I have long been an advocate of growth. I have always been clear the growth I want is in income per head, not in the number of people. I have advocated the higher wage higher productivity economy. I have opposed illegal migration. I have opposed mass legal migration into low paid jobs. This suppresses labour saving investment, keeps wages down and impedes training and levelling up.
I have also been a long term and sometimes a lone voice pointing out if we keep on inviting more people into the country we need to put in a lot more energy capacity, reservoirs, roads, schools, hospitals and homes to provide for them. I have explained that cheap labour from abroad is dear labour for the taxpayers as it entails many more subsidised homes and public services.
The numbers for the last year are far too high. If we invite in 500,000 extra a year we need to build a city the size of Liverpool every year and provide all the supplies and facilities it needs. Where is our new city for last year’s people? No wonder our hotels are being taken over for dwellings and so many fields are coming under the concrete mixer.
The government wants to cut CO 2 output. Then start with fewer migrants. It wants to solve the housing shortage. Then have fewer migrants. It wants to deal with the electricity shortage. Then have fewer people. What does it not understand about the current over the top migrant policy?
November 25, 2022
Yes indeed Sir John yes indeed. What a pity people who are Green or on the Left just wave their hands airily and won’t deal with the reality.
November 25, 2022
So we have the clown Hunt telling us to reduce energy consumption by 15% because of Pootin.
Nothing to do with blowing up perfectly good coal fired power stations or relying on intermittent wind.
Nothing to do with sitting on 50 years worth of shale gas or 300 years of coal.
Nothing to do with screwing oil companies so they don’t drill.
No John it’s a Tory induced mess and you’ve nowhere to hide.
Less population would help bur that’s never going to happen until we revolt.
November 25, 2022
@Ian Wragg +1 Yes continuing the Boris Johnson’s charade of that imports are greener than home grown. 12 years to secure the UK’s energy already down the pan and he wants us to believe it is someone else’s fault. The UK still needs to consume energy.
Did he, Has he reduced his own consumption in number 11
November 25, 2022
Indeed. Many on this site have been saying this for years Sir John. It’s your Government imposing this on us. Get a grip and call an election. You’ve had 12.5 years to fix it. Incompetence or planned?
November 25, 2022
Ian – All to tell us that getting poor is for our own good and for a noble cause.
November 25, 2022
Mass immigration has been JR’s party policy for 12.5 years. They all deliberately lied to get elected. They all know what has been going on.
It is known what the NI numbers are, for example one year over 800,000!
These are estimates not head count. How does this provide security not knowing who is coming or going? How does this help prevent Sunak’s fraud of our taxes he will not investigate of £11.8 billion! Lord Agnew resigned, why not Sunak?
Manchester bomber was free to come and go as disclosed in inquest! Yet the Socialist Tories persist in making us unsafe for their cultural Marxism to destroy our culture and way of life.
Osborne said no one serious in private!
November 25, 2022
Nonsense, from you and JR. This post is economically illiterate. There is no contradiction between legal migration into low paid jobs and labour saving investment and training. All successful economies have both. Brexit has condemned the UK to a future of economic decline because Brexiters like JR do not understand the benefits of free trade (in goods, services and people) combined with government policies of better education and training
November 25, 2022
Seven years ago Teresa May HS signed an agreement with France, same as Braverman, for PR purposes only. This was at a time when Osborne stated no on was serious in private!
Sunak signs a deal to agree thousands of Indians coming here while later the same day states he wants to reduce immigration!
Granting 1.2 million visa applications here to the UK, while also inviting Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Ukraine her, last year was not accident it was deliberate, a choice made by socialist Tory govt. The cabinet All knew their manifesto stated the opposite. Conclusion: the cabinet are liars and dishonest with the public. They all went along with it. Anyone who disagreed could have resigned. No one did, not even Patel!
Anyone who believes the latest narrative/lies are stupid and beyond help.
November 25, 2022
Head in the sand
November 25, 2022
GM – Not with 5 million unemployed ! Those all getting 10% tax free ‘pay’ rises and index linked add-ons.
“All successful economies” do not have: freedom of movement AND free state services AND free healthcare AND free welfare for all including newcomers.
Get our own lazy b***ards into work first.
November 25, 2022
GM,
Utter rubbish. Ask yourself how UK managed for so long when it ruled a quarter of the earth! Sunak now demands more taxes so he can give away £11.6 billion to the rest of the world to say sorry for being successful!! It is no longer extreme to say Hunt and Sunak are adanger to our society and way of life. They have no idea who comes and,goes into our country. Without borders there is no country!! We have a large moat!!
It was made clear by Osborne no one was serious in private despite many manifestos, many signed declarations, many many trade deals with Thousands of immigration attached!!
Sunak lying on the same day to say he wants to reduce immigration after overruling and signing,trade deal with India to allow thousands more!!
November 25, 2022
So how successful do you think we were after 40 plus years in your idyll? Why are we not richer? Why are wages not higher? Why did we have such low productivity? We want free trade, not the rigged market of the EU which shuts out poorer countries with tariffs (very moral that). We want to deal with the 85 percent of trade that is the rest of the world, not just the walled-in EU. We have been stymied by a government of Remainers who wanted this country to fail and we still have not achieved a full Brexit, with foreigners still ruling us at least in part of the UK. and still we adhere to their rules and pay them money for it.
Government policies etc? I agree with you there. We have had the worst 12 years of government shortsightedness in my memory starting with the Osborne austerity which achieved nothing but ruination of public services and still doubled the national debt and now the highest taxes ever just to reverse it all, but Hunt thinks we need more of the same. Unfortunately the political class is now all one. We have very little hope for the future with this lot in the HoC.
November 25, 2022
PS By the way most of the EU is worse off than we are. Keep dreaming.
November 25, 2022
But if that’s correct how come the U.K. has outperformed major EU economies in the period since Brexit was implemented in jan 21 (according to the OECD) and trade has recovered strongly to pre-pandemic levels, albeit with a bit of a shift from eu to non-eu? Indeed if it’s all so terrible how come so many people want to come here at all?! The facts and data just don’t support the continuity remain hysteria.
November 25, 2022
You got the graph upside down. Since Brexit the UK has performed worse than all our competitors. Of course it has, Brexit means barriers to our trade but not to anyone else’s
November 25, 2022
If you look up the statistics, Pauline, you’ll find that our GDP growth rate in 2022 (latest 12-month figures) is above those of France and Germany, and nearly the same as that of Italy. Our GDP growth rate in 2019 was above that of Germany and Italy and nearly the same as that of France. So it’s simply false to say that we have performed worse than our competitors since Brexit. Not a great deal has changed, comparing GDP growth figures. Maybe you had some other statistics in mind?
November 25, 2022
I have not. Look it up.
November 26, 2022
At the European level: (Sw Sweden, CH Switzerland, N Norway, G Germany, E Spain)
GDP growth in % ………………………….. GDP pc PPP 2021 $
Year. 2018. 2019. 2020. 2021. 2018-2021.
UK….. 1.7 …1.7 .. -9.3 … 7.4 ……1.5 ……….. 49,675
Sw …. 2 ……2 …..-2.9 ….4.8 .… 5.9 ………… 59,324
NL….. 2.4 … 2 …..-3.8 …..5 …… 5.6 ……..…. 63,767
CH….. 2.9 .. 1.2 … -2.4 … 3.7 …. 5.4 …………77,342
N …… 1.1 .. 0.7 … -0.7 … 3.9 … 5.0 ………… 79,201
F……. 1.9 … 1.8 .. -7.9 …. 7 …… 2.8 ……….. 50,729
G……. 1.1 … 1.1 .. -4.6 … 2.9 …. 0.5 ……..… 57,928
I………0.9 … 0.5 … -9 …..6.6 …. -1.0 ……….. 45,936
E……..2.3 ….2.1 .. -10.8… 5.1 … -1.3 ………. 40,775
———-
USA .. 2.9 … 2.3 … -3.4 … 5.7 … 7.5 …………69,287
Jpn … 0.6 .. -0.2 … -4.5 … 1.6 .. -2.5 ……….. 42,940
Taking the most recent 12 months (to 09/22) and the previous 12 months (to 09/21) (tradingeconomics.com)
F 1.0 and 4.2
G 1.3 and 1.6
UK 2.4 and 4.4
N 2.5 and 4.4
Sw 2.6 and 4.2
I 2.6 and 4.9
CH 2.8 and 4.7
NL 3.1 and 5.1
E 3.8 and 6.8
the present rate of GDP growth should also consider the basic level GDP from which this growth is seen. Right now one of the biggest GDP growth is for … Afghanistan.
November 25, 2022
@Gary Megson Total Nonsense, there has never been free trade between the UK and the EU.
Then again people themselves are only free when they through their representatives get to make, amend and repeal the laws, rules and regulations that affect their lives. The bureaucracy that is the EU Commission – the Law, rules and regulations giver is not scrutinised or held to account and no one can challenge thier authority. The EU Parliament, like as happened in the UK Parliament is only permitted to rubber-stamp what is handed down. The EU Commission is about protectionism, first them selves, then favoured industries.
November 25, 2022
Name one ‘successful economy’ that does the economically illiterate antics you support?
November 25, 2022
Try ‘all of them’
November 25, 2022
Gary, there is a contradiction, and it goes like this. If you’re an employer and you want to sponsor a migrant worker for a work visa, it will cost you. Up to nearly £7,000 according to this information:
https://freemovement.org.uk/how-much-does-it-cost-to-sponsor-someone-for-a-uk-work-visa/
So if you spend that money on the visa, you can’t also spend it on training so as to upskill a native staff member.
