The London Olympics are already achieving the number one aim of the politicians who brought them here, which is making our politicians feel very important indeed.
The media is quite frenetic in its efforts to make us all believe we should be terrifically proud of the fact we are hosting the Olympics, as though there were something unique in this achievement. If we can’t competently do something that Greece, Spain and China have done in recent years, that would be remarkable. Of course the Games will be on the whole well delivered, sufficient for the media and politicians to declare it an ecstatic success. Some of the sporting moments will be sublime, as ever.
But did it have to be in London? We won’t know the total cost of the Games for months, but it will cost the taxpayer at least £9 billion and I suspect a lot more. I also suspect the GDP figures will, in the event, show that the massive net fall in visitor numbers has hurt the already shrinking economy further.
But to take the most optimistic figure, holding the Olympics in London has cost every person in the country an average of £150 per head in extra taxes. That is £600 for a family of four. Actually it is in the end going to be well over £2,000, as of course the money has been borrowed on the never never, and taxpayers are going to be paying it off their whole lives, along with the sum ten times higher they are already paying direct into the pockets of the bankers through their taxes.
The very rich, of course, don’t pay much tax, so they are not worried.
But to take just the figure of £600 extra taxes for a family of four, the lowest possible amount, and not including the interest. Is having the Olympics here really worth paying out £600 for? If Tony Blair had approached the head of the family and said “We are going to have the Olympics in London, but it’s going to cost you £600, would the answer have been from most ordinary people: “Yes, great idea, this is that important to us”?
People are not disconcerted because they don’t see that they have to pay. There is no special Olympics tax, and they pay their taxes in a variety of ways, and individuals are not the sole source of taxation. But this is nonetheless real money taken from the people in pursuit of the hubris of politicians.
I love sport. I hate the corruption of the International Olympic Committee, Fifa and the rest; I hate the vicious corporatism and militarisation of our capital and absurd elitism of the transport lanes; the sport itself I love. But with the economy contracting, and the NHS being farmed out for profit, is it really worth £600 for a family – and many families are really struggling in a heartbreaking way – is it worth the money to have the Olympics here rather than in Paris?
Of course it isn’t. I think many of us will feel an extra pleasure watching the Opening ceremony because it is British. Patriotic pride will surge. It is not wrong to enjoy the spectacle tonight on TV. The corporate well connected and ruling classes will enjoy it in the stadium.
But after you have watched it on TV, ask yourself this question. How much more did you enjoy it than enjoy watching the Beijing ceremony, and was that margin of extra enjoyment something that everybody in the room would have paid out £150 for?
Because they just did.
“a consistent theme repeated many times by Technicolour, in that one post at least”
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That’s as silly as it sounds.
…Ah ,ok Nuid, i get your point now – ‘especially in that post’ would have made better sense. Good call
But yes Nuid,that’s what i’m saying about Technicolour – she is obviously not as historically enlightened and culturally aware as she likes to make out,as that particular post especially demonstrated
Hi all, trust all’s well here 🙂
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@Chris Jones – can I respectfully ask that you go easy on the ad hominem? There is a bit too much of it flying about, and although it isn’t exclusively from you, it mainly is. It does your position no favours, since people will usually switch off if you call them ignorant or deluded.
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I’ve recommended it before, but the ‘guide to persuasion’ from NO2ID, entitled How To Win, is great. Summary version:
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Tip #1: Stay Calm
Tip #2: No Judgmental Language
Tip #3: Listen to the Other Person and Respect Their Viewpoint
Tip #4: Address Their Needs and Concerns FIRST
TIP #5: Change May Not Come Immediately
Tip #6: You’ve Heard it a 100 Times Before But THEY Haven’t
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@Clark, best wishes to you. Trust you’re well.
Yes, thanks Nuid. Glad you’ve calmed down over that one, Chris. Now back to the really knotty problem: Earl Grey or Assam?
Night all.
Two sugars please Suhayl.
Thank you for doing Mother. Yet again.
