Be Excellent To Each Other

I think you're absolutely right, and I think that's where the media-led fear comes in. People legitimately think that any minute their small Yorkshire village will have a 40% migrant influx because that's exactly what they're being told will happen on a daily basis.

Now in examples like Grim...'s, you've been able to find people who'll do a given contract job for half the price of the market rate for decades. I'm not seeing that materially affect the market.

I see Grim... is planning on moving house within the next 8 months.

Armley, Leeds (sorta) might or might not be a tinderbox of inmigration riots.

One thing to note is that, as with the housing/doctors thing, a lot of the problems laid at the door of the EU, immigrants and globalisation, are things that the government simply has no desire to tackle. The government could not give less of a shit about widening inequality, as their drive for Grammar Schools and their treatment of the NHS shows.

So you can blame it on globalisation and be right, but it's something that the government should really be fighting against, and they simply aren't.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

I'm not saying it's necessarily correct, mind. but it's the cognitive dissonance that seems to go with this grrrr immigrants stuff that irritates me.

No, absolutely they won't. But then they're not going to win many favours with their current approach either. And they won't win any favours by trying to explain the net benefits of migration and the difference between macro and micro effects and why the former matters more than the latter.

Well quite. Immigration leads to an increased tax take, which should lead to increased NHS and education funding. The immigrants aren't to blame for the bit of that equation that's not happening.

pick up anything else?

Does it? That presupposes immigration increases the net number of available jobs, doesn't it?

If it doesn't, then the people complaining are entirely correct about immigration being bad, then.

Except that they're also bad because they're dole scroungers.

The unemployment rate isn't increasing in line with the immigration rate so I'm fairly comfortable with the prior assertion.

It's more likely that immigration doesn't increase the available jobs, but there are a lot of lazy arse dole scroungers and a relatively static unmet need in the labour market that's being met by immigrants. So yes, you're probably right about the tax take.

And that belief in the media right there is just as wrong as thinking the immigrants are taking all the jobs.

I'm not sure that's true. The immigrants wouldn't be meeting an unmet need if there aren't a sizeable number of people who can't be arsed to work. Not remotely everyone who is unemployed is a lazy dole scrounger obviously, but they're not all noble job seekers.

I'm not unemployed, but "self-employed" with (currently) an income of ooh...about £0 per annum (although I plan on changing that figure in the nearish future). I had a goodish job for 4 years before being made redundant and then a great job for 16 years, but went a bit mad with stress over everything and voluntarily left last year. I still feel guilty about it even now. I don't know why, I've been back since and the whole place hasn't fallen apart without me, but I have this guilt thing yada yada yada.

The point I'm trying to make (and probably failing) is that I've never claimed any kind of benefits during my period of inactivity, although I could have - and still could do if I wanted to - because I'd feel guilty about doing so. I'm lucky that I live cheaply and had saved quite a bit of money to see me through the year and a bit since I stopped earning. There's about another 500,000 like me out there doing something similar (i.e. self-employed but earning so little that there's no tax take). It's a nice half million off the unemployment figures at a stroke, costing the state nothing, but it doesn't really tell the true story of "record employment levels" that I constantly hear from the government.

That's interesting. Is there a minimum amount you need to earn to count as 'employed', or if you report any earnings to HMRC at all, that's it you're counted?

You have to report all earnings, but there's no income tax up to - I think - you earn £10,000.

Anyone on an 8 hour minimum wage contract is seen as employed for the purposes of statistics, just the same as you, me or Doc G.

There's a lot of under employed people out there.

There was something on More or Less a little while ago about that; there are loads of people massaged out of the unemployment figures. I think I linked to it in this thread in an argument with Cavey on this. Cameron and Osborne's boasts on that score were always somewhat hollow.

Things are always a bit more complicated than anyone wants to pretend.

Farage returns.

The Beeb's story is worth it for this:

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2016/10 ... ecome-ukip

They always fucking were.

Well, they were and then they weren't quite so bad, and now they've reverted to type.

No the rank and file were always a bunch of racist old cunts. They just don't even need to bother keeping up appearances any more.

Their current rhetoric on immigration is turning me away from the Tories.
Putting that aside, however, and you get a really curious speech from Mrs May. Talking about using the power of government to achieve social ends, criticising market failures, and addressing inequalities isn't what I'd expect from a hardline Tory leader. Lady Thatcher must be turning in her grave.

Most of what May says is laudable, but the exact opposite of what their policies are.

"We want to help the poor and mend social division"

*creates grammar schools and abolishes inheritance tax*

The Scottish aren't on the fence!

Subtle.

But yes, actions count more than words and we now have something to measure her administration against.

Fucking hell fire

So he got punched in the face and knocked out?

Should have made sure there was steak, I guess.

Seems he collapsed sometime later, so possibly quite serious.

The friendly face of UKIP. Doesn't sound good at all.

Things I have learnt today - the European commission doesn't trust people not to spill drinks. No drink allowed in the auditorium in this building. I tried to break this rule and got roundly remonstrated by a waiter in a bow tie.

The upside of Brexit.

Why do they have waiters if you aren't allowed to have a drink?

Maybe they hold the drink for you and pour it into your mouth? That would be ace!

The waiters were in the lobby area, which is where we were supposed to consume beverages. I got spied and he chased me into the auditorium

Ah! Haha, that makes more sense, though Grim...'s way would have been more enjoyable.

I was trying to find a picture of someone giving wine from a porron to another person, as that's the only way I e ever seen them used, but most pictures on the internet are of people using a porron alone, and that's not nearly as much fun.

Ah, here is one.

There should totally be porrons at the cottage. There would be (more) carnage.

Also you're supposed to do it from a far greater distance, otherwise where is the fun?

Anyway, that's what Grim... made me think of.

Think of Grim..., think of fluids hitting your face.

Today I learned what a porron is.

Nono, a porron is for wine. You learned about "cumshot".

Well, that took a turn for the unexpected.

I'm now worried that Mr Chris might be in the wrong building.

I'm now worried that he punched out that UKIP chap.

Well he was in Brussels on the same day as that stabbing incident. Maybe he's on a European rampage.

According to the guardian it sounds like Woolfe picked a fight with Hookem but his mouth was making promises even his MEP expenses couldn't cash.

Stuff on the performance of Sterling including this amazing quote



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36721278

Thought this was the podcast thread for a minute.

Yup