It’s all part of the wider narrative of funnelling people’s anger downwards at those more vulnerable than them. Smoke and mirrors.
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Reform UK discussion
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I think it's simply easier to protest outside a small number of hotels than hundreds of flats/houses.
I don't believe the protesters are, on the whole, complaining about the use of hotels. It's the politicians who have made it about hotels, where the protesters will mostly feel just as strongly about immigration even if every asylum hotel is disbanded.
Cloud Strife
Established Member
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- 25 Feb 2014
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I'm sitting in a car park waiting for my son to finish his karate class, and it just struck me: isn't Reform potentially a massive spoiler in the next Scottish election?
The SNP are still ahead in the polls, but by all accounts, they were likely to be very vulnerable to tactical voting by the Unionist parties. Now with Reform effectively introducing a fourth Unionist party into the fray and a split Unionist vote, it's likely that the SNP will manage to win constituency seats with as little as 30% of the vote.
With the Greens likely to pick up SNP protest votes in the regional vote, is it possible that Reform could lead to a pro-independence landslide?
The SNP are still ahead in the polls, but by all accounts, they were likely to be very vulnerable to tactical voting by the Unionist parties. Now with Reform effectively introducing a fourth Unionist party into the fray and a split Unionist vote, it's likely that the SNP will manage to win constituency seats with as little as 30% of the vote.
With the Greens likely to pick up SNP protest votes in the regional vote, is it possible that Reform could lead to a pro-independence landslide?
It would take a massive collapse in the SNP vote. They currently hold 62 of the 73 constituency seats and are likely to get almost nothing from the regional seats. Voting for another pro-Indy party in the regional vote could produce that majority if a significant number of people did that, but the vast majority of SNP voters give them both votes as the party exhorts them to.
When will it stop dominating the agenda? It seems to have been almost constantly in the headlines for decades. It’s a ridiculous national obsession.
It’s Reform and Yaxley-Lennon now, who have taken up the xenophobic space from UKIP, and the BNP before then, and the National Front before that.
It would be great to see this becoming less of a national obsession in my lifetime but I’m doubtful.
I’ve wondered this before, but I’m still perplexed as to why Farage gets so much airtime from various media. I often support the BBC, as both the left and right consider it biased which to me means it’s generally doing the right thing - but I’m not sure why the BBC is quite so obsessed with it - I’d like to know the reasoning behind them giving Farage disproportionate airtime. I’d also like to see the media asking the difficult questions to Reform, Farage, Tice et al. (and politicians of all parities).
Ted633
Member
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- 15 Mar 2018
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- 562
Been listening to the radio this afternoon/evening and the top headline every hour is the guilty verdict for sexual assault given to the asylum seeker at the Essex hotel. If only the same amount of airtime was given to every sexual assault case in this country, it may open people eyes a bit.
brad465
Veteran Member
Nadine Dorries has joined Reform UK. To quote someone when Lee Anderson did this, this move has raised the IQ of both Reform and the Tories:
www.bbc.co.uk
More seriously, Reform UK attracting a load of former Tories, but most especially former ministers (which includes Dorries), is going to make the already dubious "anti-establishment" narrative much harder to sell.
Former Conservative minister Nadine Dorries defects to Reform UK
The ex-MP told the Daily Mail the Tory Party was dead and its members now "need to think the unthinkable".
www.bbc.co.uk
More seriously, Reform UK attracting a load of former Tories, but most especially former ministers (which includes Dorries), is going to make the already dubious "anti-establishment" narrative much harder to sell.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It's not ridiculous when we consider that a lot of the problems we have at present relate to increasing population, which is in effect a Ponzi scheme to save Boomers' pensions.
If we could find a way to make the economy weather it, a 10% drop in population (not of any specific race) would be no bad thing. The world in general, indeed, could perhaps do with a 10-20% population reduction.
We're having less children, which is creating a problem for the future. If we're not producing more people then it stands to reason that people will look to immigration to fill the needs of society (and fund pensions etc). This is where we then get the people going on about the great white replacement theory.
I don’t deny that it’s an issue that should be reported on, but my point is that it is so dominating in the news, far more than other stories which probably have a far greater affect on day to day lives of ordinary people.
I listen to BBC radio, and the story of boats and immigration seem to be on almost every half-hourly news bulletin (I wish my radio would automatically mute itself for news bulletins, but it’s not smart enough for that).
I probably share some of your views on the increasing world population - it’s the issue that people have their heads in the sand about, especially regarding climate change and the increasing challenge of natural resources. I’m not sure it’s completely relevant to this discussion though
Do we need half-hourly news bulletins telling us every time a boat arrives or every time Farage opens his mouth? I’m not so sure.