I think my food shopping has doubled in five years. Seriously baked beans have possibly tripled.
I play with growing food but find it very involving, just to grow little delicacies of fresh peas and herbs and things. I cant grow more than a couple percent of my requirements in a couple of decent beds.
Storing up dry food now for trouble later looks like a much more effective action, but that puts up prices and really hurts the billion+ people who are starving(!) I can do half decent living rations for about £2 a day and for decency a good donation needs to be made to offset the excess. But also, with possible/likely food crisis looming, the sooner price goes up the sooner production and distribution is suppposed to improve.
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I hope there might be enough cattlefodder to go around.
Cover national forests with appletrees etc.
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Suhayl thanks for the cuppa, try a fresh pea or two, the strawberry plant is thriving but of all the pests expected, it is these dank loving creatures looking like minature trillobytes who enjoy all of the fruit.
“obviously not as historically enlightened and culturally aware as she likes to make out” – partly, very true. My formal historical education stopped at 1842 and the Corn Laws. But I have been a careworker and a funeral parlour assistant, and a factory worker and a cleaner. I have lived in Wales and Pakistan and Cornwall and Germany and Russia and London and Ireland and India. I have seen people have heart attacks because of poverty and because of riches. I have seen, first hand, love and hate and murder and war and all the spectrum in between. As have so many of us, now. And I think, Mr Jones, that, no matter how much you may disagree with me, you would not want to sneer at such things.
Mary: price of corn here has actually gone down – very strange. Tonight I made a meal entirely out of home produce though the chickens insist on being fed madiera cake too…
@Suhayl Saadi – i appreciate you addressing the issue Suhayl. As im pretty sure few people would want to see no immigration, the argument for me anyway, is purely about numbers. The race,creed,colour of the people involved is irrelevant and i do not understand why ethnicity or colour is brought in to the argument to start with – a red herring if ever there was one,pardon the pun (allthough if new immigrants were toxic spitting luminous robotic like mutants this would have to be reviewed)
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For me,after thinking about it, the same number that go out should come in, with the option 5 of ‘some other number’ meaning that 10-20 thousand extra could be allowed in using a points based system. I don’t know exactly what the number of EU migrant workers,asylum seekers or international students that permanently settle in Britain is but i would hazard a guess that the average number of net migrants/permanent settlers would therefore average about 20-40,000 people annually,which is a fair and sustainable number in my view – allthough it might be fairer and more constructive for the individual countries of Britain to determine these numbers for themselves
Interesting answer, Chris Jones. Sorry about flippant calypso reply as a result. “The same number that go out should come in” was more or less what I said to Clark – except that – and it is a big except – any policy has to be concurrent with an acknowledgement that the UK’s government actions are creating desperate people who, as Fedup and Cryptonym point out, are seeking refuge here. I think Suhayl is right and this goes far beyond ‘numbers’ and onto how we can change our ‘elected representatives’ brutal and bloody policies. Would you agree?
‘Immigration, then, in the current global configuration is inevitable’
Suhahl- go check the Japanese immigration stats if you want that statement to be taken seriously.
As to the benefits immigration allegedly engenders, well that depends on the numbers and the skills (or lack of them) that the immigrants bring with them. And when you talk of ‘benefits’ I must rejoinder ‘benefits to whom?’.
Re the recent wave of Polish immigration, there is no doubt that employers have benefitted from their being in the main capable and hard working, as the IoD study I linked to mentions at several points. Also, if you use (as we all do) the retail & catering outlets where these recent immigrants often work the thought often occurs, would a surly Brit of any colour who has just been weaned off the benefits register be as polite and competent in this job ? Probably not.
Present day immigration to the UK, as well as being on an unprecedented scale, also conforms to the basic tenet of modern globalised capitalism, namely ‘privatise the gains, socialise the losses’. Individual employers get a ready supply of cheap, tractable labour, individual consumers in the service sectors get service with a smile, not a grunt, private landlords get increased rents, and the taxpayer foots the bill for the baby boom and the overcrowding (child benefit paid to thousands of children living in Poland,and increased pressure on a tight Housing market which augments the billions spent on Housing Benefit etc.)
