Amazing…Cameron gets roasted on Sky but you’d never know it from the BBC’s ‘analysis’ which reads more like a Remain campaign briefing….the BBC’s chosen headline probably designed to give us confidence in Cameron’s pledge to reduce immigration (LOL)...We can control migration inside EU, says PM
The Telegraph headline gives a much more honest assessment of what went on…
It should never have been like this. The prime minister aimed to win the arguments and then rout the Europhobes to make his party electable for the future. Instead, he emerged as a man on the run. David Cameron, the fugitive.
Janet Daley in the Telegraph nailed it by pointing out who it is driving the pro-EU Remain campaign…Big Business…remember them? The big bogey men of the Left and the BBC….now apparently we must dance to their tune…both the BBC and even the Marxists like Corbyn seem to have buried their ideological differences with Big Business as they team up with the enemy to keep us in the EU. Big Business doesn’t care a hoot about people, just the bottom line….which is why they import millions of cheap workers from Europe instead of training and employing Brits on decent wages…The BBC always claimed there was a productivity puzzle, a low wages puzzle and a puzzle as to why employment kept going up in recession…the answer is über cheap workers flooding the market meaning BIG Business didn’t have to invest in new technology and techniques to increase productivity and wages…they just employed more people on lower wages.
Suddenly the BBC, and Labour, have lost interest in those questions which dominated the BBC’s coverage for years….and yet it is still going as Big Business and the EU stitch up the national public services according to this report…
EU trade deals with Canada and the US could endanger citizens’ rights to basic services like water and health, as negotiators are doing the work of some of the EU’s most powerful corporate lobby groups in pushing an aggressive market opening agenda in the public sector.
A new report released today by an international group of NGOs and trade unions (“Public services under attack“) sheds some light on the secretive collusion between big business and trade negotiators in the making of the EU’s international trade deals. It shows the aggressive agenda of services corporations with regards to TTIP and CETA, pushing for far-reaching market opening in areas such as health, cultural and postal services, and water, which would allow them to enter and dominate the markets.
Janet Daley reminds the BBC of what is going on…….
Analysis: David Cameron made it clear whose side he is really on…
Janet Daley
“Cameron won’t have won over any Tory – or Labour – Brexit voters with this performance. He had only one theme and he repeated it over and over again: the EU is Very Big. It is too big for us to risk leaving it. And all the Big Organisations (and Big Vested Interests) agree with that. There you have it. Any problems created by our membership would get worse, he claimed, if we left. That is because the economy would be weaker outside of the Big Single Market.
He looked defensive when he was asked about immigration. He looked very defensive when he was challenged about scare-mongering. He looked very, very defensive when he was accused of making indefensible promises about reducing the numbers of migrants. He returned at every question – whether it was about unlimited immigration or the impossible strains on public services – to the risk to the economy if we left the single market, but he never confronted the possibility that we could negotiate trade terms with the EU (even though that would be in the EU’s interest).
This was a depressing event. Cameron doesn’t seem to get it. Appealing to the authority of Big international organisations, Big Unions, Big Corporate Interests and the Bank of England just makes his stance look even more suspicious: like a confederacy of the Huge against ordinary people.”
There is a hilarious piece on Beitbart showing that the BBC on its blog used a tweet of a non existent Tory MP saying how great Dave’s performance was! You couldnt make it up, unless of course you are the BBC.
That has quite simply made my day, reinforcing my theory that if you stand back and watch for long enough, the Libtard machine will eventually catch up with its own tail and start eating itself.
I hope Gove goes big on how much the rest of Europe rely on trading with us.
On how being in the E.U. did bugger all for Greece’s economy.
On how much our contribution to the greedy, bloated, venal E.U. really costs us.
I hope he suggests work permits, when questioned about the need for foreign workers, meaning they can work legally and pay into our coffers as well.
I hope he stresses the cost of housing, schooling and medicating incomers who don’t pay national insurance.
I hope he hammers home the enviromental damage of concreting over the countryside to provide homes for our increasing population.
I hope he reminds people what happened to our fishing industry.
However I fear he is going to get a bigger roasting than Cameron.
