General British politics discussion thread

In fairness, I think that Rishi Sunak knows that the real lesson is that if you go to the market without your homework being done (AKA an OBR report), the market will mark you F for failure and dump all your gilts, driving up your interest rates. Donald Tusk’s “sketch of a plan” came to my mind during the financial meltdown that followed.

And again, in fairness to Sunak, he warned during the leadership campaign about the voodoo economics of Trussonomics, but lies are what all the old farts wanted to hear.

This is why the membership didn’t get to decide on the leader this time around.

Yes, and the phone hacking story turns the attention away from Braverman and thus the current government, thereby keeping Braverman in post, and a hopeful government getting some stability. Until the next issue to surface. Cue the Tories going back to being the prudent financial gatekeepers with Labour as attack dogs as that means austerity 2.0.

I can see the Tories getting back some of their faithful following but not enough to avoid an election defeat. I wouldn't be too sure of a Labour majority either.

At the same time, the last 2-3 years have been a political rollercoaster. The next, could be just more of the same.

Xenophilia? Seriously? What's your definition for that one? You should ask Liz Truss how that was supposed to work out - hint: she wasn't 100% wrong.

That video posted the other day really can't be recommended enough, even to thickies that say things like "xenophilia."

As I've just said: 14.4% of the British population are foreign-born. A much greater percentage are 2nd or 3rd generation.

The Tories themselves let in millions of immigrants.

The trend over the last few decades is an historically unprecedented openness to outsiders and especially foreign workers.

That is the "open economy".

A constant supply of cheap labour into a country is not going to arrest a decline in wages for obvious reasons.

I could introduce you to business after business that have profited from immigrant labour over the last 30 years, to the detriment of local workers. It was most evident after 2004 when the eastern Europeans arrived.

I wish I could show you written evidence. Very visually evident in the midlands and the north. Labour just got too focused on minority issues and dropped that ball, and then when anyone complained, they get called racist.

Your views but my actual lived experience. I would stand 100% by what I've just written here.

In the last post you asked for evidence. In this post you ask for proof.

I gave you evidence: the recent wage inflation in the Irish economy, which no one disputes(?) was caused by a labour shortfall.

Living as we do in a small country we have been able to see directly, and in real time, how a shrinking of the labour pool bids up the price of wages. Scarcity affects labour costs the same as it affects other costs. The inverse, that a glut of cheap labour arrests or causes a reversal in the price of labour can be reasonably inferred.

Like I said. My lived experience and many in their 60s and 70s will attest to it. But you can smugly ignore it. Go to the retirement communities of the the east and west midlands and the north, you'll see and hear the evidence directly from those affected. People who never trusted the Tories, then finding Labour just taking them for granted.

I worked in a warehouse company. All low paid jobs, slightly above the minimum wage. This was ten years ago. The staff were a mix of Irish, mostly middle aged or more, and Eastern Europeans.

The Irish could almost all have been characterised as coming from large low income families, all would have left school young, probably at 15. They are the people that Council Housing would have been for 30-40 years ago, people with little education in low skill work. With the availability of birth control, those people are almost non existent in the Under 40 category.

I am currently working in construction, other than qualified tradesmen it is extremely hard to get General Operatives in Construction. People willing to do manual labour are incredibly scarce. Talk to any block layer or plasterer and see how difficult it is for them to get labourers.

There has been a quantum leap in society here and I assume that the UK mirrors us in some way. Mary McAleese in her memoir put it well, her parents were both from large families, where the boys went working in factories at 15-16 and the girls became hairdressers or worked in shops. Her generation got free education, and strove to join the professions and better employment and then with Birth Control the next generation are 1-2 or 2-3 child families where the time and resources are available for the children to pursue whatever avenue they would like.

In my generation (late 50's) there would always have been a surplus of teenage/early 20's fella's from large families around for casual labour for farmers or contractors, when I look around where i live there are none of those people around. Everyone goes to college. Families are way smaller.

Immigrants are currently filling the gaps where low skilled Irish people once were. Walk into any fast food outlet, motorway service station, look at the cleaners in a hospital, very few are Irish. Without immigrants where would we be?? My son works part time in a filling station as he goes through college. Small rural town, all local staff, all on minimum wage, constant turnover of staff, no-one has the ambition of staying there.

I am assuming that the UK is similar.

The whole argument of immigrants lowering wages is nonsense, it is Government's duty to set minimum wage. The changing demographics are opening the need for low paid workers from outside the country.

Not EU students but EU staff.

Constantly training new staff takes a lot of time and money so when you can get Irish, French, Italian and Spanish staff who understands the culture of the industry at a deep level is a huge plus.

After Brexit it was all young English kids whos first ever trip to a pub was for the interview and had no interest in moving up the ranks or training further.