‘The reality is that the people in Barking were decent people (even the people from Griffin’s party, though misguided). Most people are decent people. They did not generally blame people of a different colour or background for the appalling lack of social provision. They knew that the council and the government had built too few new houses to mention, had opened no new social centres, had let the local shops die, had let down the young people.’
Hmmm, so immigration in your Technicolour world brings unlimited benefits, but the areas in which they congregate must be given extra government subventions to pay for ‘decent’ housing & social centres ? Even you could surely spot the brazen illogicality on show there.
Uk pop growth rate in 2008 was 0.6pc from Birth rate of 10.65 and Death rate: 10.05
100,000 people is a ‘migration arrival rate’ of about 1.3pc , and they arent babies so they can work and help with ‘all the rates’ which babies cant much for 20 odd years.
I wouldnt be worried about watered down culture until it got beyond 1/3rd of the birth rate. We do want to reduce the birth rate a bit, everywhere, 7 billion and growing… I know thats another argument/
oops talking in myself there, so slap dash. judging numbers is a tough job. aluego’
Just reading this:
“The Syrian Rebels’ Libyan Weapon”
‘Meet the Irish-Libyan commander giving Bashar al-Assad nightmares’
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/09/the_syrian_rebels_libyan_weapon
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As if we needed telling that they’re not all Syrians
“judging numbers is a tough job”
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It is. 🙂
And since I’m an Irish citizen living in Dublin, I’ve no intention of making suggestions about what Britain should be doing (regarding numbers.)
Mods Clark/ Jon: Thank you for addressing my concerns earlier, and I feel (if I were to phrase it with my reptilian brain on) a bit of a C&*^ for ranting on so strongly about it – nobody else seems to think it’s a hands-on-hips point of shrill principle the way I portrayed it 🙂
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~
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If I might weigh in on the immigration issue for a moment. Seems a fairly innocuous subject into waters of which one might safely dip a toe.
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A question that appears to be overlooked when talking about numbers per year, is what the limit should be. Not just for migrants, but for everybody! Should the blue-blooded English (never mind us rabble in Wales etc.) be allowed to breed like fruit-flies should we wish? Four or five children for every couple, trending towards doubling the population every generation?
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Add in a regular influx from countries more used to large families being necessary for mere continuity, and we’re in for a large population growth indeed. Old habits die hard – it took a long time for the birth rate to start approaching the survival rate in this country, and then get that down to a rate of low growth. If we’re talking about 6-figure numbers of newcomers each year, all of which can be expected to reproduce at well above recent levels, we can expect every 100,000 per year intake to become an additional 300,000 -> 500,000 residents within a generation very easily.
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Even at 100,000/year, how long should this keep going. Should it be increased to match world population growth levels, which appears to have quadrupled in the last 40 years (just off the top of my head). So in 40 years, after we have accepted 40x100K = 4M immigrants, we should have matched parity with world population increases, and accepting 400K/year? With a steady increase throughout, of course (like compound interest), we should be considering a steadily increasing average, making 8M initial immigrants. And that’s starting off with low-balling the immigration rate at 100K/year.
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I won’t bother going through in great detail how many extra people, given birth rates an’ all, that we might expect in 40 years – let’s roughly say (year 1-20: 2M + 2kids each = 6M , year 21-40 intake = 6M + 1.5kids/each = 15M, plus the first generation’s kids = 4M x 1.5 = 6M) we’ve got well 27M extra people in the country. With very conservative estimates indeed.
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This doesn’t take into account increasing population on the home front. What – and this is nothing to do with culture, creed, nuthin’ – what should be a goal for the population of this country? Or shouldn’t there be one? Is every single extra person on board a victory, and the sky’s the limit?