Your sentiment that as a country we might be able to do both is no doubt admirable, but for an employer that’s not the reality they face.
November 25, 2022
When lots of EU truckers went home because of Covid, wages went up here by 10% because there was a shortage. The laws of supply and demand apply just the same.
November 26, 2022
It seems that you don’t understand finite natural resources.
November 25, 2022
Yes indeed, we had about 17.4 million too many people in 2016.
Oh, if only they could have been changed for young, positive, motivated, energetic, forward-looking folk from the Continent…
November 25, 2022
That is a little bit bigoted don’t you think Marty?
Of course it’s ok when directed at the English.
November 25, 2022
I think you refer to brainwashed idiots who do not realise democracy is our only safeguard against wannabe dictators and power hungry politicians. To overturn Brexit you first have to destroy democracy. Be careful what you wish for.
November 25, 2022
Better if you could have planted UK, say next to Germany, or drained the Channel and made a motorway, planted the bog and sunk more windmills!
November 25, 2022
What are they looking forward to on the Continent? High cost energy and reduced supply. Reducing food security by replacing farms with housing for unskilled migrants. Economic deconstruction and export of industry to China. Dependence on China for key goods. Rising internal dissent, ranging from migrant no go areas through gilets jaunes, etc.. Sadly, much the same as here.
November 25, 2022
We have 6 million French alone. How many more do you want?
What you need to grasp is that the immigrants from the Continent have fled from the EU and is disasters you support! Did you see the candlelight march in Riga last night? Swinging along yo the SS anthem. Do you want more Latvians in particular? Or perhaps more Corporations like Kentucky Fried Chicken which last week proposed ‘celebrating Krystallnacht’ rather like thanksgivings or Halloween?
November 25, 2022
’Number of French nationals resident in the United Kingdom from 2008 to 2021’ statista.com, 07/11/2022. It has fluctuated between 121,000 in 2010 and 191,000 in 2019.
Presently, you are off by a factor 40. Does your info come from freenations.com’s statistical department?
November 26, 2022
And how do you magic up finite natural resources?
November 25, 2022
+1
What’s going on is what they want. Their useful idiots however don’t understand that all of this isn’t about humanitarianism and FAIRNESS and all that tosh.
It is a continuation, successful this time, of 1918 when the working class, now despised, went to war for King and country instead of staging a revolution.
November 25, 2022
the UK is becoming an upstairs/ downstairs society more than it ever was before.
November 25, 2022
But it’s interesting to look at the history of what actually happened at that time, Cuibono. It was a bit different from what I’d imagined. You find that the Communist Party took its orders from Lenin, who instructed it to collaborate with the Labour Party and follow a parliamentary approach, not a revolutionary one. So he knew that the British working class was not going to be able to overthrow the state at that point.
To succeed, revolutions need charismatic leaders, and Lenin probably realised that there were no credible revolutionary leaders in Britain. Nor have there ever been, in my view.
November 25, 2022
+many
Very interesting. I did not know that!
But I do know that the Left still hates the white working class quite viscerally for the supposed betrayal.
November 25, 2022
Nor is seems does 80% of the “death wish” conservative party’s MPs. We were promised immigration in the tens of thousands, lower taxes, better public services, a real Brexit… but we get over 500,000 rammed down out throats and another attempt to kill Brexit it seems.
Three good pieces in the Telegraph today:-
Allison Pearson
Health bosses are fiddling while the NHS burns
MATT RIDLEY
Top virologists betrayed science with their Covid lab leak cover-up
DAVID FROST
Remainers are softening us up to rejoin the EU
November 25, 2022
Yet another vast increase in taxation and huge inconvenience for Londoners (which will cause huge economic damage) with Kahn’s cash grab & appalling huge extension of the ULEZ zone. Coming to a town near you very soon. Another reason not to bother working, to go on benefits and barter a bit will be best for many. Those wanting to work hard had probably best just leave the UK. This is clearly the message from Khan, Sunak, Hunt…
November 25, 2022
Surely the Government/Transport Minister needs to stop this vast and hugely damaging tax grab justified by the bogus “clean air” ruse. It might recover a tiny bit of political support for this appalling Climate Alarmist, expensive energy pushing, let join the single market, open door immigration enthusiasts, tax. borrow, print and piss down the drain Con-Socialist government.
Do the sums Wage, less NI, less tax, less 12.50 a day ULEZ, less car costs, less work lunch, work clothing, parking at work, childcare, loss of time to shop efficiently & DIY, council tax, prescriptions… Most will be better off on benefits with a bit of battering or illegal cash in hand work on the side. That is what will happen – others will just leave for more sensible regimes depressing tax take even further. Great plan!
November 25, 2022
Pity Matt Ridley was so spooked at the beginning of the Covid scam. Rather like you LL.
November 25, 2022
Complete drivel in relation to myself re-read what I said as the time. I was concerned that people as far as possible did not die for lack of hospital care or equipment. This having seen the dire situation in Northern Italy near to where my wife’s parents and other relatives lived. So yes I wanted the NHS to gear up as best they could and find treatments that helped. But I was never in favour of extended lockdowns, the pointless masks, the school lockdowns. Given that it was clear very early that only the old were at significant/high risk the Barrington Declaration agenda was the obvious and rational way to go as I said at the time. I was certainly not in favour of Hancock/NHS agenda of dumping the infected tested and untested into care homes.
I also assumed that the claims for vaccines effectivity and safety were reasonable true, alas they clearly were not.
November 26, 2022
If you let the virus rip there would be no vital services at all, no water,power,food,etc because even if workers didn’t overwhelm the nhs or end up very disabled its catching. A lot of vital services cannot work from home and would fail at the same time.
November 25, 2022
It is not a pity, it is complicit criminal neglect.
November 25, 2022
+1
November 25, 2022
LL,
Do not forget every time a student visa is issued that persons family are allowed here as well!! Tories know this and do not mention or discuss it.
They lie about brightest and best which in itself is immoral to pillage other nations- colonialism? Is this another tax bill for the future? In stark contradiction to Sunak paying the world money as if we should be guilty of something. By the amount of people swarming here they do not think the same as socialist Tories!
November 26, 2022
But that’s a fantasy story, hope. Most students coming to the UK are single and in their very early twenties. I happen to live not far from several students’ halls on the Reading U campus. Your ‘every time a student visa is issued that person’s family is allowed here as well’ is simply ‘mierda de toro’.
And from I can see I would guess the last thing these students would want would be their own parents to be around.
November 25, 2022
‘Too many people’ is part of a much wider theme that is labelled brokenism.
Politics, education and culture are now broken, weak or corrupt and it’s pointless trying to continue with them. Add in huge distrust of most current politicians.
Status quo types think the system still works but needs adjustments and changes.
I don’t think there are too many people. I think there aren’t enough Britons and the native population have been foolishly persuaded over time to limit numbers.
Politicians and big business thought it was clever and profitable to let other countries bear the cost of raising children and then use the adults as part of the workforce.
No thought was ever given to the impact on society and culture within this country.
November 26, 2022
Our sustainable number is under 30 million and natural resources are finite.
November 25, 2022
The vast majority of MPs seem to hold opposing views to our host’s and act accordingly, despite what their constituents want.
A huge amount of damage has been done, and goodness knows how many more illegals will flood in over the next two summers before the election.
About 10 years ago I worked alongside many EU migrants doing a low pay job. The majority of them were already saying “don’t let any more in”, and they were talking about legal migration!
And on the topic of legal migration, why did Johnson open the doors to the Hong Kong Chinese?
November 25, 2022
Not just Hong Kong, look at the number of Chinese immigrants! No action against China even after covid, human rights for slavery et etc. Nomention of Hunt’s wife on state Chinese TV. Tories we’re all over Corbyn for appearance on Russian TV.
Also the whole of Afghanistan disgrace, Wallace still in place! Billions of our taxes to support Corrupt Ukraine. Tory party do not count people in and out, they carry out random surveys and guess the numbers! Doesn’t it make you feel safe? Russians enter knowing they can poison whoever they like on our soil as the borders are wide open! Manchester bomber allowed to come and go as he pleased. What minister was sacked or forced to resign?
MPs got whopping inflation pay rises for a part time non qualified job with RPI indexed pensions! Cost of living, they demand more taxes.
Reform party is our only hope for change.
November 25, 2022
Yes, where’s our reparation from the Chinese for Covid?
November 25, 2022
Hope “Reform party is our only hope for change”
Maybe so, but of more hope is demonstration and civil disobedience, which in most countries would be carried out by the young, but not here. The young here are probably more that 50% non-English, and of the rest, they are indoctrinated and not interested in standing up for their counry and heritage.
November 25, 2022
More illegal immigrants have arrived this year than the total number of British army combat troops, and more net legal immigrants have arrived this year than the number of uniformed personnel in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army & Royal Air Force combined …just think about that
November 25, 2022
@Hope; “Reform party is our only hope for change.”
Indeed, vote Reform,. risk getting a Labour/SNP govt and BRINO; EU freedom of movement whilst having to obey EU laws that we have no input on and can’t vote against etc! As for Russian TV, I seem to remember at least one very senior UKIP MEP was regularly appearing on RT in the years prior to the Brexit referendum; glasshouses and all that…
November 26, 2022
Jerry: We already have BRINO, and the undemocratic CONS are pushing us towards the EU, but are too dishonest to own up about it. They want us impoverished and browbeaten first, so that nobody has the time or energy to object (or dead, due to lack of medical care for the unprivileged and unprotected majority) and they are doing a darn fine job at that! The uniparty (Labour & CONS) are all frauds who care nothing for the UK or its people.
