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Never mind, many more years with the same weather as 2023 and its five months of near-constant rain since the end of June, and no-one will want to come here
(For avoidance of doubt I am pro-immigration, this is just a light-hearted comment rather than a serious discussion!)
Never mind, many more years with the same weather as 2023 and its five months of near-constant rain since the end of June, and no-one will want to come here
(For avoidance of doubt I am pro-immigration, this is just a light-hearted comment rather than a serious discussion!)
It is, however, why the Government can claim to have made progress in "stopping the boats". The numbers are down on what they could/would have been simply because the weather hasn't been conducive to successfully crossing the Channel in a small boat.
There was no mention in the point raised that the freedom UK citizens might enjoy would be restricted to workers. In fact, earlier in the thread (post #5568) there was this suggestion:
Just think of how much housing, surgery/hospital/care-homes space could be freed up if retirees had the right to live in the EU/EEA again!
I cannot see the EU agreeing to UK pensioners being allowed to retire to Spain whilst only EU "workers" had the right to settle in the UK. If UK citizens were allowed free movement in the EU, the EU would expect the same in return.
Anyway, in practice the notion that only "workers" would be allowed such freedom is nonsense. That suggests that if a man has a wife and three children, he could take advantage of the freedom of movement to seek work, but his wife and children would have to remain behind. Including the term "workers" or "labour" when referring to freedom of movement was probably done to sweeten the pill when the notion was first promulgated. In true EU fashion, the usual "mission creep" occurred shortly afterwards.
Anyway, in practice the notion that only "workers" would be allowed such freedom is nonsense. That suggests that if a man has a wife and three children, he could take advantage of the freedom of movement to seek work, but his wife and children would have to remain behind. Including the term "workers" or "labour" when referring to freedom of movement was probably done to sweeten the pill when the notion was first promulgated. In true EU fashion, the usual "mission creep" occurred shortly afterwards.
It's not a case of mission creep. The fundamental principle is that people are free to move throughout the EU in order to work. Everything else - the right to reside in other member state, the right to access services on a non-discriminatory basis, the right to bring one's family with you - all exist to make freedom of movement of labour practical.
I certainly desperately needed cheering up and that did the trick! Clever and inventive words performed brilliantly by that family. Thank you for sharing.
I certainly desperately needed cheering up and that did the trick! Clever and inventive words performed brilliantly by that family. Thank you for sharing.
I certainly desperately needed cheering up and that did the trick! Clever and inventive words performed brilliantly by that family. Thank you for sharing.
No problem - if enough people watch it will get them a few quid. The least I can do. I think it was suggested for me because I watched one of their previous renditions 'Never Ending Dorries'.
He was the arch Remainer now cuddling up to the Brexiteer!! Tells me Torys are beginning to accept what a mess they've made of it and trying to present themselves as ome sort of middle ground party again.
What we need though is for a right wing revolution to split the Torys apart but wont happen as they are incapable of confronting their own failures and it will need a GE to make that happen now. So we limp along for another year.
I wouldn't have described him as an Arch Remainer. That would apply more to Ken Clarke or Dominic Grieve for example.
David Cameron has been a pragmatic Eurosceptic who was willing to look for the merits of membership and improved terms of membership rather than withdrawal. However, depending on how you look at it, things either did or did not go according to plan.
Next year we will see David Cameron and Rishi Sunak having had a very similar skill as a main party leader. They will both have enabled a change of government.
I wouldn't have described him as an Arch Remainer. That would apply more to Ken Clarke or Dominic Grieve for example.
David Cameron has been a pragmatic Eurosceptic who was willing to look for the merits of membership and improved terms of membership rather than withdrawal. However, depending on how you look at it, things either did or did not go according to plan.
Next year we will see David Cameron and Rishi Sunak having had a very similar skill as a main party leader. They will both have enabled a change of government.
