Thing is brogdale everyone else manages to have a difference of opinion without resorting to insult. I’m embarrassed for you more than anything.
That said I don’t gaf. And happy to answer. Have a ton of washing to do first tho
Immigration to the UK - do you have concerns?
- Thread starter mojo pixy
- Start date
That said I don’t gaf. And happy to answer. Have a ton of washing to do first tho
Dystopiary
putting up a hook to hang my hopes upon
Posted elsewhere but yeah, current levels of poverty are around 50% higher than they were in the 1970s.This is incredibly out of touch and out of date.
UK millennials are worse off than previous generations
The evidence shows that millennials today are getting a raw deal. And, ultimately, that's a political choice.moneyweek.com
Me and my millenial sister have had much more difficult lives financially than my late boomer/early Gen X parents.
Biggest part of the reason for this is the over inflated housing market, not any lack of resources. Other people's wealth in assets literally creates poverty
And more further education is not necessarily a good thing. E.g. nurses used to be able to start as trainees out of school, earning while learning, instead of doing an expensive university degree for several years, accumulating debt and struggling to survive unless your parents have deep pockets. This isn't an improvement, and it speaks more to an increased unwillingness of employers to invest in skills.
My dad left school at 16, worked as a trainee electrician in a factory for a decent income and bought a house and had 2 kids. When the factory got outsourced when I was a baby he retrained as a maths teacher, fully funded. Neither of those options are available to young people now and me and my sister are envious that he not only got a decent job without years of education but also had support for retraining when circumstances changed.
More than 1 in 5 people in the UK (22%) were in poverty in 2021/22 – 14.4 million people. This included:
- 8.1 million (or around 2 in 10) working-age adults
- 4.2 million (or nearly 3 in 10) children
- 2.1 million (or around 1 in 6) pensioners.
Between 2019/20 and 2021/22, the average person in poverty had an income 29% below the poverty line, with the gap up from 23% between 1994/95 and 1996/97. The poorest families – those living in very deep poverty – had an average income that was 59% below the poverty line, with this gap increasing by around two-thirds over the past 25 years.
UK Poverty 2024: The essential guide to understanding poverty in the UK
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
It kinda brings it all back to my original point. If you accept "concerns about immigration" as a valid starting point for discussion you're conceding the agenda to the far-right. Who, in turn, will be far better position to build on this agenda - even from a distance - (as we're seeing here) than we are to turn the conversation to more progressive or class-based perspectives.such larks this subject
I don't for a second believe that the likes of Spy and Edie are far-right or racist, but simply by entertaining their arguments as as "reasonable" we are amplifying and legitimising fundamentally far-right lenses
BristolEcho
Well-Known Member
Same with framing welfare as "state handouts" and various other phrases that have been used here to discuss complex issues. I'm not surprised that people using phrases like that and "our own" have been met with pushback on urban as they are often used in very negative terms away from here. I suspect if Edie and Spy weren't long term members of the forum they would have received even firmer push back.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
It's by not giving this any consideration that the left has got itself in the shit it's in, wrt to immigration, and the country has moved further right than ever before.
I used "racists" and "paedophiles" as an extreme rhetorical device to illustrate that some people are, and should remain, unwelcome. What happens? "People think you mean all Muslims"; "you're pandering to a racist agenda'; and Ska's usual insinuations that I'm far-right and racist.
This is why the left is so out of touch and this country has overwhelmingly rejected their politics at the ballot box, time after time. They want you lot as far away from government as possible, and they're succeeding.
Anyway, I'm off on holiday and I've no intention of giving this any headspace whilst I'm laying by a pool in the Aegean, sipping an Old Fashioned; so this thread's going on ignore for a couple of weeks.
Last edited:
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I think they're still on, much more painful without them
mojo pixy
...שלא נמצא בשמאל
Maybe try not doing that, then maybe you won't end up having to put the thread on ignore
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
that's not entirely the case is it, the "out of touch" labour party procured more votes in 2017 and 2019 than the "in touch" labour party at the last election. and that was with the lightest of pink tinges. they'd have done rather better if they'd dusted off the auld manifestos of 1979 or 1983.