I’m still not sure if the Tories on the leave side are fifth columnists, set up to fail, so at least they can say ‘well we tried’ at the next election.
“On how being in the E.U. did bugger all for Greece’s economy”
To be honest it wasn’t the EU which did for Greece, it was their own stupid left wing party which saw an opportunity to borrow once in the Euro, and like all Socialists they bankrupted the economy.
Far better to look at the ‘PIGS’ as a whole where they haven’t been quite so stupid as Greece. Portugal Italy Spain & Greece, all in severe difficulties, and also France too. Then there’s Eastern Europe which is being forced to take migrants and pay for them, will soon be in the same boat, while EU money is spent on vanity projects which aren’t needed, and provide little value.
I would disagree on Greece. The people of Greece have been hung out to dry mainly to satisfy Germany. The rest of the EU knew exactly what was going on in Greece prior to 2008 and chose to ignore it. 8 years after the financial crisis and they are still on their knees and the EU continues to kick the can down the road.
A najor factor in the PIGS difficulties in the Euro, and indeed for many others was that the interest rate (and world value) of the Euro has been that which suits Germany and not what would be best for less financially strong countries.
The result was the ability to borrow money cheaply in the less financially strong countries, which both governments and individuals did.
Much of the private borrowing being invested in the property market, which we all know is a one way bet.
When property crashed the banks that loaned the cash end up with a huge number of non-performing loans and so the house of cards wobbles until cash arrives to shore it up for a while.
Ireland is struggling to get out from under by slashing actual wages, but others are rather more reluctant to swallow the economic straightjacket medicine.
Except it wasnt socialists that did the borrowing was it. And it was overeger and greedy banksters that did the lending in the same way they hike up house prices in this country.
Is that the dirty greedy bankers who want to stay in the EU and who the leftards now are in bed with? What a strange and corrupt socialist world we live in.
“both the BBC and even the Marxists like Corbyn seem to have buried their ideological differences with Big Business as they team up with the enemy to keep us in the EU.”
It might seem like it, but it’s not the case.
Chukka Ummuna who appears to be leading the remain camp of the Labour party has apparently threatened Corbyn with a party rebellion if he supports Brexit.
Also Corbyn met Alexis Tsipras in Brussels, and they have agreed to form a far left voting / pressure group called DIE 21 to force through far left legislation. – not a pleasant thought should we vote to remain.
Corbyn might be many things, but he cannot disguise his lack of enthusiasm for his parties position, his moving to support the aims of big business however would be a step too far !
One of the pachyderms in the corner of the property that has not really been mentioned to any great extent in this Referendum debate so far is UK unemployment.
The numbers cannot be gainsayed. We have 1.7m unemployed in the UK at present. (We probably have a similar number of economically inactive people, not claiming any Benefits but existing and vulnerable to becoming major claimants, especially in old age.). Every taxpayer is supporting those 1.7m.
Labour, the Lib Dems & the Greens have completely abandoned the unemployed. A marked contrast, by the way, to the period 1972-1997.
The Conservatives are the only Party that currently cares about unemployment but the concern tends to be rather sporadic and is very much tied to reducing the size of the annual Treasury bill for Benefits. If they are totally in hock to Big Business then Big Business is not doing them any favours at the present time. However, Big Business is not totally blessed by having to constantly recruit new people. One of the costliest activities these days of any sizable business is its Human Resources department.
Net annual inward migration of 300,000, mostly younger people, is going to make that figure of 1.7m very hard to shift downwards. The Conservatives’ electability in 2020 may depend on how well they do on that commitment to cut the Benefits bill by getting people into work. (I hear David Cameron’s voice in my head as I type!) I saw a statistic recently that suggested the Benefits bill has actually increased, I think, since the General Election, by £4m. Not a large sum if it was £4m (am writing from memory, I hope it wasn’t £4bn!) but Osborne would, nevertheless, have been hoping for a reduction.
The Unemployment statistics that we saw during ‘the longest period of sustained economic growth the UK had ever seen’ stayed resolutely above 1m, around the 1.3m mark. Prior to the 21st century, that was the sort of figure only seen in a severe recession.
