Newest immigration figures are in

[Well b back 3,279]

Does anyone want to tell our next PM that she was actually at the helm when these figures were produced ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67511343

[Hook's-Walk-Canary 213]

17 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

They also happily went back later I.e. the Poles.

Hardly surprising they were happy to go back - From 2000 to 2017 the UK gave the EU £122 billion more than the former got back - A good chunk of that went on Poland..

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

19 minutes ago, Hook's-Walk-Canary said:

I've been told by Lefties for years that the immigrants are coming here to do the jobs the British don’t want to do...

So I guess congratulations to the Tories for creating 672,000 new jobs in one year would be in order 🙃

Well your mates keep telling us they are flooding thr NHS and Police with new staff. Plenty of African families have arrived near me and they have been brought here to work in the NHS.

Plenty of work in Cornwall. My Grandaughter's husband urgently needs people to work in his painting and decorating business. Can't get anyone. You lot booted out the Polish lads he had working for him. You told them they were spongers, didn't belong here and were taking the jobs that our UK boys and girls could do. So they cleared off. Taking the money they might have spent here if they had stayed.

Still you got your passport cover in the colour you wanted.

 

[Hook's-Walk-Canary 213]

The immigration centre in Dublin tonight:

According to SKY News it's Far-Right to be angry about children getting stabbed.

[Fen Canary 866]

7 hours ago, Pyro Pete said:

No, no, no, it's all the fault of those refugees crossing the channel.

Oh sorry, we don't actually refer to them as human beings anymore. It's 'Stop the boats' - not help refugees fleeing war/persecution etc.

Because if we blame refugees, and confuse stupid people by conflating asylum seekers with immigrants, no-one will notice our government's spectacular inability to manage government-controlled immigration.

Aren’t 3/4 of those crossing the channel from Albania, Iran, Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan? Only 1 of those countries is at war, therefore a vast majority of those crossing the channel aren’t refugees as most people understand the term. I’m not saying that those countries are particularly nice places to live (and some people who worked with Britain deserve shelter from the Taliban) but it’s not Britains job to look after those who simply want a better life.

As we’re now seeing on the continent many of the public have now had enough of large scale immigration, both legal and illegal with a number of anti immigration parties beginning to win elections. If Britain didn’t have FPTP that makes it much harder for minor parties to get elected or wager we’d be seeing the same here, unfortunately we’re stuck with the Tories who promise to reduce it then ramp it up, and Labour who’s plan seems to be to simply not mention it

[Herman 9,824]

Well it was an interesting thread for a while.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

4 minutes ago, Fen Canary said:

Aren’t 3/4 of those crossing the channel from Albania, Iran, Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan? Only 1 of those countries is at war, therefore a vast majority of those crossing the channel aren’t refugees as most people understand the term. I’m not saying that those countries are particularly nice places to live (and some people who worked with Britain deserve shelter from the Taliban) but it’s not Britains job to look after those who simply want a better life.

As we’re now seeing on the continent many of the public have now had enough of large scale immigration, both legal and illegal with a number of anti immigration parties beginning to win elections. If Britain didn’t have FPTP that makes it much harder for minor parties to get elected or wager we’d be seeing the same here, unfortunately we’re stuck with the Tories who promise to reduce it then ramp it up, and Labour who’s plan seems to be to simply not mention it

Your nation doesn't have to be at war for you to face persecution such as religion, politics, union etc.

[Fen Canary 866]

57 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Well your mates keep telling us they are flooding thr NHS and Police with new staff. Plenty of African families have arrived near me and they have been brought here to work in the NHS.

Plenty of work in Cornwall. My Grandaughter's husband urgently needs people to work in his painting and decorating business. Can't get anyone. You lot booted out the Polish lads he had working for him. You told them they were spongers, didn't belong here and were taking the jobs that our UK boys and girls could do. So they cleared off. Taking the money they might have spent here if they had stayed.

Still you got your passport cover in the colour you wanted.

 

Perhaps if he paid decent wages, and trained people to have the skills his business needs he’d be able to find the staff he requires, rather than simply relying on importing cheap labour from Eastern Europe? 