That gives him a lot too much credit. I never got the feeling he had a strong opinion on anything. He mostly just seemed to me after whatever made him popular with people he liked, and whatever made him look brave and statesmanlike. He got hooked on referenda like an addict at a poker terminal, and only really cared about the outcome because he recognised that any PM actually trying to make Brexit work was doomed to look like an idiot forever.
It's not a case of mission creep. The fundamental principle is that people are free to move throughout the EU in order to work. Everything else - the right to reside in other member state, the right to access services on a non-discriminatory basis, the right to bring one's family with you - all exist to make freedom of movement of labour practical.
I don't deny that was the original stated aim. But by making the free movement of labour practical, it also facilitated the free movement of everybody who was not in the labour market and was never likely to be. Promoting it as providing for the free movement of labour was a sham. It was obvious that large numbers of non-workers would also be able to move about the bloc freely, effectively making the entire EU a single entity as far as citizenship is concerned. That may be seen as an advantage (personally I don't think it is which is one of the many reasons I'm glad we've left), but it should have been promoted as such.
Yet another area where the Tories aren't keeping their promises (or at least were vague in what was promised so it sounded like more was going to be delivered):
Communities and businesses are to miss out on £230m of funding, it is claimed.
www.bbc.com
Cornwall faces crisis over post-Brexit grants says councillor
A Cornwall councillor has said the money the county council receives from the government to replace EU grants lost due to Brexit will run out in a month’s time.
It would leave more than £230m of fund applications by Cornish communities and businesses unmet, said councillor Tim Dwelly, Cornwall Council's shadow cabinet member for economy.
He described the expected shortfall as “devastating”.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLHC) said it was "on track" to meet its "commitment to match EU structural funds received by Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly".
'Very sad'
The government said in 2021 that "total funding through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF) will at a minimum match the size of EU funds in each nation and in Cornwall each year".
Cornwall Council was expecting to get an average of £100m a year until 2025, but it had received about £43m a year, said the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Mr Dwelly said: "These figures are devastating.
"They show that Cornwall’s disappointing SPF allocation will have been all spent by next month.
"It’s depressing to see that over £230m of funds applied for will now be refused.
"The applications from Cornish community groups and businesses were for almost three times the amount Cornwall got."
Independent councillor and former leader of Cornwall Council Julian German said: "It’s very sad that this isn’t happening as it will harm people’s prospects and the vitality of our communities."
Conservative councillor Linda Taylor, leader of Cornwall Council, said she had written to the government to highlight the importance of an extension to the SPF programme beyond 2025.
A Cornwall Council spokesperson said: “We await confirmation from the government of how and when the next tranche of funding after 2025 will be delivered, and we will continue to push for a fair deal for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly."
The DLHC said in a statement: "We are on track to meet our commitment to match EU structural funds received by Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly with £132 million allocated through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
"Funding after March 2025 is a matter for the Spending Review in 2024."
To be fair there does appear to be a fair amount of spin from both sides, as the £230 million appears to be for all grants applied for but which remain unpaid (so a lot would be rejected or for future years) rather than what they were expecting, likewise the government's value sounds like they are only going to pay out the about £45 million a year from 2021 to 2023 rather than the expected £100 million a year but by totalling the value of sounds more generous.
The other thing to consider is the the UK government only promised to match past funding, so for the next few years (due to inflation) the actual value would be lower than they were getting.
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I don't deny that was the original stated aim. But by making the free movement of labour practical, it also facilitated the free movement of everybody who was not in the labour market and was never likely to be. Promoting it as providing for the free movement of labour was a sham. It was obvious that large numbers of non-workers would also be able to move about the bloc freely, effectively making the entire EU a single entity as far as citizenship is concerned. That may be seen as an advantage (personally I don't think it is which is one of the many reasons I'm glad we've left), but it should have been promoted as such.
The thing is those "non workers" who were most likely to benefit from this are likely to be those who are retired and are living elsewhere.