November 26, 2022
Jerry,
Drivel. Try reading without assuming you might understand the point.
November 26, 2022
@Shirley M; No we do not have BRINO, we are not members of the EEA/EFTA, we are no longer subject to EU free movement as are Switzerland, Norway & Iceland, non of who are EU members. A future SNP controlled Labour coalition govt could sign us up to both, even the Euro, as it would make future SNP aims easier.
Of course there are some people wanting the UK to rejoin the EU in some way or another, so what, its called democracy, the same democracy that brought us Mrs Thatcher in 1979 and the 2016 referendum, both started out rowing against the political tide – oh, I see your point…
November 26, 2022
@Hope; Take your own advice!
November 25, 2022
Good Morning,
Your government looks for GDP Growth, well, what in that number? Government spending, government borrowing and money creating, amongst others. So where’s the real economy growth, the bit that government taxes? More honesty please.
Second, GDP, or Turnover, is not the same as Profit or Gross national NET income. We need NET income growth, after inflation. A bit more honesty please.
How about waste, that’s included in GDP, how about telling us how much government spending is WASTED each year. A bit more honesty please.
Try producing and using useful data for a change, you might then make the correct decisions.
You get the idea…
November 25, 2022
Peter: Even if they gave us those figures, could we believe them? I no longer trust ANY information put out by the BoE or this government. We have been deceived at every turn and figures are manipulated to somehow justify their destructive actions upon the UK.
November 25, 2022
Shirley M,
point is well made and I share your scepticism. I suppose like many here, I’m getting more angry at the deliberate(?) incompetence of this government.
November 25, 2022
The ´hilarious™️’ bit is that till about three years ago Sir John was not using GDP per capita only GDP (´the UK fifth in the GDP table and blah blah blah’) and that it is contributors from this blog who rammed into his head that GDP per se is not good enough. As pointed above GDP growth linked to fighting pollution or expenses following disasters or flooding should be counted separately.
As for international comparison GDP per capita PPP should be the measure to use, as that is what people on the street (not MPs in Parliament) actually are sensitive to.
November 25, 2022
But how can anyone calculate GDP per capita when no-one has any idea what the population is? Census – 69 million; supermarkets and utilities think around 80 million.
November 25, 2022
Please give me a proper argument why you think that supermarkets and utilities have it right and not the official census.
November 25, 2022
Have a look at this official government ONS report: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/theeffectsoftaxesandbenefitsonhouseholdincome/financialyearending2019#household-income-by-ethnic-group
It shows that, as it says itself: “overall, all non-white groups categories, with the exception of Asian ethnic groups, were net beneficiaries in terms of taxes paid and benefits received. Overall, Black ethnic groups received the most in terms of benefits (£15,500) and paid the least in taxes (£9,100)”. This data is from 2019 and is the latest available. To see the data in visual from scroll down to: “Figure 2: Black ethnic groups receive the most in terms of cash benefits and benefits-in-kind”
It is clear that while SOME individual immigrants will undoubtedly be extremely valuable members of society, as a whole immigrants are NOT, and we need to be much more selective about who we allow to enter the country.
November 25, 2022
USA, Australia etc wouldn’t allow anyone in who couldn’t PROVE they can support themselves, pay for their housing, health and education. It’s just the Westminster leftwing legacies who think English taxpayers should support anyone who chips up.
November 25, 2022
+1
November 26, 2022
X-Tory:
Have a look at the 2021 version – different emphasis.
I wonder why?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/theeffectsoftaxesandbenefitsonhouseholdincome/financialyearending2021
November 25, 2022
So many are just in denial. For years whilst the problem was growing we were accused of racism if we spoke out. We were scared to have an opinion and jobs were threatened. We now have a new mix of cultures and we need to use this as a base line and spring board to work from. We need to set rules that all in the UK needs to abide by regardless of culture, creed or ethnicity. When people arrive from different destinations the carry their own social perceptions with them .
November 25, 2022
++
We were accused of racism to allow the whole thing to happen.
And people took it all on board.
Where was the revolt against the assault on our rights and freedoms?
Exactly.
And THAT is why the Left wants mass migration.
The migrants are regarded as the non-woosified (European men =weakened and feminised)) vanguards of their revolution.
November 25, 2022
+1
You point to the difference between multiculturalism and multiracialism.
I believe that many British people believed we were getting multiracialism but what actually was planned (Blair?) was multiculturalism. They are very different.
Mel P said exactly what you are saying at the beginning of all this…she said that we should have an “overarching” law for all irrespective of race, creed etc.
And we most certainly do not because part of the plan is constant friction!
November 25, 2022
We now make laws for the minority against the majority. Freedom of speech gone. Any minority however small with an axe to grind gets special treatment and if you express any contrary view you can expect the police to call to ‘check your thinking’. This is what my father fought for? I don’t think so. Thank God he cannot see what is being done.
November 25, 2022
+many
Amen to that.
November 25, 2022
We are not even allowed to criticise the actions of a specific religion. Why? We are not criticising the race, the religion, or individuals, just what they do that is detrimental to the country, and what our judiciary and government allows. We are being silenced. It is not racism to criticise the actions of people.
November 25, 2022
@margaret; “For years whilst the problem was growing we were accused of racism if we spoke out.”
But many were, and still are, all that’s changed is their choice of language, otherwise they would be facing jail time! Racism is not just about skin colour, or religion, even if the race relation laws thinks it is. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s there was a reason why some started to highlight white, Christian, migrants from eastern Europe.
November 25, 2022
Post War Socialism isn’t fair to our (grand)chlidren. Since Blair opened the floodgates we have been invaded by (probably) 20 million (il)legal migrants. With minimal increase in housing stock is it surprising that our offspring are in difficulty? With the advent of eBay a third of our ‘working’ population can avoid paying virtually all taxes in the UK.
We are begging the brighter of them to emigrate, a pretty poor swap but doubtless lauded by Treasury Orthodoxy.
We escaped the EU now it’s the turn of our failed political ‘masters’.
We don’t need, or could police, identity cards, we indigenous all have National Insurance Numbers; stipulate that they should be utilised for all major transactions – jobs, house/car purchase/hire/lease.
November 25, 2022
@Fishknife; “Post War Socialism” hasn’t existed in at least 43 years! What is unfair, causing grief, to our (grand)children is the post ‘post-war consensus’ politics we have had since, the consensus that Blair also accepted in his 1994 party conference speech – much to the annoyance of the Socialist left. (il)legal migration existed long before Blair, long before Thatcher, long before we joined the EEC/EU.
November 25, 2022
But the numbers have increased greatly since the years you refer to Jerry.
40,000 so far this year from just one route for example.
November 25, 2022
@P2; That was my point, duh! Whatever has happened since 1979 is the fault of the political ideology that displaced post war Socialism and the more general post-war consensus, I’m not disputing the numbers, but the cause, and who to blame.
November 25, 2022
You derided the post by fishknife by saying there has been illegal immigration for decades.
That was your original point.
My post was pointing out that whilst there had been illegal immigration for decades that there had been a huge increase recently.
PS
No need for “duh!”
November 26, 2022
An interesting point about why people want to come to Britain is in the so-called FT Week-end Essay by Horatio Clare ‘The English understand us: Hope and despair on the Calais migrant shore’ (26-27/11/2022).
November 26, 2022
@P2; You still miss MY point, because you are fixated on soundbite headline numbers that ignore the causes of the problem.
Even then, how do we know only circa 40k have arrived so far this years, how many illegal migrants have landed UNDETECTED this year, the only people who know that number are the people smugglers – try thinking the issue, not just repeating soundbites, our host, everyone, have heard then already…
November 26, 2022
No I am not fixated Jerry
The amount of illegal immigration has risen considerably over the years you originally stated .
I agree with you that illegal immigration is way more than the figure I mentioned for just Channel crossings by boat.
PS
40,000 is not a soundbite it is the figure the Government stated.
November 26, 2022
@P2; You are fixated, 95% of my reply to @Fishknife wasn’t even about the migrants, it was about which political ideology has been the most predominant in the last half century, in fact I never mentioned numbers -you did! As I said, you totally missed my point, duh. Whatever…
November 26, 2022
You ended with that point.
It was your final conclusion
You write, then you deny what you meant.
That is very odd.
PS
duh! again
rather sad
November 26, 2022
@P2; “You write, then you deny what you meant.”
But I have deigned nothing. In my reply to @Fishknife I made no mention of migrant numbers, my main point was about political ideology, my footnote was to point out illegal immigration is nothing new, go read the comment again, then apologize to our host for wasting his time…
Happy Christmas!
November 27, 2022
My point was illegal immigration has increased greatly recently.
Your responsive point is that is has existed in the past.
Yes, we know that Jerry
So it’s not a very informative or useful point.
November 25, 2022
Political parties of all colours have been gripped by an absolute madness and are running this country into the ground.
When the armed forces minister cannot pay for fighting age men but the foreign office can many for an army of fighting age men to live in hotels off benefits.
The Government criticises the engrained culture of Qatar yet let millions with the same culture into the country and call us hateful if the public criticises their engrained beliefs when they arrive.
Unless the whole political class is replaced, and a revolution in ideas happens, we are doomed to become a bankrupt nation at war with itself.