[Fen Canary 866]

1 minute ago, keelansgrandad said:

Your nation doesn't have to be at war for you to face persecution such as religion, politics, union etc.

True, but we can’t solve the worlds problems. Once every Briton has a warm home, money in the bank and food in their belly then we could buy until that day there’s a limit on the number we can help.

Britain has historically been very welcoming to those fleeing danger, as we saw recently when families from Ukraine and Hong Kong arrived in numbers with no arguments. However when you have boatloads of 20 year old Albanian men trying to sneak in that sympathy understandably simply isn’t there 

[Fen Canary 866]

10 minutes ago, Herman said:

Well it was an interesting thread for a while.

Do you think it’s feasible to build enough houses and infrastructure quickly enough to cope with that many new arrivals? I don’t personally 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 minute ago, Fen Canary said:

Perhaps if he paid decent wages, and trained people to have the skills his business needs he’d be able to find the staff he requires, rather than simply relying on importing cheap labour from Eastern Europe? 

So you know him do you? I'll ask him if he knows a know **** all from the Pinkun who knows how he runs his business.

As you are a feckin know all perhaps you can contact all the trained people he is after and give them his phone number?

You have not a clue about how difficult it is to find trained people. He only takes on top quality work and only employs trained people at £25 an hour. The Polish lads were already here and better trained than their UK counterparts. But I thought a know all would have known that.

[TheGunnShow 5,999]

Just now, keelansgrandad said:

So you know him do you? I'll ask him if he knows a know **** all from the Pinkun who knows how he runs his business.

As you are a feckin know all perhaps you can contact all the trained people he is after and give them his phone number?

You have not a clue about how difficult it is to find trained people. He only takes on top quality work and only employs trained people at £25 an hour. The Polish lads were already here and better trained than their UK counterparts. But I thought a know all would have known that.

Exactly, I think people are forgetting how few of the younger generation became tradesmen. We went hard on encouraging so many to go to university and trades were looked down on somewhat, with the result that far fewer went into them.

Paradoxically, that's probably why plumbers earn good money nowadays. Not many wanted to be working "under a sink, roof, or floor", as my dad (an old-school master plumber) put it and it then becomes a simple case of supply and demand.

[Fen Canary 866]

1 minute ago, keelansgrandad said:

So you know him do you? I'll ask him if he knows a know **** all from the Pinkun who knows how he runs his business.

As you are a feckin know all perhaps you can contact all the trained people he is after and give them his phone number?

You have not a clue about how difficult it is to find trained people. He only takes on top quality work and only employs trained people at £25 an hour. The Polish lads were already here and better trained than their UK counterparts. But I thought a know all would have known that.

Do his prices not rise and fall in line with his competitors and what the going rate is for work? If so why does he not expect wages to do the same? If he can’t get staff then he needs to offer higher wages or better working conditions, it’s as simple as that. If there’s a lack of people with the skills his business needs then he needs to put his hand in his pocket, take on apprentices and train them up. Why should everybody else have to pay for increased costs involved for society (more housing, infrastructure, healthcare and education capacity etc) just so his private business can make a larger profit? 

[Fen Canary 866]

3 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Exactly, I think people are forgetting how few of the younger generation became tradesmen. We went hard on encouraging so many to go to university and trades were looked down on somewhat, with the result that far fewer went into them.

Paradoxically, that's probably why plumbers earn good money nowadays. Not many wanted to be working "under a sink, roof, or floor", as my dad (an old-school master plumber) put it and it then becomes a simple case of supply and demand.

I’m in the trades and I wouldn’t want my kids to do it unless the money vastly improves. It’s hard dirty work in all weathers, horribly insecure boom and bust and wrecks your body for no more money than you can earn shuffling paper in a nice warm office.

Most businesses are happy to cite supply and demand when pushing their prices up, they seem less happy to accept it when the struggle to attract staff and have to offer higher wages than they’d wanted to 

[TheGunnShow 5,999]

4 minutes ago, Fen Canary said:

I’m in the trades and I wouldn’t want my kids to do it unless the money vastly improves. It’s hard dirty work in all weathers, horribly insecure boom and bust and wrecks your body for no more money than you can earn shuffling paper in a nice warm office.