PTK
Paul Kegan
If we are going to use the phrase “our own people”, then I think that we ought to support the principle that “our own people” are treated equally when it comes to access to the medical resources of the society constituted by “our own people”.
There are people in our society who need cataract operations, and they should be treated on the basis of need, by which I mean that if people are going to be moved up the queue for treatment, then it should be on the basis of how bad their condition is.
Some years ago, I was talking to a woman who was telling me that her partner had had a cataract operation after a short wait, because he had attended a nearby private hospital. She said that, by doing so, he was helping people on the NHS waiting list, because he was no longer on that list, and therefore had made the wait shorter for them.
The surgeon who performed said operation worked for the local NHS hospital, and performed cataract surgery in the private hospital on Saturdays.
If things were as they should be, the surgeon should be operating on NHS patients, instead of private patients, on a Saturday.
Imagine the people wanting cataract operations as a physical queue outside a hospital. Imagine the surgeon emerging from the hospital, and choosing some people from the queue on the basis that they are waving a £50 note, and then agreeing to operate on them the following Saturday.
Medical treatment is a finite resource at any one time. We are all part of one society.
There is only one queue.
If people want to receive private medical treatment, then perhaps they should opt out of our society, and finance a separate society which has to generate its own resources, instead of them gaining access to limited resources of our society on the basis, not of need, but of their personal financial resources.
People who advocate putting “our own people” first but are not in favour of the fair distribution of medical resources are not actually in favour of putting “our own people” first, but of putting first the interests of people like them. People like them are a minority of “our own people”, however they define that.
I define “our own people” as the people who live on the territory of the state known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. People who leave that territory permanently are not part of “our people”, and people who come to live on that territory are part of “our own people”. I would not normally use the term “our own people” because it is normally used to exclude some members of our society, and wrongly include people who are no longer part of our society. (I do not regard British people who have permanently emigrated as being part of our society, and I am opposed to the changes in legislation in recent years that gives them a vote in UK General Elections for the rest of their lives).
In terms of emotional attachment to people whom I have never met, I feel that I have more in common with left-wing activists in Greece or Chile or Nigeria or wherever than I do with the bourgeoisie and its agents in the UK.
There are people in our society who need cataract operations, and they should be treated on the basis of need, by which I mean that if people are going to be moved up the queue for treatment, then it should be on the basis of how bad their condition is.
Some years ago, I was talking to a woman who was telling me that her partner had had a cataract operation after a short wait, because he had attended a nearby private hospital. She said that, by doing so, he was helping people on the NHS waiting list, because he was no longer on that list, and therefore had made the wait shorter for them.
The surgeon who performed said operation worked for the local NHS hospital, and performed cataract surgery in the private hospital on Saturdays.
If things were as they should be, the surgeon should be operating on NHS patients, instead of private patients, on a Saturday.
Imagine the people wanting cataract operations as a physical queue outside a hospital. Imagine the surgeon emerging from the hospital, and choosing some people from the queue on the basis that they are waving a £50 note, and then agreeing to operate on them the following Saturday.
Medical treatment is a finite resource at any one time. We are all part of one society.
There is only one queue.
If people want to receive private medical treatment, then perhaps they should opt out of our society, and finance a separate society which has to generate its own resources, instead of them gaining access to limited resources of our society on the basis, not of need, but of their personal financial resources.
People who advocate putting “our own people” first but are not in favour of the fair distribution of medical resources are not actually in favour of putting “our own people” first, but of putting first the interests of people like them. People like them are a minority of “our own people”, however they define that.