November 25, 2022
Javelin
It will not be a revolution of ideas it will just be a revolution by the people.
November 25, 2022
The Government criticises the engrained culture of Qatar yet let millions with the same culture into the country and call us hateful if the public criticises their engrained beliefs when they arrive.
And not just the government. This view that we should let anyone arrive if they come is ingrained across the whole left leaning middle/upper middle classes who are less affected by it but wish to flagellate themselves over imperial self loathing. There is a comment above about the ignorance of the greens and Labour in this regard and it is on the money.
November 25, 2022
Javelin, can one of the news agencies out there, the BBC, please check if these unprocessed boat crossing immigrants’ costs are coming out of ‘the foreign aid budget’? If the problems are coming to our door as well as the costs we have in Jordan and other off-site processing centres we need to make sure that is the budget used, so as not to strip our military, schools, social care, hospitals etc. of money.
How many people are being accepted to stay each month, what happens then, do the handouts stop, go find a job if you want to now stay. We don’t just give accommodation and free money to British people willy-nilly. Unless you’re a single parent.
November 25, 2022
Apparently, the Home Office staff object is to clear 3 migrant claims a week, with a total of 1000 people doing it. So that bodes well, when we get between 500 and 1000 arriving every day in dinghies and a huge backlog already.
Why does it take so long. With the Albanians surely a piece of paper with a stamp ‘refused’ on it and a coach to the airport same day is all is needed.
November 25, 2022
@graham1946; But if their Albanian Passports are now at the bottom of the English Channel … the HO first need to prove they are ‘just’ Albanians, that takes time, it takes case workers, before the actual decision making process can even start, and when a decision has been reached, it was so much easier when the UK was a signatory to the Dublin Regulation…
November 25, 2022
Graham, now you’ve made me wonder how the decision is made, what takes so long that only three people per week per HO worker can be processed? We are being tied up in knots by a joke system.
November 25, 2022
Don’t process any – they’ve came from a safe third country therefore the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 kicks in
November 26, 2022
The 2002 NIA Act has had its sections 44, 55, 82, 84, 104 superseded in subsequent years. The version in force is the one including the 30/10/2022 revision. (See legislation.gov.uk). The main difference (I could see going rapidly through it) concerns the possibilities for appealing the decisions.
November 25, 2022
@Javalin; Your more coherent argument is surely one of current economic and taxation policy, not immigration per se. If the Home or FOC Office did not have to spend money on accommodating illegal migrants do you honestly think the MOD would see any of those savings, the populist political pressure would for further tax cuts, or the paying down of our national debt caused by 50 odd years of woke economic policies.
November 25, 2022
The Honourable Gentleman Mr Redwood,s words speak volumes of common sense, sustainable country development and management. Why are we not able as the general public to install such a team in government with the appropriate accountability measures, or has our system of democratic governance run its course and appears to be almost unmanageable??.
November 25, 2022
I think the answer is that the parties choose from a pool of greasy pole climbers who will toe the party leaders’ line and not cause any trouble. One minute the leader is God, then the next one comes along and the deny even knowing the previous one and start boot licking and so on. No ideas, no convictions needed. The worst Parliament we have ever had. Might as well wrap it all up, there is no opposition.
November 25, 2022
We all know the purpose of immigration from chosen regions and it ain’t nowt to do with the labour market or the economy. ‘rubbing the Tories in diversity’ may at first seem an innocent and innocuous comment by Labours Powell but its purpose is nothing less than an ideological war to destroy a cultural identity, its democracy and a nation. by picking apart all that had gone before. I believe they call it Cultural Marxism.
The Tories have been forced to accept the Left’s narrative. The true victim is a nation’s people confused, angry and exposed to a vile and destructive ideology seeking to destroy reality, the truth and certainty
I would almost say the governing class now actively enjoy rubbing our noses in it
November 25, 2022
Nobody was ‘forced’ to accept the Lefts narrative. The CONS chose to. The electorate didn’t and never will.
November 25, 2022
They were forced through the left wing’s (very clever) narrative of “The Nasty Party” and such like. It is a left wing trick that must not be fallen for at any cost!
But the tories fell for it most unwarily.
It is very much like paying a blackmailer.
They never go away and the demands escalate.
But there was no telling/warning them was there…they were too busy appeasing and virtue signalling.
November 25, 2022
@Shirley M; “The electorate didn’t and never will.”
Nonsense. Unless you’re trying to do a ‘Trump’, claim massive election fraud, who voted for the current Conservative manifesto, if not the electorate?! What is more, if you think the 2019 Tory manifesto is the “Lefts narrative” you are likely telling us far more about how far to the right your own politics are then anyone else’s.
November 25, 2022
Exactly – even if it’s proposed by the Tory party.
November 25, 2022
+1spot on. Deliberate.
The numbers are an estimate not head count. This shows there is a serious security issues as the Tories do not know who is here or not, who is falsely claiming welfare etc. the numbers are far worse. Answer: more tax!
Sunak just lost £11.8 billion I wonder why! Get the idiots out.
November 25, 2022
It seems so. The policy clearly depresses wages & GDP per cap at least in the short & medium term making everyone poorer other than perhaps Serco, hotel owners, the Lifeboats, Lawyers and others involved in this industry. These people will largely low paid and will never pay sufficient in taxes for the extra services they need, schools, universities, language lessons, police, roads, health care, dentistry, social services…they also depress others earning lowering tax take overall. So then we get higher and higher rates and the doom loop. The richer & better paid leave ~ 500k lower paid arrive circa 1 million. Together with the idiotic lockdowns, test and trace, HS2, the net zero insanity, net harm vaccines, taxes at absurdly high levels and other vast waste & gross incompetence is it any wonder we have such a mess.
November 25, 2022
+1 Dom.
November 25, 2022
+1. Yesterday Klaus Schwab, the man hobnobbing with Sunak at the recent climate conference, said that the model for the new world was Communist China.
November 25, 2022
God forbid !
November 25, 2022
So thats why they appointed Hunt as chancellor
November 25, 2022
The Tories have not only accepted it but become it. The latest weapon in their armoury being Wokery. I pray for a return of TWTWTW and other satirical outlets to destroy this evil nonesense with lahghter.
November 25, 2022
TW3 to Brits by the way!
November 25, 2022
Cultural Marxism is a made-up, nonsense, bogeyman term to sound clever and to scare the gullible.
It carries as much sense as “Constitutional Magnetism” or “Constructional Mercantilism”
November 25, 2022
or even ‘meaningful society using a leftie, Marxist idealogy’?
November 26, 2022
“The Tories have been forced to accept the Left’s narrative.”
Why, with an 80 seat majority?
It appears that the Tories are rubbing the Tories’ noses in diversity.
November 25, 2022
Absolutely disgraceful isn’t it.
November 25, 2022
We seem to be running the policies the Infosys board would want, rather than the policies the British people want.
Clear detailed instances of this.
Absolutely disgraceful.
November 25, 2022
This country for decades has allowed all these groups at the first sign of a problem to start screaming about discrimination be it of colour, race, political and religious beliefs. An army of lawyers and legal organisations have been allowed to fight through the whole legal system changed our laws and the politicians have just kept giving. What in reality have they really achieved? From the state of this country today, not a lot.
November 25, 2022
Indeed vast damage has been done.
“The government wants to cut CO2 output” says JR but why do they? No sensible reason to do so. It is vital tree, crop and plant food and we live in a relative dearth of CO2, there is no climate emergency, the UK produces less than 1% of manmade CO2 and anyway the “solutions” pushed – public transport, EVs, walking, cycling, wind farms, solar, green hydrogen, heat pumps… do not even save CO2 to any significant degree anyway when properly analysed.
Time for the government to follow some real science and logic for once will that be a first for them?
Also they need to find out why we have all cause UK deaths running at 200+ a day above normal (nearly all non Covid). Is it NHS negligence & delays, vaccine damage, long covid, ambulance delays, suicides? What is the breakdown what are the causes of these many extra deaths? Do they not even want to find out? It seems they just want to ignore it. Higher deaths than for much of the Covid period but silence for the government and their “experts”. Quite easy to analyse this but they clearly do not want to?
November 25, 2022
‘Where is our new city for last year’s people?’ Indeed. But I don’t want to see a new city built on our countryside.
Just back from my first long-haul holiday in three years. I allowed myself seven hours to travel by ‘RailAir’ from Portsmouth to Heathrow – a car-drive of less than two hours. My train was cancelled because of ‘staff shortages’. At Woking, the coach was delayed by an hour, being snagged in a dreadful traffic jam. The taxi-drivers at the station shouted at each other in Asian dialects. I arrived at the Departure gate with no minutes to spare. Deductions? We have imported too many people, with zero or wrong skill-sets, are too generous with ‘Welfare’, and our infrastructure is straining. You, the political class, have done this to the country I love.
November 25, 2022
At least you still love? I think millions are starting to wish they had escaped overseas years ago1
November 25, 2022
Spot on SW. Many years ago in Terminal 3 LHR while waiting for foreign business colleagues I used to play an ISpy game of spot the Englishman. It is easier on the front in Benidorm.
November 25, 2022
On the train from London on Tuesday, I was bitten by lice.
November 25, 2022
Once again John Redwood I agree with every point you make. How can this socialist conservative Government plough on with an agenda that is not supported by members of the Party or voters in the Country? How do we rid the Civil Service of people who put their own politics before the will of the people. How can Net Zero and supporting Ukraine in a war with Russia be top priorities and cost millions when not once have the people been asked?
