in one term. It's very difficult for them politically, even if the economy has turned around a bit by then.
 
You're forgetting how heavily weighted towards Labour the electoral system is. The constituency borders are in their favor, the Tories tried to change that to suit them but it was blocked. FPTP helps Labour more than anyone else, and with the recent rise of UKIP the Tories can expect to lose a few marginal constituencies.
 
And don't forget, UKIP is mostly popular in England, rather than the rest of the UK, so the places they effect won't be Wales and Scotland where Labour is already guaranteed lots of MP's.
 
The wrong Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party. Would not be surprised if we hear more of a leadership contest as we get closer to the election.
 
The wrong Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party. Would not be surprised if we hear more of a leadership contest as we get closer to the election.


Not going to happen. Ed's secure until the election, for better or worse, unless something unexpected happens.
 
You won't hear anything about a leadership contest. David has pissed off to America to get rich and no one else in the party is a substantial enough of an improvement to get enough support for a serious challenge.
 
UKIP are already fading. Tories aren't going to shift to them in the actual election.

I don't want Scotland to go independent, but if they did, we'd never have to see a Labour government again. Swings and roundabouts.
 
There's an EU election next year, that's going to catapult them back into the limelight. And you can be sure they're going to kick up a fuss about being involved in the leadership debates with their inevitable votes in 2014.
 
I reckon Cameron should just flat out apologise to them and get Farage on side. He is basically UKIP all on his own. I'd quite like to see how a Tory-UKIP coalition would work too.