Currently there's 131,000 social care vacancies. Now there will be more. Starmer has basically taken a page from Trump. Beautiful.
There's a short term issue with a large baby boomer generation moving into retirement and having significant expectations of a long period of receiving sizeable pensions. There's also a longer term issue of the birthrate falling, not just in the UK but globally that undermines size of the workforce, and the ability to fund pension demands through a reasonable level of taxation. To address this you could import a sizeable number of people, but it's worth appreciating: 1) We have an increasingly atomised society with smaller household sizes, a broken housing market with not enough supply and/or exploitative landlords hoarding the housing capacity that exists, and a planning system/public sentiment in many areas that is resistant to just concreting everywhere and building more houses 2) The quality of immigrants is important - finding a job isn't guaranteed, nor the desire to find one; lack of English is a barrier to employment and integration; culture matters, as do shared values and respect for the law; integration is getting worse; and migrant expectations/exploitation are known to suppress wages in many sectors 3) The number of immigrants is important - they create housing and public services demand as well as potentially adding to the workforce - maternity care, childcare, school places, GP and hospital requirements, benefits, translation services, social services, policing, prisons, and in the longer term pensions and social care. To simply say more people all the time is the basis for a ponzi scheme - it's either not a definitive solution or it's the wrong solution to try in the first place 4) The routes of immigration matter - an effective system that selects who we need/who offers benefit to the country and excludes those that don't is the most sensible way to proceed. Uncontrolled immigration, a free for all, or people smuggling across the channel and into years of prohibitions on work and legal wrangles is far from optimal. Instead of immigration we could also look to close the gap by controlling pension costs growth, raising productivity and wages, addressing public service inefficiencies, raising the birthrate, and improving skills and employability. Some possible policies to start in this area include: 1) Ending or reforming the pensions triple lock 2) Investing more in training and equipment 3) Reforming the business taxation system to encourage businesses to invest themselves 4) Using AI and technology to improve public services delivery and/or decrease costs 5) Reforming the landlord rental sector to deter multiple home ownership and improve housing standards/security of tenancies 6) Offering improved support for childcare and wraparound care for children in state schools 7) Tax incentives to have more children (such as successfully introduced in Hungary) 8) Investing more in education, apprenticeships, professional training schemes, and reducing the cost of domestic university fees 9) Improving funding for career switching and retraining and provision in job centres to match those out of work with prospective careers In short, immigration isn't the only answer. It's probably not even a good answer. And to say there is no alternative is intellectually lazy and defeatist.
none of that has any basis at all in economic reality in the short term. By short term I mean 25- 50 years. If you are saying that this approach can be achieved quicker than that timeframe you are lying either to yourself or to others. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say you are lying to yourself Some of those things are eye watering expensive. They would involve very significant tax rises. They would involve very significant loss of GDP. It would also mean ending the NHS and means testing SRP So the honest thing to say would be we can do this if you are willing to pay a lot more tax and be a lot poorer and also have no safety net of any kind. But you’ll have less Immigrants Some are achievable in the medium term 50-75 years though countries such as Japan and South Korea have been attempting and failing to get birth rates up since the 70s. it’s easy to suggest easy solutions to complex issues without attempting to cost them or add a timeframe to them. That’s intellectually dishonest, lazy and adds nothing to the debate.
The worst thing about social media and the current political debate is that we give credence and listen to people who previously were shunned. We didn’t open the door to the National Front in the 70s we slammed it in their face. Reform and any one who supports them are supporting the policies of the National Front in a suit. We don’t need to make decisions based on the incoherent dribblings of racists. We don’t need to listen to them. We don’t need to take into account their feelings. Brexit shows what listening to racists gets you. Reform appeals to people who don’t want to accept personal responsibility for their own **** life and **** decisions. They give you someone to blame cos god forbid that you own your **** life and do something about it. Your life will still be **** whether the doctor who treats you for you phet addiction comes from Mumbai or Manchester. Your prison record and lack of education explain why you can’t get a job over someone whose first language isn’t English. That’s on you. Sort your own **** out and then you’ll deserve to be listened to. The amount of Manvers rioters who tried to play the mental health card to try to justify arson, racism and attempted murder was staggering. The time and effort and money spent on showing that it wasn’t was mental health and was just the fact they are racist idiots was massive. They should get billed financially for that when they get out of prison.
The same folk keep f**king over the rest of us. “We need to stop the foreigners coming over here, we need to leave the EU.” “Labour can’t have a lefty leader. They need to be electable first. Vote Starmer and hold your nose. They’ll move left once in power.” “Despite voting to leave, there are millions more foreigners coming over here. I’m going to vote for the same c*ñț who got me to vote Leave.” “The Greens are loons.”
Admins; I "liked" this post in fact I really, really like it but the BBS won't let me. Is it possible to have grades of likes?
Don't necessarily disagree with your points. But just to raise that Korea and Japan have introduced incredibly dull policies to increase birth rates, always incentivising men, rather than giving women the maternity packages and job security they need. They aren't good examples. For me the answer to everything is education which as you say takes time, along with investment. Create a smart workforce who create jobs and opportunities for others like in Switzerland, Germany, Ireland and the Scandi countries.
Babies born now are workers in 18-21 years. Pensioners drawing could well be dead in the same timeframe. As for abolishing the NHS and pensions, I simply ask you to point out where I suggested that rather than where you made it up.
Again idiotic. You think you can magicallly improve the birth rate overnight. If you think you can I’ve got a bridge to sell you. It will take 25-50 years as a very minimum. That’s if you are successful in your cunning plan where many nations have tried for decades to do the same and failed. Japan has had programmes in place since the 70s and done a lot of work on it. They situation has worsened. But aye it’s a piece of piss according to some random on the internet. You weren’t honest enough to list out the real world economic impact of your suggestions. The real impact would be that you can’t afford social care. You can’t afford pensions. You can’t afford the NHS. So be straight say that. You won’t because people like you never do. Make the argument that there will be a short term 25-50 years pain where we all pay more into the system but should expect to have zero protections other than means tested pensions. I’d respect that. I don’t respect people like you who are either too lazy to find out the economic impact or too lazy.
That’s fair. I guess you could look at the Nordic countries where say Sweden has done some pretty innovative stuff and still not succeeded. A smart educated workforce is absolutely the key. But you have political parties which have no interest in that because smart people won’t vote for them.
Yep and I fear we're past the critical tipping point where smart people are in the minority and we won't get a sensible government again for a very long time. Can only assume the Labour pollsters feel the same
I genuinely believe mate he thought Brexit wouldn't happen. And the vote would be in favour of staying in. The campaign by Boris with the bus. The rise of Farage. And Camerons ineptitude at pushing the vote. Brought the downfall. Mainly the bus on the NHS and not immigration.
Despite all the interviews with people on the news at the time, all the evidence we’ve seen since, and pretty much all sane argument, you honestly believe the biggest factor that tipped the Brexit vote the way it went was the NHS bus - and not immigration? Really?