November 25, 2022
Lesley, your conflation of support for Ukraine and Net Zero fanaticism is false. Opposing adventurism by a dictator is common-sense because eventually he will turn on you. Supporting the ruin of this country’s infrastructure, industry and prosperity in support of a lost cause – we could close down our entire nation and within two years the developing n would have eliminated any CO2 gains – is doubly foolish. Far better to use our shale gas good fortune to finance development of small nuclear plants. When people are desperate they use any resource to allieviate that desperation, and unilateral prosperity destruction would surely bring that response. Look at Germany for example, turning to lignite, that filthy fossil fuel, to keep its lights on.
JF
November 25, 2022
JF – That’s a reversal of what actually happened (Ukraine) Russia was poked and prodded by NATO for decades.
November 25, 2022
and when the USSR forced union got broken up, how many countries ran away?
November 25, 2022
‘Opposing adventurism by a dictator is common-sense because eventually he will turn on you’
Very well said as is all of your comment.
November 25, 2022
No common sense in intervening in a war where none of our interests are involved. About as sensible as interfering in a dog fight by grabbing one of the dogs by the ears.
November 25, 2022
This country as painfully and bloody it might get when supposedly judged by our so called peers, has got to forthwith stop this madness of trying to be all things to all people.
When I went and lived in others countries it was their rules regulations and conditions. Accept them or leave.
It can be done and it works very well it just takes the will to do it and enforce it.
November 25, 2022
Accept them or leave while supporting yourself I think
November 25, 2022
Good morning.
MASS IMMIGRATION will be written on the Conservative Party tombstone after the next general election.
And unlike Count Dracula it will not rise from the grave.
November 25, 2022
+1
That does seem logical BUT..
The hard left does like Starmer…
And now it has high hopes of the socialist Tory party.
Really…it is all beyond belief!
November 25, 2022
it ought to read ‘ They blindly carried on’
November 25, 2022
Sir John, I agree whole-heartedly with the points you make.
May I suggest that when you are asked by a ‘bleeding heart’ interviewer why the UK should not have completely open doors to all and sundry, you respond by asking about the problematic regimes of the countries from which the ‘asylum-seekers’ are fleeing. Surely the answer is to rectify the problem in their home states?
November 25, 2022
SM: when I chat with a ‘bleeding heart’ I ask them how many people in the world would come to the UK, if they were able and the UK allowed people from any country to apply for asylum while in their own country. They struggle to give a coherent answer so I ask them if would be thousands, millions, or billions, and how many we should allow in, and who we should refuse. At which point the racist and xenophobe and other accusations start flowing. You cannot reason with religious zealots.
November 25, 2022
I have wondered if a country is so appalling we have to accept asylum seekers from it, what are we doing maintaining trade or diplomatic relations with them? It seems a slight case of double standards, and if a threshold was established where upon being required to accept asylum seekers from a country meant a cut off of trade travel etc. political and business interests would be ensuring very few countries would ever cross that threshold, and we would have few if any asylum seekers.
November 25, 2022
It will totally piss off a lot of the so called do gooders and charities but when the bonfire for the quangos is finally ignited throw onto it all these rules, regulations and laws that don’t actually help people but encourages them to come and get benefits and become a bigger burden to the taxpayers. It is simple if you don’t pay into the system you can’t take out of it.
November 25, 2022
@turboterrier; Yes and upon that bonfire of policies and quangos should go our current education polices. It has been the profit driven over commercialization of Higher education, and its enlargement, compared prior to the mid 1990s, that has driven up the numbers of foreign student entering the UK, just as it has driven up the numbers of UK school leavers who now fail to enter the workplace as a means to obtain ‘on the job’ qualifications – which in turn has driven the need for non student inward migration too.
November 25, 2022
I Don’t think employers would be looking to use those students in your scenario Jerry but overall very much agree with you
November 25, 2022
+1
November 25, 2022
Your party Sir John as had 12years along with a vast majority of MPs to pass laws to get this migration crisis sorted, well the public will not be fooled into voting your lot back in at the next General Election or labour or the liberals, the reform party will pick up a lot of the red wall seats and don’t expect any deals from them to step aside like the Brexit party did in the 2019 election,
fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me , you’ve only yourselves to blame
November 25, 2022
” …so many fields are coming under the concrete mixer.”
No there aren’t.
November 25, 2022
Roy. Where the hell do you live? Its’ certainly not Sussex or Shropshire where villages and farmers fields are being built on all the time. Open your eyes.
November 25, 2022
Even here in industrial West Yorkshire the green belt is now fast disappearing. Beauty spots where town dwellers have found recreation for generations are now becoming estates of “affordable” or “executive” housing with mocking names like “the Orchards” and *Meadow View” – but of course with no additional supporting infrastructure.
November 25, 2022
ever been to Wokingham district? I thought not.
November 25, 2022
Our (previously) small town is completely surrounded by thousands of new houses, build on good arable land. We have no extra doctors, dentists or expanded hospitals, but we do have more supermarkets!
November 25, 2022
If NZ and OZ can get immigration right why can’t we? We all know some immigration can be beneficial but only when you need those people. When Australia wants firefighters or plumbers etc they take in people with those qualifications but only if they can get employment and most importantly support themselves and their family and not be a burden on the state. Can’t we even get that right? Our country is a real mess and we have Labour, the Conservatives and Libdims to thank. God only knows what tourists think when they visit now. It’s a shadow of what it once was.
November 25, 2022
UK. Just take its share from EU to show solidarity! ECHR applies so no control or means to deport.
November 25, 2022
A great number of EU countries just ignore the ECHR and nothing happens to them …why are we following it to the letter
November 27, 2022
Given you talked so often about the ECHR you surely know that the ECHR cannot make laws or change national justice systems. It advised changes and countries decide whether or not they accept the advice.
The best countries (aka the most disciplined) are:
Czech Republic only 3%of ECHR decisions are not implemented,
Austria 8%, UK 9%, Montenegro, Estonia, Latvia with 10%, Sweden, Switzerland with 16%, Germany 17%, France, Norway with 18% (according to liberties.eu, 25/02/2020).
The worst are: Azerbaïdjan 95%, Russia 89%, Hungary 74%, Ukraine 67%, Turkey 63%.
November 25, 2022
You have put it well and very clearly Sir John.
However the CBI want mass immigration as do most of our MP’s. Apparently critical thinking, or thinking at all, does not exist in Parliament. This is also evident in energy policy and in all the policy surrounding Covid19.
Your party does not just want to lose the next election, they want complete annihilation of the party, which may not be a bad thing.
November 25, 2022
Militant couldn’t have done better!
November 25, 2022
I see beautiful Torquay is the latest town to be hit with illegal asylum seekers. How are our towns which rely on tourism going to fare next summer? How attractive will they look to tourists? Torquay council is taking the government to court over the decision to use a third large hotel there. Tourism is tge life bloody of many towns and cities. It’s bloody madness John. Your government has to get a grip. Come out of the ECHR and make our laws water tight regarding illegal immigration.
November 25, 2022
Sorry. That should read life blood.
November 25, 2022
Totally agree, I just do not understand this government’s policy, surely we are going to drown.
I notice almost every street interview rarely contains an Anglo Saxon.
November 25, 2022
And every advert and model when you look to buy clothes online.
November 25, 2022
It is blindingly obvious this Conservative Government has no real desire to deal with immigration – both legal and illegal.
For illegal migration, it has no real solutions at dealing with the illegal migrant crossings, does not want to pull out of the ECHR (which isn’t fit for purpose), nor deport people who clearly have no legal rights to be here. The £7 million a day spent on hotel accommodation will only go one way -upwards!
The Government needs to stop giving our money and social housing away for ‘free’ to people who have no legal right to be here. It is wholly unfair that Serco (with our money) are paying private landlords up to five years worth of rent and bills to house illegal migrants. Does this Government not grasp how angry that makes many people – especially those that have to go out to work to pay for those things??
If you also axe the ‘freebies’, the pull factor in coming to the UK is massively reduced.
For legal migration, few have a big issue with this, as long as the numbers are controlled, those that come are a net benefit to the economy, and the lower end of the market isn’t flooded with cheap labour.
That said, the path to growth isn’t simply by allowing more people into the UK. Especially if a large number of those ultimately become welfare dependant. I’ve read reports recently that 1.2M not of British origin are on out of work benefits. Why not get these people back into work to fill the labour shortage, before Importing yet more labour?
The continued failure to deal with this issue is going to cost the Conservatives dearly at the next GE. Something that could have totally been avoided if the Conservatives listened to what people were trying to tell them.
November 25, 2022
Tory party has no plan to reduce it wants more as per Hunt and OBR! Have they forgot last week!!
November 25, 2022
No, if Tory party enacted their manifesto to the people instead of deliberately lying.
November 25, 2022
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
My conclusion is this Government wants to destroy our country and the British people.
Time is now short. It’s like the EU you cannot change the Conservative party from within as it’s been hijacked and is on a downward spiral into oblivion. The few MPs who still believe in a future for this country need to move to the Reform party and call out this government for what it is before we are destroyed. You owe it to future generations.
As you say Sir John, nobody is taking your advice so be brave and do something about it.
November 25, 2022
Sir John is an effective and necessary part of the fake Tory veneer.
He is part of the problem.
Sorry, Sir John, but you are.
November 25, 2022
Will Suella Braverman resign like last time when she realises that Rishi has no intention of stopping illegal immigration? Thought not!
November 25, 2022
I’d like to know what exactly Suella is doing? Fiddling while Rome burns.