Most businesses are happy to cite supply and demand when pushing their prices up, they seem less happy to accept it when the struggle to attract staff and have to offer higher wages than they’d wanted to 

Sometimes the margin's not available to offer the higher wages in question in the first place. I was playing with the idea of employing people but realised I'd end up with twice the stress and probably still be on the same money on twice the turnover. It therefore made no sense and I work self-employed just for myself.

On a different note, the inability to attract staff may be due to poor wages and conditions in unskilled jobs or general labouring, but we're talking a skilled job in painting and decorating here. There may not be many decorators around - especially in a fairly sparsely populated area to boot. Throw in testing if they are of a good enough standard and it's not hard to see why there can be recruitment issues.

[Fen Canary 866]

5 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Sometimes the margin's not available to offer the higher wages in question in the first place. I was playing with the idea of employing people but realised I'd end up with twice the stress and probably still be on the same money on twice the turnover. It therefore made no sense and I work self-employed just for myself.

On a different note, the inability to attract staff may be due to poor wages and conditions in unskilled jobs or general labouring, but we're talking a skilled job in painting and decorating here. There may not be many decorators around - especially in a fairly sparsely populated area to boot. Throw in testing if they are of a good enough standard and it's not hard to see why there can be recruitment issues.

But to me this simply goes back to the industry not looking after its long term interests. For years they haven’t trained the youngsters leaving school to have the skills the building trades need, preferring instead to import ready made and often cheaper labour from Eastern Europe. Now due to their penny pinching and lack of foresight there’s a lack of trained tradesman to do the work, and those that are left workers can now demand higher wages than they could before.

I don’t believe it’s the rest of society’s job to bail them out, they’ll instead have to pay the higher salaries, train more apprentices and accept lower profits until the situation tips back in their favour. 

[Indy 3,315]

Another thread which highlights the boundaries some have in their personalities!

I thought Brexit was about controlling the boarders? That’s gone well!

[TheGunnShow 5,999]

1 minute ago, Fen Canary said:

But to me this simply goes back to the industry not looking after its long term interests. For years they haven’t trained the youngsters leaving school to have the skills the building trades need, preferring instead to import ready made and often cheaper labour from Eastern Europe. Now due to their penny pinching and lack of foresight there’s a lack of trained tradesman to do the work, and those that are left workers can now demand higher wages than they could before.

I don’t believe it’s the rest of society’s job to bail them out, they’ll instead have to pay the higher salaries, train more apprentices and accept lower profits until the situation tips back in their favour. 

This is where we differ, you say the trades might not have looked after long-term interests, where I would say the primary issue was that society in general tried encouraging too many to go to university who may have been better off learning a trade in hindsight, resulting in quite the shortage which then had to be alleviated with ready-made labour as you said.

I don't really think the demand is there yet. Agree that more apprenticeships would be a very good starting point but by definition, that's medium to long-term. Something is needed in the shorter term.

Apprenticeship starts fall 6% in first quarter of 2022/23 (feweek.co.uk)

[Fen Canary 866]

4 minutes ago, Indy said:

Another thread which highlights the boundaries some have in their personalities!

I thought Brexit was about controlling the boarders? That’s gone well!

At least now the blame lies solely with the elected government. As a nation we can vote for parties to prevent it if we wish, something we couldn’t do under the Freedom of Movement laws 

[Fen Canary 866]

4 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

This is where we differ, you say the trades might not have looked after long-term interests, where I would say the primary issue was that society in general tried encouraging too many to go to university who may have been better off learning a trade in hindsight, resulting in quite the shortage which then had to be alleviated with ready-made labour as you said.

I don't really think the demand is there yet. Agree that more apprenticeships would be a very good starting point but by definition, that's medium to long-term. Something is needed in the shorter term.