The numbers of those who would move countries to try and live off benefits is likely to be small (especially if the governments set in place the right sort of rules to limit when benefits could stay being paid out to those not native to the country). For example (simplistically) EU citizens were only entitled to benefits if they were working (or had been) but weren't if they weren't (or hadn't).
As such if people came here for work and didn't find any they were significantly unlikely to have been paid benefits. If they found work they would likely have been given some benefits, however these would most likely have been paid out of the taxes that they had been paying (especially if you count indirect tax like VAT, fuel duty, etc.). They would have also grown the economy by spending money, simply the more people there are the more spending there is due to then needing to buy food.
It's also worth noting that extra spending is likely to result in extra profits for companies, which would also be taxed and so increase the tax take further for the government beyond just those taxes the individuals paid.
Whilst they would have put some additional strain on housing, it would have much more likely been that they house shared, in comparison to a significant number of the native population who may well have been living in large houses with one or two people living in them (mostly retired people, before anyone asks how a 35 year old could be expected to buy a large home on their own).
Whilst you would have to fund children through school, given the numbers of children from the native population is falling it's not like you've got to build new school capacity and in a few years it's expected that the total number of children will start falling so you can start to reduce the overall school capacity anyway.
However, that highlights the issue; that as a proportion of the total population the working aged population is falling, without any immigration it'll fall by 1% of the total population over the next 10 years as more people reach 65 than reach 16.
With free movement or allowed two things to happen, the first was that we could more easily have people come here for work. With the second being that it was also more easy for people to retire in the EU where their costs were lower (which may well include those who came here for work returning to their home nation).
The first would boost the tax take to fund retirement costs of the population, the second would reduce the strain the NHS was in by removing some of those who typically need to use it more than those who are younger as you end up with a slightly smaller retirement population in the UK.
The way the UK state pension works is that it's unlikely that someone from the EU would come here for work for a few years and then retire and stay here. Whilst those on low pay would be unlikely to be able to afford to buy here and so would likely to return to their home nation (or a third nation where costs were lower).
Whilst overall it's complex, generally more working aged people means a larger economy, and a larger economy means a larger amount of tax being paid. The issue we have is that the working population (without any immigration) will mean a smaller working aged population, that's not an issue if the non working population stays proportionally the same - unfortunately that's not the situation we find ourselves in. With the costs of the payments to individuals via benefits growing significantly - the issue being that majority of our benefits costs are paid out to pensioners (£136bn and growing Vs £78bn and fairly stable paid to the working age population).
Arguably if housing costs hadn't risen so much, there would have been less need for in work benefits. Even in the last 20 years inflation has gone up so £100 now equals £175, however rents have resulted in you now needing to pay £185 for every £100 for the same property 20 years ago. However, that's small compared to the increase in rents since the 1980's, where inflation has gone from £100 to £277 whilst rent had gone from £100 to £437 - which means, even allowing for general inflation rent costs have risen from £100 to £158.
In comparison whilst pay had gone up from £100 to £370, again when you remove inflation (£133) it's still quite a way short of what rents have gone up by. Whilst £25 doesn't look much, when rents are easily £1,000 that's easily an extra £150 per month (£1,800 per year) for a household to find which hasn't been covered by increasing pay.
I don't deny that was the original stated aim. But by making the free movement of labour practical, it also facilitated the free movement of everybody who was not in the labour market and was never likely to be. Promoting it as providing for the free movement of labour was a sham. It was obvious that large numbers of non-workers would also be able to move about the bloc freely,. effectively making the entire EU a single entity as far as citizenship is concerned. That may be seen as an advantage (personally I don't think it is which is one of the many reasons I'm glad we've left), but it should have been promoted as such.
Once again and for hopefully the final time. Eu immigrants (including those with family) contributeed more to the uk than they used. So everyone benefited from it
I don't know why Hunt isn't raising the income tax threshold rather than messing about with inheritance tax. It would be a good way to entice back the home counties voters they lost to lab and lib Dems and stop the increasingly common emigration of middle class professionals to lower tax higher salary pastures (like USA or the gulf states)
As far as I'm concerned Hunt can shove any tax cuts up the proverbial.