November 25, 2022
Have you noticed the addition of ‘over time’ from both in recent responses. They are both committed to the reduction of immigration… over time. Mr Sunak’s priority ( he says ) is the ‘illegal’ immigration issue which I would have thought would require something fast and radical. Be prepared for an influx today, bright & calm, last 10 days of Zero and all the TikTok adverts apparently all in place the last few days with a guarantee of a safe crossing today. Nice.
November 25, 2022
Also this Tory government has no intention of repealing the ECHRs
November 25, 2022
I have also been a long term and sometimes a lone voice pointing out if we keep on inviting more people into the country we need to put in a lot more energy capacity, reservoirs, roads, schools, hospitals and homes to provide for them. I have explained that cheap labour from abroad is dear labour for the taxpayers as it entails many more subsidised homes and public services.
Why are you a lone voice? – what is in it for the other parties?
Why is unsustainability so popular? Covid lockdowns – Net Zero – Immigration – Pensions – Benefits.
When will any government focus on what is sustainable and of real benefit to their voters?
November 25, 2022
Doesn’t the ‘lone voice’ convey a message? Sir John might suffer a massive drop in majority, and find himself very lonely on the opposite benches. It will be hard to find a spot previously occupied without feeling the ghost of who sat there!
November 25, 2022
Are you trying to say that the majority of the country want massive immigration and cultural suffocation?
If so why have the Comservatives won every election where they gave a promise to reduce immigration?
I think you are a little misguided
November 25, 2022
they won for different reasons.
Labour always make a fruit and nut case of the economy.
A Ref was promised.
Corbyn is still seen as somewhat deranged.
Tories are better liars.
November 25, 2022
But now its reversing
Tories are making a fruit and nut case of the economy
Labour are better liars
November 25, 2022
Sir John, there are only two possible explanations for the importation of 504,000 legal immigrants (net) plus 50,000 criminal migrants.
1. The Government is completely incompetent and is incapable of doing the basics to control the borders
2. The last Conservative Manifesto (like the ones before) was a blatant lie and they had no intention of implementing it.
Or – I suppose – it could be a combination of both (1) and (2) above.
Either way, your Party is destroying this country. And since there are a great many ex-Conservative and conservative Brexit “somewhere people” voters out there, they are going to destroy your Party. And it’s thoroughly deserved.
November 25, 2022
Donna,
Not incompetence. It is deliberate. They want mass immigration. Look at OBR report last week and Hunt’s view.
November 25, 2022
They will get such a kicking that BLM will take the knee for them.
November 25, 2022
3. The Uniparty isn’t governing in the interests of the British people but in the interests of some external agency, as are those governments of most Western European nations.
November 25, 2022
Government and Parliament is just a shambles, now being unfit for purpose, so called democracy is failing fast as politicians fail to listen to the majority.
November 25, 2022
The need for migrants stems from a need for skills. It’s cheaper to get someone from abroad than train someone from this country, who you then have to pay well enough to afford a house and raise a family.
The companies that do train find their staff poached by companies who prefer to put their investment into poaching rather than training (not that they have people who can do the training anyway). The second category is the more successful economically so in the end no one trains.
Then comes a skill shortage because no one has been trained. What do you know?
November 25, 2022
As usual our host manages to diagnose the symptoms of this problem quite perceptively while carefully avoiding asking the question of what’s causing it, and taking particular care not to ask who is behind it. But if we do ask who wants things this way, we don’t have to look far to find the answer, even though Sir John may not want to tell us. Last year the Federation of Small Businesses reacted in outrage when the government tried to make their businesses pay some of the social costs of their migrant labour, and the cheap migrant labour model is of course the preferred policy of the CBI, as they repeatedly state at their conferences.
The business community, large or small, does not need to donate to the Labour Party to get the migrant labour it wants.
November 25, 2022
‘I have always been clear the growth I want is in income per head, not in the number of people.’ Good – let’s have that, GDP/head as KPI 1. Three others:
(2) The national deficit.
(3) The ‘balance of payments’.
(4) The average age of the first-time (British) homebuyer.
The Conservative Party would be in a much better political position if it concentrated more on those.
November 25, 2022
Sea Warrior
(4) you’ve got to consider the average age of marriage/partnering and the average age of finishing education before people start earning. It is often age 21, not 16, which has advanced everything five years.
When comparisons are made, people used to leave school at 16, be married from 18-22, and buy a home together. It is much harder to buy alone. So solo purchasing and couple purchasing is also a consideration.
November 25, 2022
This is not only a disaster being inflicted on us, but also represents a complete failure of democracy. For a decade we have been voting for Governments to get immigration down to the 10s of thousands, yet the political classes deliver us immigration of 504,000. Is there any sense of shame felt about this in Westminster ? Probably not , they probably feel morally superior doing the opposite policies us racist plebs are voting for. What is the point of voting if the political classes don’t deliver and go their own sweet way?
Something which gives us a picture of the chasm there is between us and the political classes was represented by Tim Loughton’s smug what if questioning of Suella Braverman , where he was worrying himself silly over where there might not be a fast track route from the back of beyond straight into our country. No doubt this got him a few drinks at the bar in Westminster , though I doubt his constituents will be quite so pleased.
Hansard has a website ‘They work for you’, no they don’t!
November 25, 2022
Something the Tories really need to explain properly:
Tough on immigration is NOT being racist (Tough on immigration is about ‘charity begins at home’ (and ‘charity begins at home’ doesn’t mean we don’t help vulnerable people abroad either but in the right context / most effective way and without forgetting our responsibilities firstly towards people back home).
Patriotism is NOT nationalism. Patriotism is about legitimate and healthy love of one’s country. Nationalism isn’t really love of one’s country but just seeing one’s country as superior to others. In other words, patriotism stems from healthy self-esteem. Nationalism stems from someone very insecure about themselves!
November 25, 2022
Well said, Ed. However, this government hate patriots and they are doing everything they can to turn love into hate. It’s working too. I hate what they doing to our once great country.
November 25, 2022
I, and many others, suspect that Suella Braverman would change things, if she could! But she doesn’t have the power, and the government seem actually quite happy to allow unfettered immigration. Question is, why are they happy to flood our country with mostly military aged young men? And why are illegal immigrants being treated as a priority over the British?
I think that migrants have been treated as a priority for decades, as I can remember a woman behind the till in a shop, telling me about her sister having got to the top of the housing list for a larger flat; but at the last minute, it was given to a migrant family. This was possibly 25-30 years ago.
November 25, 2022
I’ve heard many similar tales. The Brits are always last in the queue. Immigrants get priority and protection, even the criminal element.
November 25, 2022
12 years we have had a supposed Conservative Gov. telling us they would control illegal immigration. During that time it has gone up and up. No wonder really though. Not when the illegals know the chance of being sent back is around zero. That they will be housed in four or five star hotels until council flats or houses can be found for them. That they will get three free meals a day. That they will get free access to the NHS (and it really is free to them) That they will get a daily financial allowance. That they will get access to mobile phones to call their friends already here and arrange meeting up with them (and disappearing)
If all of that is not depressing enough.
When Labour win the next election (as looks increasingly likely) Of course nothing will change, they will be just as incompetent.
Sometimes I’m glad I’m in my twilight years. But I fear for my children and grandchild.
November 25, 2022
It’s over, Sir John.
Even the BBC seems aghast at how far the Tories have gone.
Your party now faces extinction.
November 25, 2022
What I find amazing is there seems to be no sense of self preservation. You might have thought a political party facing obliteration would be moving heaven and earth to salvage some support , but no we have Sunak binding the hands of the Home Secretary from achieving anything , throwing a few more £10s of millions at the French, signing trade deals with countries that include bringing in more immigrants, and the likes of Tim Loughton wanting to find ways to ship in more migrants. You can only come to the conclusion they don’t want to exist as a political party. They have given up.
November 25, 2022
If new people entering to stay consume more resource than any values they ever add to our nation, paying them incentives to leave would be affordable.
November 25, 2022
In a great number of countries they’d just put you on the first aeroplane without appeal if you still don’t have resources to fund yourself, no longer in employment or you’re a criminal
November 25, 2022
All self inflicted – Should never have ignored the voters
November 25, 2022
I totally agree with what you say Sir John, why do we have so many fools in Westminster?
Is it because they are isolated from reality by their extreme wealth?
November 25, 2022
well many can hide away on their estates…
November 25, 2022
The Govt acts like a head without a brain inside.
November 25, 2022
or a brain with no eyes, ears, mouth or limbs connected.
November 25, 2022
What New Labour and successive governments have done regarding mass immigration is NOT kind or humanitarian or edgy. Nor is it FAIR.
In fact it is and has always been downright CRUEL.
It has been done for purely ideological political reasons which also underpinned all the wars of recent years ( the wars also served to create mass movement of people).
Who would claim it kind to cram too many cats/dogs/pigs into too small a cage with too little food and warmth?
November 25, 2022
An unhealthy, and unhelpful, fixation on a single word, “Migrants”…
The Net Migration figures highlighted only show the number of living people entering or leaving the country, what is also important to consider is the number of deaths and (indigenous) births, the over all population figures. Whilst true 500,000 extra people need “a city the size of Liverpool” conversely it is also true a fall of 500,000 in the population means a city the size of Liverpool either needs to be demolished if it is not to become urban blight.