I define “our own people” as the people who live on the territory of the state known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. People who leave that territory permanently are not part of “our people”, and people who come to live on that territory are part of “our own people”. I would not normally use the term “our own people” because it is normally used to exclude some members of our society, and wrongly include people who are no longer part of our society. (I do not regard British people who have permanently emigrated as being part of our society, and I am opposed to the changes in legislation in recent years that gives them a vote in UK General Elections for the rest of their lives).
In terms of emotional attachment to people whom I have never met, I feel that I have more in common with left-wing activists in Greece or Chile or Nigeria or wherever than I do with the bourgeoisie and its agents in the UK.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Why are you whining about "the left"?
There's been no sustained left presence in public/everyday life this millenium! (barring the occasional short-lived flare up, which I agree hasn't been particularly successful).
The far-right has, however, had a sustained presence in public life since the early '00s.
It's their tune you're dancing to. Own that and stop whining about how a non-existent left made you do it!
I understand the country by the late 1970s was on its knees due to strikes and it took Thatcher to pull it back. I think she handled the strikes brutally and incorrectly, but at least the country was saved economically and prospered.
One of the good things, and something I’m proud of, is that Britain is very centrist and somehow manages to eschew the extremes of right and left.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Typical denial.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
You do lie, though. And repeat right wing tropes and phraseology. Occasionally throwing in some ‘I’m working class, me’ bollocks doesn’t alter your reactionary politics. Add in the blatant trolling with the obvious nonsense you read on mumsnet that you trot out for a laugh and it’s clear you’re not serious about anything.Thing is brogdale everyone else manages to have a difference of opinion without resorting to insult. I’m embarrassed for you more than anything.
That said I don’t gaf. And happy to answer. Have a ton of washing to do first tho
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Enjoy your holiday Spy.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i can only assume that you posted this tongue very firmly in cheek as believing otherwise shows you to be woefully ignorant. perhaps you ought to read something about the thatcher years instead of relying on your rose-tinted view of the vile woman. the country was saved economically? are you having a fucking laugh? it was fucked economically, the thatcher boom was paid for through pissing away the money from north sea oil. throughout this thread you've come out with some right auld guff like your claim about how people are getting better off when it's been a staple of newspaper headlines the last decade how young people today are the first generation in many, many decades who'll be worse off than their parents. you know that thatcher was a great friend of general pinochet, i'm sure, they both revered people like hayek and the economist friedman.
while it may have appeared that the country was on its knees in 1979 that was nowhere near how poor things were after just a couple of years of margaret thatcher's touch. so many of our woes today stem from that miserable creature's decade in power - the lack of social housing, for example. the pitiful state of the north. the shit in our rivers and on our beaches.
just fucking educate yourself because continually coming out with bilge is embarrassing you.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
You understand nothing. That's me being polite about such an ignorant post.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Wow. It's bonkers how this line is believed by people. Hard to know where to start, but let's begin with stating that Thatcher wrecked the British economy. All this shit we're talking about now wrt how younger generations are struggling, it has its roots in Thatcher.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Yeh it's amazing how much ignorance can be exposed in such a short post
Growth rates in the 80s were lower than in the 1970s.
Tbh Thatcher deindustrialising the country is a more salient aspect of what caused the riots than "competition over state resources." Not a coincidence that the worst rioting was around areas where mining and ship building were once the main industries which nothing has really replaced since then.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
The UK and Germany had roughly equal-sized manufacturing sectors in 1979. Today, Germany's manufacturing sector is roughly twice the size of Britain's. Most of this is down to Thatcher.
ElizabethofYork
Old Crone
Where on earth are you getting your information from?
I think its also worth noting that unless you're 50+ then people will have no lived experience of that era so are working mostly off of what people have told them or stuff they've read. I include myself in that and its why I rarely touch that topic because I'd probably be ignorant as hell.
In conservative areas Thatcher is held up as a saviour who fixed Labours mess. I grew up in such and area and it can get very difficult to unpack what I was told growing up with how things were.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yeah, most of us are over 50. 
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
if you search the boards you'll see we've touched on the subject of margaret thatcher's years in power once or twice
Similar threads
- Poll