We're in an age of austerity and public service cuts (the NHS, and the railways, still running cut-down post-Covid timetables and being deprived of stock by the government, being two good examples), how on earth can we afford tax cuts? We absolutely cannot. Tax cuts will mean still less money for public services, leading to still more austerity and more public service cuts. But I suppose that will be down to the next government to implement; talk about passing the buck!
And surely people are wise to this attempt at doing something resembling (morally even if not legally) bribing them to vote Tory.
As far as I'm concerned Hunt can shove any tax cuts up the proverbial.
We're in an age of austerity and public service cuts (the NHS, and the railways, still running cut-down post-Covid timetables and being deprived of stock by the government, being two good examples), how on earth can we afford tax cuts? We absolutely cannot. Tax cuts will mean still less money for public services, leading to still more austerity and more public service cuts. But I suppose that will be down to the next government to implement; talk about passing the buck!
And surely people are wise to this attempt at doing something resembling (morally even if not legally) bribing them to vote Tory.
I don't know why Hunt is raising the income tax threshold rather than messing about with inheritance tax. It would be a good way to entice back the home counties voters they lost to lab and lib Dems and stop the increasingly common emigration of middle class professionals to lower tax higher salary pastures (like USA or the gulf states)
One could argue that emigration of the tax-shy is a desirable thing! Less people complaining about income tax and trying to find legal ways to reduce it. Meantime, replace them with new immigrants, more willing to pay tax, from a more liberal immigration policy...
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I think they increasingly are these days. I suspect people see that many of the country's problems are down to austerity and cuts. I'm not going to get into an argument as to whether the austerity is justified or not, or what its causes are, but suffice to say, if there is austerity, you absolutely cannot afford tax cuts.
I don't know why Hunt is raising the income tax threshold rather than messing about with inheritance tax. It would be a good way to entice back the home counties voters they lost to lab and lib Dems and stop the increasingly common emigration of middle class professionals to lower tax higher salary pastures (like USA or the gulf states)
As far as I'm concerned Hunt can shove any tax cuts up the proverbial.
We're in an age of austerity and public service cuts (the NHS, and the railways, still running cut-down post-Covid timetables and being deprived of stock by the government, being two good examples), how on earth can we afford tax cuts? We absolutely cannot. Tax cuts will mean still less money for public services, leading to still more austerity and more public service cuts. But I suppose that will be down to the next government to implement; talk about passing the buck!
And surely people are wise to this attempt at doing something resembling (morally even if not legally) bribing them to vote Tory.
Austerity? Apart from the direct pandemic support, government spending is at historically high levels.
The tax burden is at record levels, surely when people are struggling, not taking so much money off them in taxes helps?
Austerity? Apart from the direct pandemic support, government spending is at historically high levels.
The tax burden is at record levels, surely when people are struggling, not taking so much money off them in taxes helps?
Plenty of evidence of a cash-strapped public sector to me.
Poor NHS (worse, IMX, than the Cameron/Osborne austerity of the early 10s), poor railway timetables and insufficient rolling stock (far worse than the early 10s), much of the public sector striking over pay, many stories of council facilities having to close due to being deprived of government funding (which is presumably because there is less funding to go round), council-funded bus services drastically cut, etc. To me, in my experience, austerity rules the post-Covid era.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
But one could also argue that the best doctors, etc, are those who will not move elsewhere because of the tax they have to pay. And if they are moving overseas, you can always (if you adopt a more open immigration policy) replace them with highly-skilled immigrants who don't complain about the tax, as I said.
But one could also argue that the best doctors, etc, are those who will not move elsewhere because of the tax they have to pay. And if they are moving overseas, you can always (if you adopt a more open immigration policy) replace them with highly-skilled immigrants who don't complain about the tax, as I said.