Jon – I’m in agreement with your general point but disagree with the second half of your point,considering many unfounded accusations of ‘racism’ have been flying around,and, possibly worse – insinuated(I realise that Clark dealt with most of it,fairly in my view) So i poltely take on board and agree with your overall point but politely disagree with the second part of it
WARNING EXTREME PROPAGANDA.
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A new US National Intelligence Estimate says Tehran has made significant strides towards joining the nuclear club…
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The US suddenly although predictably on cue announce a convergence with Israel’s intelligence assessment of Iran.
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We now realsie ordinary people, you and me, are being walked into the chambers of death from a judgement based on distortion, fear and lies. It cannot happen.
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If world leaders are too dummied up or too selfish to prevent a vision of the apocalypse becoming reality, we, the aware, can only journey just like our ancestors did through the opening arms of Russia to the calm waters of the Caspian to gather on her shores facing Iran and her capital.
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Would the coalition murder a million, maybe two million families or more; would they murder your partner, your Auntie or grand-mother, your sisters toddler and her baby brother, your princess, your little boy, kind and generous grand-dad, your lover or loved friend, your mother who pushed you into this world? They would, they did that in Iraq.
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We cannot let it happen again.
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http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/us-intelligence-reported-to-obama-irans-nuclear-program-nearing-critical-phase/2012/08/09/
All…if you are wondering what Craig is up to…busy reviewing his draft on his book about A Burns, deadlines are looming…he is in Ghana and is dealing with business there…busy trying to plan his annual vacation with his family..see previous post…and generally going about his normal life…no doubt he will post again when he has 5 mins spare….he has not abandoned the blog, but is just extremely busy with other stuff..
Technicolour, Nuid, Crab, thank you. I am indeed a mother… of tea and invention.
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“…although it might be fairer and more constructive for the individual countries of Britain to determine these numbers for themselves…” Chris.
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I think they do, don’t they? Or are you referring to situation within the EU? There are very different rules for EU citizens and non-EU citizens. Maybe for a variety of reasons, the EU should be dissolved and we should be more like Norway. But we didn’t save our oil money like Norway did in a sovereign trust fund, because of our neoliberal ‘rulers’/robbers at whom we ought to be directing our maximum ire and activism.
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And as Tech said, what Technicolour wrote earlier, was not that far from what you wrote.
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Old Mark, over time, Japan’s (and Germany’s) policies and attitudes towards foreigners have been… interesting, to say the least.
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So, Old Mark, the characterisations (which are, in fact, Daily Mail-style caricaturisations) you, and to some extent, some others, consistently seem to offer up on this, and previous threads run something like this:
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‘Immigrants work harder and so we native British benefit scroungers cannot compete, it’s simply not fair and yet, immigrants come here, simply to go onto benefits and be lazy and watch episodes of South Asian/East Asian soap operas and constantly telephone (on their “cells”, of course, with top-ups bought from multiple corner shops) and Skype their families back home (while simultaneously serving us delicious chicken tikka masala and plotting to infiltrate their comrades to blowy northern towns’.
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Anyone want some Polish halwa with their tea? I discovered that it’s identical to Turkish halwa. An Ottoman dynamic, perhaps?
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Now, I must get to work (being, naturally, very hard-working).
Chris, sorry, I mis-read your sentence. You meant England, Scotland, Wales, etc. – obviously, they don’t determine immigration levels. That would entail independence for these countries, no? Or maybe a sort of Australian-style system for certain skilled workers.
Thanks for the info on commodity prices. I heard on the World Service last night that 40%!! of the American grain production goes to biofuels. That would be to power their SUVs and their weapons of mass destruction then. A move is being made to reduce the percentage which I think I heard correctly.
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I also heard that our repellent foreign secretary is making an extra £5m available to aid the rebels in Syria. No weapons though. No of course not William.
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Syria conflict: William Hague to give extra £5m to rebels
The extra practical support for the opposition FSA will include more radio and satellite equipment
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The UK is to increase the support it provides to rebel fighters in Syria.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19205204
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Kofi Annan is replaced by an Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi in Syria. He is 78. The usual background for a UN stooge. {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakhdar_Brahimi}
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‘Tis true.