November 25, 2022
So Jerry
Why does the country feel overcrowded and why the need to use hotels but riddle me this…
If there are no entry requirements to come *here* (where full and free state support is on offer) but there are entry requirements to go *there* (with no free state support on offer) in which direction do you think the brains, money and criminality is going ?
Why is the NHS not awash with doctors and nurses ?
With 500,000 (or whatever) coming here legally why no fruit pickers among them ?
November 25, 2022
@NLA; I can’t answer why YOU feel overcrowded, no one can. Why does the HO/FOC need to use hotels, because the UK lacks enough/any govt owned housing stock perhaps, and after 30 years of the post Cold War dividend (haha) we likely don’t even have spare MOD barracks either. The UK is no longer signatory to the Dublin Regulation, nor the Schengen Agreement, might that explain why migrants now want to reach the UK BEFORE formalizing their asylum documents. Why does the NHS lack staff, the pay is crap! I’m sure, if allowed, many illegal migrants would be more than happy to work, picking fruit etc, thus paying their way.
November 25, 2022
Jerry – I feel crowded because there is a water shortage, an energy shortage, a school shortage, an NHS shortage, a dentist shortage, a housing shortage, traffic jams, crowded trains, a police shortage… it goes on and on.
I could believe that it were a shortage of dentists or doctors were it not for the suspicious fact that everything else is in shortage too.
November 25, 2022
@NLA; Basically you’re trying to scapegoat current migrants for past political and corporate failings; our water and energy shortages have not been caused by inward migration, many areas that have a shortage of school places do not have significant influxes of migrants, without inward migration the NHS would have even less Doctors, Dentists & Nurses!
November 25, 2022
Is that why all essential services are struggling to cope. The population figures (which are probably greatly underestimated) say different.
November 25, 2022
The recent ONS inward number of approx 1.1m, with 600,000 leaving makes no reference to the approx 600,000 deaths annually – so the balance between the original make-up of the population and the new annual one is 1.1m + 600,000 who died + 600,000 left = 2.3m changed.
November 25, 2022
@MT; Your “2.3m” figure is some what confusing!
On those figures, if 1.1m arrived, 600,000 left, that equates to a net migration of +500,000 (as the ONS say), but if in addition 600,000 people have died that means the net (adult?) population figure is actually minus 100,000 compared to last year, we have 100,000 fewer people living here in the UK than we did the year before, even though immigration is higher, our crowded island is actually less crowded…
November 25, 2022
jerry – – -ever considered births took place?
November 26, 2022
@MT, Indeed I did, hence my query, and if the birth numbers are missing from the figure you gave who missed them off, you or the ONS, and why?
November 25, 2022
Hear, hear !
November 25, 2022
It is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid concluding that the Conservative government’s current policy towards legal immigration is one of speaking of one course of action and taking the exact opposite, and that its policy towards illegal immigration is broadly the same with added insult to injury via a head in the sand approach. As Enoch Powell said in 1974, “it is unworthy of British politics, and dangerous to Parliament itself, for a government to try to steal success by telling the public one thing during an election and doing the opposite afterwards”.
With two years to go before what promises to be a grim GE, perhaps some of our more principled MPs ought to think long and hard about what a particularly principled MP, Douglas Carswell, did in 2014.
November 25, 2022
The trouble is Sir John, there are to many people that are now at the centre of power that have an entirely different agenda. Criminal migration along with real migration are mere tools used to manipulate the people.
Many of us responding here with comments have been pointing this out for weeks, now even David Frost in an item in todays Telegraph is reiterating the desperate attempts being mounted.
“Remainers are softening us up to rejoin the EU
Their whole campaign to return the UK to the orbit of Brussels”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/24/remainers-softening-us-rejoin-eu/
“This is as I predicted. Dismissive of public opinion they may be, but the die-hard Remainers still aren’t dense enough to mount a full-on rejoin campaign. Instead it will happen bit by bit.”
Then you get similar – “The technocrats are firmly in charge of Britain
Sunak’s climbdown suggests real power resides in Threadneedle Street, not Number 10 “
We haven’t got a UK Government let alone a Tory Government, we have rule by the unelected unaccountable.
November 25, 2022
Too many people, and most are costing the state far more than they will ever pay in. So depressing the living standards and largely living off the backs of others.
November 25, 2022
Excellent article today SirJ, but you’re alone in the Tory parliamentary party with those views …start with repealing the ECHRs and enforcing the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002
November 25, 2022
Start with an embargo of all foreign students at our taxpayer funded universities
Rise immigration foreign workers salary to £50k with no state benefits and surety of £50k from employer
November 25, 2022
glen, I looked up ‘How much are UK tuition fees for international students?’ In 2021/22, annual tuition fees for international undergraduate students in the UK* started at £11,400 (US $14,100). This rose to as much as £32,081 (US $39,670). 23 May 2022
There are many private and government scholarships for international students in UK!!
This is annoying because there weren’t any undergrad scholarships for my English kids when they applied and they all got first-class degrees from Top Unis.
November 25, 2022
The issues is that foreign students don’t go home, we encourage and allow them to work and access to our social benefits, they over stay, the pay only for the first year and get lost in the system – but there isn’t any enforcement to find them, or fine them for over staying, or fine the universities
Why is the taxpayer teaching the world before our own
November 25, 2022
Glen, Students on full time UK degree-level courses holding a Student visa are permitted to work in the UK: Up to 20 hours pw during University term time.
Universities say if they don’t have international students they’d have to close courses. It needs investing. Do the students get benefits? The only students I know that got benefits were EU students on post-grad courses.
I know a Singaporean and he went back because the Navy paid for his degrees then he owed them I think five years service. I know two Americans and they both went back home at the end of their courses. I do know an American that stayed here and got a very select job that British grads would cut their hand off for.
November 25, 2022
The points of our host are valid.
Mark Spencer’s reply which indicates Britain’s food production is adequate needs more serious analysis. We are massively underproducing. That is clear from the empty fields and putting solar panels and windmills in them isn’t going to make food production better but reduce food production.
November 25, 2022
Precisely Sir John. How can this administration, indeed most politicians at Westminster, continue to push the flawed mantra of the biased CCC advocating Net Zero, BEV’s, Air Source Heat Pumps, etc etc, yet simultaneously accept hundreds of thousands of unskilled migrants, including nearly fifty thousand illegals into our country? It’s complete madness and utterly unacceptable.
November 25, 2022
Michael Saxton :
It is because our civil service/quangos, our institutions, our police and judiciary have all succumbed to Robert Conquest’s second and third laws of politics and additionally now has the Conservative Party as a result of being 12 years in power.
Since the Conservative Party have fallen into the far left traps of mass immigration and Net Zero policies they are demonstrating that Robert Conquest’s first law of politics also applies for they have no idea what these policies mean for the long-term prosperity and stability of the UK.
November 25, 2022
Fully Agree +1
November 25, 2022
The simple answer is that they have forgotten who they are supposed to serve.
They now serve a globalist God, a collective entity that has no desires for the common man, other than that we should serve them.
November 25, 2022
And they change their tune and promise us the earth at the next election when they want our vote …I just don’t trust them anymore
November 25, 2022
@GC = A thought shared by an increasing number
November 25, 2022
We sometimes have to look behind the headline figures to understand the real story.
The horrific 500,000 is a great sensational headline then you note the greatest chunk/majority(202,000) are those coming to the UK are to take up University places. 2 things here they have been missing in recent years due to the pandemic and Universities actively peruse these students, they pay more into the University than UK Students. A commercial project for profit by our educators, you could say to the detriment of the indigenous.
The concerning bit is the criminal entry into the UK. They pay vast amounts to people traffickers, yet pay nothing when they get here and demand luxury hotels. It is simple it is illegal therefore a criminal offence to enter the UK uninvited. As foreign criminals in normal law they are not permitted to work in the UK. These people are not fleeing persecution, unless the EU and in particular France are no longer safe places to be.
This Criminal Element appears to have the hand of Macron behind them, create maximum agitation for the UK.
More stupidly is the ECHR and the taxpayer funding of lawyers to manipulate the situation to the detriment of UK Citizen human rights. Human Rights laws do not exist in this manner in free sovereign democracies, it their parliaments that make, amend and repeal laws. Human Rights are a construct of bureaucratic dictatorships
Then pleas remember these figures are from the ONS with the usual, but enhanced get out clause ‘The estimates within this bulletin are experimental and provisional’
November 25, 2022
If Macron’s hand is behind illegal immigration into Britain, whose hand is behind mass migration into France?
November 25, 2022
Pardon me if I am wrong, but I thought foreign students were not classed as immigrants but are actually part of the 1.2m Visas issued. The 500,000 immigrants are here to stay, permanently. The students too, most likely. We so rarely deport anyone, including violent foreign criminals.
November 26, 2022
@Shirley M – there are 2 classes of students, students to study, students that are permitted to work while studying. one has a VISA the other classed as an imigrant. This then gets cloudy with dependants of students added in the same colomn. We shouldn’t miss read the figures, although they are supposed to from actual figures after the event, the ONS goes on to say ‘The estimates within this bulletin are experimental and provisional’ i.e. they are guesses at best
November 25, 2022
Why is the government pretending it cannot control its own borders?
November 25, 2022
Good question, they’re quick at blaming everyone under the sun rather than enforcing the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002
November 27, 2022
So the NIA Act 2002 is the new bee in your bonnet. This Act has received numerous modifications over the years. The version now in force is the one amended on 30/10/2022. Read THAT version and then comment.