Apprenticeship starts fall 6% in first quarter of 2022/23 (feweek.co.uk)

I agree with you that the government pushed too many youngsters into uni who weren’t suited to it, but I’ve seen the paucity of youngsters being trained over the last couple of decades and it’s something the industry was happy to go along with in my view 

[dylanisabaddog 4,987]

19 hours ago, TheRock said:

That is quite alarming when cosidered against the fact there are only ~22.5 million homes in the UK for a population of ~70 million. That's a 1% increase in UK population without even adding births and illegal migration.

 

Yet Labour and Tories both seem to want 500,000 homes a year, something which has never been achieved, even in the 70's only 350,000 was achieved once when Councils were building their own mass stock. Anyone who works in the town planning and construction industry will tell you that 500,000 a year is impossible given the current planning system constraints, lack of labour and moderate interest rates meaning FTBs cannot get their first mortgages. Developers will only build as quick as they can sell, which anyone in the industry will tell you that even in an economic boom in the last 10 years, we couldn't even get near 250,000 new homes nationally which was the golden figure that Cameron's administration always wanted.

 

Put into perspective, unless Starmer/Sunak are plannning on building 3 (yes, three!) new cities the size of Newcastle every a year, we won't even cover the current net migration figures, let alone all other factors as to why new housing is typically needed (First time buyers, aging population, landlords/investors, divorces, social housing requirements, ending homelessness).

The real cause of the housing shortage isn't immigration,it's single people like me. 

In 1971 there were less than 1m single person households in the UK. That figure has now increased to around 7m.

Thete are social and economic reasons for this change but quite simply if every single person moved in with a partner it would free up 3m homes. 

The introduction of Tax Credits, now Universal Credit, was a wonderful initiative in most ways by the Blair Government but it has made this problem worse. Single mothers (and a small number of fathers) won't consider a live in partner because they would lose their benefits. We need to find a solution to that problem. 

An even harder problem to solve is persuading the huge number of 50+ singletons to try being part of a live in couple again. 

Of course immigrants do add to the problem but they use far fewer houses per person than the indigenous (is that the right word?) population. 

The Conservatives did recognise this problem when they introduced the bedroom tax for social housing. I'm anti just about everything to do with the Tories but perhaps they had a point. This is now a crisis. Should we really have single people living in 3 bed council/social houses? Should I as a single person be living in a 3 bed house? 

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by dylanisabaddog

[Herman 9,824]

8 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

At least now the blame lies solely with the elected government. As a nation we can vote for parties to prevent it if we wish, something we couldn’t do under the Freedom of Movement laws 

This isn't true and has never been true. We were still capable of controlling who we allowed in under FOM, it was simply easier for the government not to bother.

[TheGunnShow 5,999]

1 hour ago, dylanisabaddog said:

The real cause of the housing shortage isn't immigration,it's single people like me. 

In 1971 there were less than 1m single person households in the UK. That figure has now increased to around 7m.

Thete are social and economic reasons for this change but quite simply if every single person moved in with a partner it would free up 3m homes. 

The introduction of Tax Credits, now Universal Credit, was a wonderful initiative in most ways by the Blair Government but it has made this problem worse. Single mothers (and a small number of fathers) won't consider a live in partner because they would lose their benefits. We need to find a solution to that problem. 

An even harder problem to solve is persuading the huge number of 50+ singletons to try being part of a live in couple again. 

Of course immigrants do add to the problem but they use far fewer houses per person than the indigenous (is that the right word?) population. 

The Conservatives did recognise this problem when they introduced the bedroom tax for social housing. I'm anti just about everything to do with the Tories but perhaps they had a point. This is now a crisis. Should we really have single people living in 3 bed council/social houses? 

Not keen on the bit in bold, the real problem is that not enough houses/apartments etc. were built to reflect this change. One thing for sure though, there's always going to be plenty of demand for one-bedroom apartments and if I manage to scarper off to Germany mine's getting rented out for a nice chunk of added income.

You're spot on in that relative to immigrants, this change is a far larger one. I don't think "persuading" people to live together is anything resembling a solution though. When people have their freedom they don't tend to be keen on giving it up unless something exceptional comes along.