Also, in regards to Ted633’s comment quoted below, do we need an extra emphasis on crimes reported in national headline news when it’s committed by an asylum seeker compared to when it’s committed by a native?
I mirror Ted’s point that sexual assault never usually reaches national headline news (and I do think it should more) but my point is that it’s getting more attention just because he is an asylum seeker in one of the hotels the Reform brigade are obsessed about.
SuspectUsual
Established Member
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And a parting shot at the Tories for deposing her beloved Boris, for goodness sake
As the Lib Dems said, its hard to know whether to feel more sorry for Farage or Badenoch
There is nothing wrong with increasing population in general. Not even in this country. The issue is we are an unproductive society which has ceased growing economically. So if you want to reduce the population, you might end up being selective about it even by way of unconscious bias.
As an aside, I don't like nihilistic degrowth ideas, which in my experience come mostly from single men with no interest or capacity to have children.
As an aside, I don't like nihilistic degrowth ideas, which in my experience come mostly from single men with no interest or capacity to have children.
Don't see how Nadine " when will you get rid of algorithms?" Dorries could increase the IQ of even Reform. Also seems weird given that one of her primary results from government was the Online Safety Act, which Reform have pledged to repeal immediately.Nadine Dorries has joined Reform UK. To quote someone when Lee Anderson did this, this move has raised the IQ of both Reform and the Tories:
Former Conservative minister Nadine Dorries defects to Reform UK
The ex-MP told the Daily Mail the Tory Party was dead and its members now "need to think the unthinkable".
More seriously, Reform UK attracting a load of former Tories, but most especially former ministers (which includes Dorries), is going to make the already dubious "anti-establishment" narrative much harder to sell.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Indefinite economic growth is a Ponzi scheme and cannot (bar inflation) be possible indefinitely due to the finite resources on Earth. It's one of the great fallacies and faults of capitalism. Instead, a sensible system would be one in which the economy remained flatlined and the population (following a period of reduction) flatlined permanently, with a birth rate equal to the death rate. That, unlike the Ponzi scheme of indefinite economic growth, is sustainable.
Yes, I'm a gay man who isn't going to have children (unless I end up adopting, but that obviously doesn't add anyone to the population), but I'm not sure what the relevance of that is in terms of my view on society generally. I'm not saying anyone shouldn't have children; if those who wanted children had two per couple (as is a fairly typical British family) we would get a period of slow decline as I believe to be needed simply because not every couple will have children.
Population levels are inherently unstable unless you plan on controlling every aspect of people's lives including physcially forcing them to reproduce or not reproduce. Wanting it is like wishing for the world to stop turning so it can be light all the time in Britain.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It is possible to influence them by way of policy, however. You can't make people reproduce or not reproduce, but you can make it economically advantageous to have a certain number of kids (or none) - the two-child benefit cap is a good example of such a policy. China had such a policy for years; anyone of my sort of age will have studied it at length at school.
Across whole populations you can use such policies to influence the situation quite effectively. You can also control legal migration by virtue of who is offered a visa.
This perhaps is a misunderstanding of what economic growth is. It’s an increase in the value being added. If you can produce something that people are willing to pay more for as it’s more valuable to them, you have growth. It doesn’t have to mean using more resources.
It's put, or kept, around a million children in poverty. It's a vile policy.
Doing this instead of trying harder to be a more productive, healthier society with a larger public purse to spend is short-, not long-term thinking, does not deliver human flourishing and has gross negative effects for children who could never be a party to any of the decision making around how poor they get to be. As @JamesT says this does not have to involve simply consuming more resources. Innovation, investment, and creating value often mean you can create something with greater utility for less, and this is what leads to true growth.
The government should spend less time socially engineering society and more time giving individuals agency to make their own choices.
It had absolutely disastrous social effects, including the murder of baby girls and the concealing of the births of baby girls, which has had disastrous effects for those girls and women. There are now - officially - about 30 million more men than women in China.
How do you add value without using resources? Everything that is produced is tied down to resources used to make it
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
No, what's put those children in poverty is irresponsible men who can't keep their proverbial in their trousers or use appropriate protection to ensure a child isn't produced when they can't afford to raise one. The Government doesn't produce children, it requires a man and a woman to do something wilful to do so.
It's time some personal responsibility was taken for such actions.
(Yes, protection fails and rape is sadly a thing, but the vast majority of these children were not born as a result of either of those things happening, and it is possible to have special provisions in such cases).