November 25, 2022
The country is overcrowded . The infrastructure is unable to cater . There are too many “hangers-on”. Initiative and the opportunity for entrepreneurs is stifled . Words can hardly describe the economic mess we are in . My business life – that ceased over 30 years ago , was full of opportunity in this country and abroad – there were no limits that existed then . What a different picture today !. The motif seems to be ” I want something for nothing ” . Only strong and effective leadership can put a stop to it .
November 25, 2022
They are just getting ahead of the game for death toll this winter.
November 25, 2022
It is the “Conservative” government’s failure to deal with this which has lost them my vote. And the votes of many others, from what I hear. Just how out of touch are the current administration? People are extremely angry about the ruination of their country.
November 25, 2022
All those wasted promises from May, Boris, Liz and now Sunak …as someone said yesterday ‘what have the tories achieved since they’ve been in power’ nothing
November 25, 2022
Economic migrants are not necessarily, and in the majority of cases, not cultural migrants.
Thus if you import the third world you become the third world.
A nation without a defined and agreed culture will not be stable.
November 25, 2022
‘A nation without a defined and agreed culture will not be stable.’
The Conservative Party, including it appears JR, are not interested in this vital and essential necessity.
November 25, 2022
Can’t beat a good rant eh!
Boris said to the good folk of Honkers, after China’s crackdown on their democracy, come, come – welcome to come to UK ~ 3 million ppl eligible, so there’s a major part of the immigrant numbers and no sign of it slowing. No requisite “Town & Country” planning to cater for the additionals, let’s just squeeze everyone in! Utterly ludicrous, no joined up thinking.
It can only be deliberate to:
* not to have energy security when we’re laden with natural resources
* not have planned new towns/infrastructure, to cope with the population increase
* not to control immigration, nor send illegals back
* not to have streamlined the NHS or Civil Service or Councils, NOT even starting under Hunt!
* not to have growth policies to improve the lot of everyone and stop UK borrowing
It’s a beggar thy neighbour set of socialist policies… I feel we have been lied to for all this time!
12+ years is time enough to see whether your Party is up to the job…. the clear answer is no.
November 25, 2022
Thank you for taking the trouble to cancel my response this morning, obviously too near the truth. Political censorship only lasts until 2024, check the latest polls. Movement is afoot.
November 25, 2022
My reply to Dom too. Not long but an honest reflection.
November 25, 2022
Can you imagine if we were still in the EU, we’d have this 500,000 plus a further 500,000 +from the EU that we are obliged to house and pay benefits to and automatically would get a free pass into our workforce to displace people in a downturn, not prepared to work just 20 hours for minimum wage?
As well as all the RoW students that at least have to pay for their university degrees and their own lodgings, we are obliged to give UK student loans out to for tuition fees in England and accommodation loans in England (just how many of those students from 2008 from the EU aren’t paying a single penny back?), they got free university degree places in Scotland at the UK taxpayer cost; incoming students were at a much greater magnitude than UK students were able to get from the EU due to language barriers and the fact that we have more top 20 European universities in the UK than the rest.
November 25, 2022
Before the next GE is voted on we need all constituency to vote for suitable candidates to stand for election as their MP.
It is clear that many MP’s currently in THOC lack the necessary skills and knowlege. For example Government Financing.
The 40 years of taking orders from Brussels has not attracted the right applicants.
The 40 years has turned us into a third world country. Look at the state of our roads?
The date of the next GE must be soon.
November 25, 2022
Without a doubt this government is looking ltowards an election wipe out. Let’s forget about immigration, the government can control that should they wish to.
We are approaching illegal immigration all wrong.
1. We need to process all illegal immigrants.
2. Progress their claim with conditions attached .
A. I.e wearing a tag.
B. Only having one appeal.
C. Return to country of choice if appeal fails.
D. Imprisoned for 1 month if the appeal fails,then deportation as a criminal if they refuse to leave.
E. In the meantime whist their claim is going through no access to any services and certainty no hotel accommodation, we don’t even provide that for our homeless.
November 25, 2022
Spot on John, this is what most people think but not the government.
November 25, 2022
The problem, Sir John, is the government’s economic modelling is one-dimensional. It only cares about the first-line impacts of its policies and ignores the effect on the whole economy.
As you say here, more people equals more tax without considering the investment needed in new housing and infrastructure.
Similarly, they think increased income and corporation tax rates equal more tax taken. But they ignore the impact of rich taxpayers leaving the country and this impact on GDP.
More regulation is another example and usually ignores the time spent by people complying with the rules.
Interestingly the justification for government investment in roads and rail does look at the impact on the whole economy. So it is possible, and we need to start asking different questions.
November 25, 2022
High taxes, high inflation, high immigration, high energy bills, rail strikes, nurses strikes, civil service strikes, postal strikes, Scottish teacher strikes …but listening to this government nothing is wrong (and they can find the money for HS2, MPs expensors & salaries and revamping parliament)
November 25, 2022
Sadly “more people equals more tax” is far from true. ONS data circulating today suggests that only the white demographic are net contributors to the economy, paying a shed load of tax to cover our demands from the State while students, benefit claimants, shirkers and every non-white demographic does not.
November 25, 2022
Just what % of the social homes in Rochdale have immigrants in them?
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing had 13,644 homes transferred to them from the Council for £25.5m. With a promise to spend £685m over 30 years to bring homes up to standard in 2012, it has been ten years. What did they spend? The government wrote off £220m of the council’s debts. We hear all the time about private companies profiteering from ex-public works, but who has been profiteering in this organisation over the last decade? How much were they charging for this child’s house? Who was picking up the bill for the rent?
November 26, 2022
Thinking about this scandal, the HA paid just £1869 per house (+ building land, garages, shops for free). If they only charged rent of £400 pm (I’m sure they charged the government > for the housing benefit system to pay) the house would be paid off in five months! In 10 years have they spent at least £228m? Gove needs to step up.
November 25, 2022
Sir John, it’s a mess isn’t it and rumours abound that Civil Servants, emboldened by the likelihood of a Labour majority at the next GE are just not enacting policy.
Is it any wonder that Priti Patel, Suella Braverman and now Dominic Raab attracted criticism over their alleged forceful “bullying” style trying to get results from public servants? They wouldn’t survive a day in private sector professions, yet they demand and expect pay equity but serve no one other than themselves.
Meanwhile, with many still working from home are they still happily pocketing the Inner London allowances ?
On the energy front, Jeremy Hunt’s pleas to reduce our usage ring hollow as many of us have been managing units down for year only to see costs rising inexorably. I note that we’re exporting our gas and electricity on occasion, suggesting that the EU has gas storage facilities that we don’t. So at the height of winter what are the odds that they’ll draw on those reserves for EU members ahead of shipping it back to UK ?
November 25, 2022
+1
November 25, 2022
Yes well Sir John – that ‘The Government’ you are criticising today, is government by the Party of which YOU are a member. It has a massive majority since 2019 and it is supposed to now be a Party that fully supports BREXIT – as you do.
Are you sure YOU are in the correct political party?
Is the ‘Conservative Party’ nowadays, in any way a conservative party?
Is that party genuinely a party committed to getting Brexit done? It is clearly NOT a low tax small state party, which a conservative party should be.
November 25, 2022
Pauline we are all asking the same question. Sir John sounds increasingly frustrated with the status quo. Does he realise he is flogging a dead horse?
November 26, 2022
He can achieve more in than out. Where are Reckless and Carswell now, they could have been more effective working with JR now.
November 25, 2022
Mr Redwood
You say ‘if we invite 500,000 …’ The only people doing the inviting are politicians right across the House. So few MPs today object to both illegal and legal migration that not caring about the numbers, indeed, trying to ignore them is an open invitation to anyone – legal and illegal – to come into the UK and in many cases not contribute but only take, and in some cases actually do decent genuine British people harm. People really are sick to death of this whole mess.
November 25, 2022
Well said Kathy, our customs & traditions are under threat
November 25, 2022
As an example just look at this years Christmas TV ads
Sun Tzu ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting’
November 25, 2022
Dotted (or rather massively splodged) around the countryside are these large areas of housebrick, there for the pretext of ‘providing people with homes’, but lacking shops, supermarkets, GP Practices, dentists, legal services, council offices or indeed anything but the asphalt roads on which the ‘homes’ are huddled together. So each new resident piles into their separate cars and heads out along overcrowded roads to the nearest proper town, whose services are already overrun. The GPs suddenly have 25% more patients and cannot see any of them. The small local supermarket constantly runs out of supplies. Nobody can park. Conversely, delivery drivers find the new estate’s roads too narrow, cannot deliver…
The pre-existing residents sell their lovely houses for what they can get, and move elsewhere.
November 25, 2022
USA, Australia etc wouldn’t allow anyone in who couldn’t PROVE they can support themselves, pay for their housing, health and education. It’s just the Westminster leftwing legacies who think English taxpayers should support anyone who chips up.
November 25, 2022
It’s called Control of Borders, I assume you are not as old as us who can remember when we had it?
November 25, 2022
There is a report that there are now 500,000 armed men in Germany waiting for an order. Perhaps it is from their own security services, I have not had the heart to investigate further, what’s the point? It will not be acted upon, either there or here.
November 25, 2022
Totally agree with you! Why do Governments take the ‘easy’ options? Because they’re bad governments! I’d vote for you in a second!
November 25, 2022
Interesting that on another site (army rumour) they’re discussing the same topic but with the emphasis on who these illegal’s are and what terrorist links they may have, they’re also discussing why our government is about to allow the return of Shamima Begum, probably staying in a hotel or given a council house