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The US policy has driven an artificial demand for corn. When first introduced in 2005, ethanol production accounted for 5% of the demand for corn. Today about 40% of the US corn production is used for biofuels.
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The mandatory increased production of ethanol has had a large impact on corn prices because of the fixed nature of the demand. In a free market environment, if the price of a commodity goes up, demand goes down, naturally re-adjusting the price signals. But the ethanol mandates require the same amount of ethanol to be used irrespective of corn prices.
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http://theconversation.edu.au/crops-hit-by-drought-and-biofuel-policy-another-food-price-crisis-8557
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When they say corn they mean maize btw.
What – and this is nothing to do with culture, creed, nuthin’ – what should be a goal for the population of this country? Or shouldn’t there be one? Is every single extra person on board a victory, and the sky’s the limit?
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That’s the fundamental question, Glenn. And no-one has EVER put it to the nation.
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Following the money….
Our balance of trade was – (minus) £4.308 Bn in June. Our expected growth for the next two years is approximately zero. This is not because we are short of workers. Our unemployment rate is about 8%, and an additional 4% are working part-time because they cannot find full-time work. Housing? Here’s the public perception (with figures) from the Daily Numnuts:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2130095/Calls-British-people-given-priority-social-housing-queue-revealed-foreigners-HALF-properties.html
(Anyone who thinks that concern about immigration is a non-issue – figures please.)
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Infrastructure? Our water and electricity supplies are on the thin edge of viability, our major roads are perpetually congested, and no-one on less than £50K can realistically afford to use the limited, fragmented and inefficient rail system. We don’t produce a fraction of the food needed by the population. The gas has run out, the oil is nearing the end, and coal is a no-no for environmental reasons. London is in recgular breach of EU particulate emissions from diesel.
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We NEED more people?
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As I’ve said, the sole justification for encouraging immigration is to lower the wage costs of big business.
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Strictly for laughs –
{http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2705557/Polish-cleaner-demands-compensation-claiming-lack-of-English-is-disability.html}
There’s a lot of “disabled” people in my neck of the woods….
Just started to revisiting the site to gauge how things have moved on since last here.
Latest Meeja “reception theory” research suggests there are 3 types of reader:
(1) Those who believe everything they read.
(2) Those who no longer believe anything.
(3) Thirdly those who critically examine what they read and form their judgements accordingly.
Numerically, the first group is by far the strongest, being composed of the broad mass of the people. Intellectually, it forms the simplest portion of the population. It cannot be classified according to occupation but only into grades of intelligence. Under this category come those who have not been born to think for themselves or who have not learned to do so, and who, partly through incompetence, and partly through ignorance, believe everything that is set before them in print.To these we must add that type of lazy individual, who although capable of thinking for himself, out of sheer laziness gratefully absorbs everything that others had thought over, modestly assuming it to have been thoroughly done. But somehow they are not willing personally or are not in a position to sift what is being served up to them.
…The second group is numerically smaller, but being partly composed of those who were formerly in the first group and after a series of bitter disappointments are now prepared to believe nothing of what they see in print.
…The third group is easily the smallest being composed of real intellectuals whom natural aptitude and education have taught to think for themselves and who in all things try to form their own judgements, while at the same time carefully sifting what they read. They will not read any newspaper without without using their own intelligence to collaborate with that of the writer…
So which group do Murray comment-board writers (and moderators) fall into?
Is it Group 1?
Well, back in the bad old days of Larry from St Louis it might well be argued that this was the numerically strongest group.
Sad to say the supplementary group of intellectually lazy readers still predominate.These readers are those who are still rely almost wholly on official/gatekeeper sources to reconstruct events.
The third group a.k.a. “conspiracy theorists” dominate the internet and are actively trashing the most outrageous official stories. Fables like 911, 7/7, War on Terror meme, Obama’s birth certificate, OBL’s assassination in Pakistan, the “humanitarian intervention” in Libya et al are now laughed out of court by anyone who’s not sharing a brain-cell!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8NZhl-ogoY
And the moderators re-visited?