I don't think their is a correlation found between surgical skills and how penny pinching they are.
On your point about immigration, it's already quite easy to immigrate here as a highly skilled immigrant, the problem is we don't attract many. Our immigration rate is historically speaking very high, buts it's mostly students, asylum seekers and people filling lower paid roles in social care and the NHS.
Why would someone go to low salary high tax high cost of living Britain? Gulf states/USA have high salary and low taxes. Canada and Australia are high tax but counter with high salaries .Germany has ok salaries and around the same kind of tax burden but with a lot cheaper cost of living.
Once again and for hopefully the final time. Eu immigrants (including those with family) contributeed more to the uk than they used. So everyone benefited from it
Good thing then that it is true. For example, look at the Government's own statistics which show that in 2020 EEA migrants had a net economic contribution of £1,940 pa vs -£140 pa for native born people.
But what are they spending it on? You can have high spending and austerity if the money isn't reaching the people who really need it.
Good thing then that it is true. For example, look at the Government's own statistics which show that in 2020 EEA migrants had a net economic contribution of £1,940 pa vs -£140 pa for native born people.
Does the report concentrate only on direct economic comparisons? It seems to.
I can't see how it treats the results of population increase as a result of inwards migration; an increase in demand for housing, for example. Basic economics suggest that the result of that will be an increase in house prices. Is that ignored, or is it treated as part of the net economic contribution? If the latter is the case, an increase in house prices would not be universally seen as a positive overall.
Of course, by the same token if those moving here include a larger than average number of skilled construction workers the wages (market price) in construction will reduce, making houses cheaper to build.
because it won't cost him much money (only affecting probates that complete before the end of this parliament) while he claims to be a 'tax cutting chancellor'. Doubtless the right wing media will then challenge Labour to say whether they would reverse the cut (look out for the resurrection of the term 'death tax').
Alternatively, it could be that he is putting this out so people have a low expectation, and he reveals a very modest tax cut that affects a significant number of people with the expectation of decent headlines along the lines of 'Well done, Jeremy'. It certainly won't have been the first time that Chancellors have used that tactic.
It won't make much difference in the long run, the disgruntled wing of the Conservative Party will still want him and Sunak out; Labour/ Lib Dems will still claim that he isn't doing enough for those around the poverty line; and the polls will hardly move!
As such if people came here for work and didn't find any they were significantly unlikely to have been paid benefits. If they found work they would likely have been given some benefits, however these would most likely have been paid out of the taxes that they had been paying (especially if you count indirect tax like VAT, fuel duty, etc.). They would have also grown the economy by spending money, simply the more people there are the more spending there is due to then needing to buy food.
But that doesn't benefit the local population if the economy is simply growing in proportion to the number of people living here. What really matters is GDP per capita - and there's no reason to believe that went up as a result of FOM.
It's also worth noting that extra spending is likely to result in extra profits for companies, which would also be taxed and so increase the tax take further for the government beyond just those taxes the individuals paid.
However, that highlights the issue; that as a proportion of the total population the working aged population is falling, without any immigration it'll fall by 1% of the total population over the next 10 years as more people reach 65 than reach 16.
With free movement or allowed two things to happen, the first was that we could more easily have people come here for work. With the second being that it was also more easy for people to retire in the EU where their costs were lower (which may well include those who came here for work returning to their home nation).
But presumably, when people go abroad to retire, we still have to pay their pensions, so it's not significantly reducing the numbers of retired people we need to pay for. Plus it means that those pensions will be cycled into other countries' economies, not the UK economy (Worth pointing out since you've mentioned immigrants spending money in the UK - it works both ways!)
Why do you think housing costs have risen so much? Obviously there are many factors, but you can't ignore the impact of population increase caused by FOM meaning there are something like, maybe 2 million additional people in the UK who need somewhere to live.
www.bbc.com