It is not just men who create children. Women also have agency. But a large contributor to child poverty is family breakdown following an otherwise "unproblematic" conception. That so many people are supposedly too poor to have children and raise them in a stable household is a pretty grim state of affairs in 2025. However, it does hole your degrowth argument below the waterline, because you freely admit here that human factors mean that, even in the face of unfavourable economic circumstances, people still decide to have children anyway.
What does that personal responsibility look like to you? Because the removal or restriction of benefits - alongside precarious low-paid work and a high cost of living - is causing children to grow up in poverty. This creates - in the aggregate - a population of less healthy, less happy children with lower academic achievement, who are less capable of being productive and responsible adults.
Who is really the victim when you actively decide make a family poorer?
This is why I would never ever vote for the so-called "Labour" Party. This is another area where Reform will suck up some softer voters who care little about flags or boat people but who do care about how much money they have as a family to raise their children and have an acceptable quality of life. There is widespread opposition on both flanks of Labour to this policy, from the Greens to Lib Dem to Reform, and none of it is about aesthetics or cultural signifiers, but instead about the deep injustice of child poverty. The quickest win to lift a lot of children out of poverty overnight is to remove the cap.
It is possible to ask for a warmer, more compassionate society, and not just walk up the mic, tap it, and say "child poverty is probably a necessary outcome to punish irresponsible adults I don't like".
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No it isn't.
If I innovate a method of making a product twice as fast - that is, to work smarter, using a new method which more efficiently uses the same resources - I can produce twice as many of them, make more money, and pay more tax. Do you think that GDP is just a measure of resources consumed?
SuspectUsual
Established Member
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By being more efficient
Reducing bureaucracy is one of many possibilities.
dangie
On Moderation
If ever us voters needed a perfect example of politicians thinking more of themselves rather than thinking of the country, this is it.
Just to add another point to @AlterEgo's excellent points on why that view is tremendously flawed what about the scenario where you've had three kids and then mum or dad loses their job so suddenly you do need benefits? Doesn't matter that you could afford them when you had them, the two child limit would still apply. So this family did the right thing, they took personal responsibility and had the children they could afford but then circumstances outside their control mean that suddenly they couldn't anymore?
It's easy to moralise about "personal responsibility" but the real world is rarely so black and white. And all the while there is still a million children living in grinding poverty which is simply going to store up even more problems, even more broken lives, missed opportunity, and higher costs for the taxpayer compared to having just provided appropriate support in the first place whether or not we think the parents in question were sensible or not.
brad465
Veteran Member
"Personal responsibility" is classic example of the psychology of blame: it's much easier to find a group to blame for the relevant ills in society, than to actually find out all the definitive causes and come up with appropriate solutions. It comforts one's mind (for 5 minutes) and allows them to wash their hands of involvement. It's a common attitude towards obesity, unhealthy behaviour in general, and a lot of the issues in society as a whole that Reform are capitalising on, many of those issues were not solved before because of the same act of blaming over definitive action.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Child benefit is an ongoing thing, not relevant to major changes of circumstances like this when other benefits such as universal credit kick in. It is not the same argument.
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I could not disagree more. Personal responsibility for one's situation is absolutely key, from health, to safety, to financial sense. This is where I'm over to the right somewhat. Benefits are a safety net and should be generous where they are absolutely necessary, but it's on the individual to do everything they possibly can not to need them.
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There are practical limits and in my view we're getting close to having reached them. As I said it's a Ponzi scheme. Over the last 100 years technological improvements have delivered that growth by making humans more efficient, but we are reaching practical limits unless we abolish human employment entirely - and employment has many benefits, not just production, so I don't think that's sensible.
Railwaycat
Member
Then that family gets extra benefits to relieve their situation - but why should they get benefits for a third child when they were in work? To take it further, why does a family on, say £100,000 pa, get child benefit at all?
Of course one common thing that could happen is that a parent or parents could become disabled and unable, or less able, to work - which would make them poorer. Or, perhaps, another relative started requiring care, so a parent has to work less and bring in less money. Naturally the government wanted to impoverish disabled people more (and thankfully failed), by also cutting their benefits.
Incidentally this was an area where Reform voters were split - and the party did not explicity state a coherent position, unlike the child benefit cap.
What about when the individual is a child?
They don't. We are in this situation and don't - and in practice can't - claim child benefit for our daughter, because the benefit is recouped immediately and in full in tax. I have no issue with this. (It is linked to individual salaries/incomes, rather than household income)