Let’s wait and see, shall we?
Apostate,
Which category do you fall into?
Komodo,
You mischief making lizard, you have caught them in their pants around the ankles situation and won’t let go , will you?
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So far we have had the soft-soapers, and the name-callers, as well as some genuine concern, but as ever there has been no move forward, and everyone has gone away convinced the other guys are morons.
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Whilst you have been very local in your forwarded concerns, alas you have been misleading the others about the global concerns and outcomes of what you are busy espousing.
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However, your line of biting and buggering off has brought on the awkward situation; some immigrants being less of an immigrant than the others, put it simply there are varying degrees of undesirable Johnny Foreigner, and the swamping thereof in our fairylands.
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However, the highlighted degrees of ignorance paraded as knowledge, and prejudice paraded as traditions, is really alarming. Without condescending upon anyone, it seems that none of the participants can see passed their nose. Have we really lost the plot to this degree of disarray and chaos?
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Finally one little point about the DM article, with a kind of counter headline:
Almost all of the housing stock in Fallujah, and Nasiriyah, have been condemned by the Western Developers, and are to be demolished.
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Whilst you are asking the question of how many, and how long, I should like to turn the table and start a new line of inquiry, for how long are the natives in the Mid East and elsewhere, ought to put up with the bastard state of isreal? When do the successive UK government intend to stop their dick swinging diplomacy and stop threatening war on other nations an or subvert the other nations economic and social progress?
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Finally do foreigners have a right to exist/redie in their own lands, and remain immune from the subversions of the US, UK et al governments? Or is that a tribal thing too, that none other than those residing in these septic isles can understand?
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Why no one ever looks closer fucking home for the answers and always need to find a fucking foreign escape goat?
@Apostate: there’s a 9/11 thread for that.
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@Komodo:
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> As I’ve said, the sole justification for encouraging immigration is to lower
> the wage costs of big business.
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I’m not taking sides here, but I made a similar assertion much earlier in the thread, and Technicolour criticised it as unproven. Could you offer a source for this? (Equally if anyone from the other side wishes to demonstrate the opposite, that would further the discussion).
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Anecdotally – I learnt from a friend of mine, who works in a UK-based international logistics firm, that they actively go to Poland to recruit licensed long-distance lorry drivers. The commercial reason was that there were not enough qualified people (of any nationality) in the UK already. (Also, in the same conversion, perhaps as secondary justification, the Poles have a better work ethic than the British English, who in turn have a better work ethic than the British Asians. Uncomfortable for me to hear, as a multiculturalist, but there you go).
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Of course, this experience doesn’t necessarily hold true in other sectors, but is perhaps worth a mention.
@Passerby – I disagree that this thread has not moved forward. I think people have come to add value, left when it has gotten a bit heated, and generally people are pushing to find areas of common agreement or fundamental disagreement. It doesn’t have to resolve beautifully at the end, nor will all questions be answered. I’ve learnt a lot, even by (mainly) staying in the sidelines.
Jon,
Do you know of the poor act of 1601?
The debate about “race” on this thread somehow overlooks that simple fact that plutocrats are in fact equal opportunity racists, and view all of the bastards as equally worthless trouble making food eaters, ie the lot of these debaters are of the inferior races.
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To debate about the higher poor pay, or lower poor pay masks the fact that there is a need for a huge pool of redundant labour for all manner of reasons, and regardless of the place or time, stables shall be provided for the redundant labour in search of job “opportunities”.
Jon,
Would you agree there are no races in the human strain? At least not biologically speaking. If your answer is affirmative, then this thread has been a debate about a cultural construct that ought to be abolished and not debated.
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To keep debating and agitating peaceful electrons in their relevant orbits about some outdated control constructs, in fact itself is a reactionary and retrograde move that is legitimatizing the contentions of forces of conservatism bent on arresting the development of human society and humanity.