[DraytonBoy 162]

Planners need to be more pragmatic when looking at housing schemes, Norwich still has several empty office blocks that could be converted into housing units but the city council have set parameters that make this impossible. The Marsh building on Queens Road is going to be demolished and a new development built including apartments which is environmentally bonkers, at the same time there is an ever increasing housing shortage in the city.

[dylanisabaddog 4,987]

32 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Not keen on the bit in bold, the real problem is that not enough houses/apartments etc. were built to reflect this change. One thing for sure though, there's always going to be plenty of demand for one-bedroom apartments and if I manage to scarper off to Germany mine's getting rented out for a nice chunk of added income.

You're spot on in that relative to immigrants, this change is a far larger one. I don't think "persuading" people to live together is anything resembling a solution though. When people have their freedom they don't tend to be keen on giving it up unless something exceptional comes along.

First of all, good luck with Germany. It's a wonderful place to live at the moment and you'll find the housing situation somewhat different to the UK. Most importantly, it's cheaper. 

As for persuading people to live together, it's a difficult one. I'm one of the people you mention who would be resistant. I've got used to being on my own and mostly I'm happy with it. And quite frankly it's highly unlikely that the woman who would want to live with me even exists. Having said that I have single friends in their 50's and 60's who feel differently but never meet anyone. God knows what the answer to that is. A state sponsored free dating site? 

It's the Tax Credit people that are the problem. They don't want to give up their benefits but still want a proper relationship.  Wouldn't it be easier to just let them keep the benefits? 

 

[Indy 3,315]

11 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

At least now the blame lies solely with the elected government. As a nation we can vote for parties to prevent it if we wish, something we couldn’t do under the Freedom of Movement laws 

Freedom of movement wasn’t freedom to live! it was to work & contribute, we lost that labour now we’ve gained more financial burden from the current situation.

As for blaming government, how do you stop it? Labour will he worse when they get in!

[Fen Canary 866]

2 hours ago, Herman said:

This isn't true and has never been true. We were still capable of controlling who we allowed in under FOM, it was simply easier for the government not to bother.

So under EU laws the UK could prevent EU citizens from moving to the UK to live and work? I understand there were a few exceptions for criminals and the jobless but apart from that any EU citizen had the same rights to live and work in the UK as any Briton 

[Fen Canary 866]

1 minute ago, Indy said:

Freedom of movement wasn’t freedom to live! it was to work & contribute, we lost that labour now we’ve gained more financial burden from the current situation.

As for blaming government, how do you stop it? Labour will he worse when they get in!

I’m fully aware Labour will be as bad as the Tories. Unfortunately our FPTP electoral system makes it much harder for minor parties to break through compared to most of continental Europe 

[Indy 3,315]

7 minutes ago, Fen Canary said:

So under EU laws the UK could prevent EU citizens from moving to the UK to live and work? I understand there were a few exceptions for criminals and the jobless but apart from that any EU citizen had the same rights to live and work in the UK as any Briton 

Not to live and work, that’s contributing to our society as it should be! This was the issues with those who jumped to believe the lies Boris & Farage were spouting at the time! EU citizens only has a right to 3 months and there after if they weren’t working we’re not entitled to any benefit other than what they could claim from back home! The UK had the right to request them to return if they wished to!

Funny that certain countries like Hungary & Czech Republic enforce this others like the UK didn’t! The mechanism was there unfortunately it was never used.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Indy

[Fen Canary 866]

7 minutes ago, Indy said:

Not to live and work, that’s contributing to our society as it should be! This was the issues with those who jumped to believe the lies Boris & Farage were spouting at the time! EU citizens only has a right to 3 months and there after if they weren’t working we’re not entitled to any benefit other than what they could claim from back home! The UK had the right to request them to return if they wished to!

Funny that certain countries like Hungary & Czech Republic enforce this others like the UK didn’t! The mechanism was there unfortunately it was never used.

If they’re undercutting the local workforce (which many in the trades unfortunately were) then they aren’t contributing in any real sense. If everybody else has to drop their prices to compete then nobody but those at the top are any better off from all these new arrivals.

Governments love immigration because more people equals a higher GDP. However it only benefits society if it is increasing GDP per capita, which low skilled immigration doesn’t do