I suspect that in the future we are going to see an ever higher platform to the UK unemployment figures and it may be that instead of 1m or 2m unemployed in a downturn, depression or minor recession, the new norm will be 3m-3.5m, then 5m and upwards. Similary, when growth and the good times return, the firm floor below which unemployment cannot be reduced will also be increased upwards. That will have to be supported by taxpayers in work together with those paying tax in retirement. All this while funding the EU as well as increases in devolved government within the UK.
Be careful about that choice on 23rd June. Make sure you vote!
And how come, with 1.7 million unemployed, we’re told we have to import so many from abroad because no-one here can do the jobs. Are these 1.7 million really incapable of being trained to do these tasks, thus making them effectively unemployable? Or has it been made too easy for them to remain unemployed?
The jobs that the 300,000 a year immigrants do for the minimum wage are probably jobs British people cannot afford to do for £7.20 an hour, because they do not live 12 to a house or in garden sheds. As the leader of BSE, Sir Stuart Rose, said (before he was gagged, never again to be seen in public), if we leave the EU, wages will rise. Employers do not need to pay any more than the minimum wage for many jobs, because they have access to an endless supply of cheap labour willing to work for bobbins. And the Labour Party and TUC support this!
Rob, you make a good point. I have been shouting warnings for years about the politically (and often fiscally) inflated cost of UK living. It has an inevitable downside: two-fifths of the working population in the UK have to receive State help to survive from one month to the next. That includes immigrants that have an entitlement to Benefits (not all do) but as you say, they are often willing to put up with considerable hardship in the short-term to raise money for higher education, to buy housing or start a business, perhaps back in their country of origin.
It benefits business and it benefits the Government (“more jobs created, more in work than ever before”) and the Treasury in the short term, via Employers National Insurance, while piling up problems for the longer term.
It is well established that foriegn labour neither effects wages or unemployment. The evidence is that EU workers come here to work and it is the case for both Leave and Stay that continued migrationwill be required to keep the economy going. If however we Brexit wage levels will undoubtedly fall as the encumbent Tory party ,now led by the brexiteers, will cut all worker protection in order to fullfill theor neoliberal agenda. On the point of minimum wage legislation Labour and the Unions support it because without protection workers wages will undoubtedly fall.
It was interesting to hear Corbyn-laden, during his recent ‘convincing’ speech, claim that the EU had done so much for UK worker’s rights and that without that input the UK workers would be worse off by far…it begs the question exactly what have the unions been up to all these years?
Happy to take money off hard up British workers, do very little for it and actually support everything the EU stands for including mass immigration and the depression of wages for UK workers. This country is a very strange place to live in at the moment. Where has that gobshite McCluskey been of late?
Roland, there may be an element of both in that but I know people who would either like to be working & are capable or who would like to be working more.
You also have a point in that I think it has been identified in some parts of the country that have been hit continually with a loss of traditional industries, a culture of non-learning exists in some schools in those places on the basis: “What’s the point, Miss/Sir? There are no jobs.” Add to that the socio-political education add-ons which I suspect allows no time for inspirational teachers to be just that – inspirational – then a turn around of that dire situation is doubly difficult.
I also suspect that Labour’s opening the floodgates of inward migration was done, at least in part, as a shock, a wake up call, to those who had been left to be cuddled by the State. Cynical? Very. Very Labour, very New Labour.
I think the idea was to allow their clients (unemployed Labour voters) to remain comfortable in their Council Houses on £23k+ a year while the immigrants did the work. The immigrants would also vote Labour, so a ‘double win’ for Labour.
You have a point, Grimer. Win/win instead of ‘Double Whammy’.
If my memory serves me well, Labour in 1997 started very quietly on those on Benefits but within a couple of years, probably just before or during the Taiwan/dot.com induced crash realism hit and they started to try to get tough, as tough as the Tories have been at times. However, when Grannies started getting locked up for not paying their Council Tax or going on hunger strike because their larder was empty things were relaxed with the introduction or Working Tax Credit and increased Pension Support.
To give Ian Duncan-Smith his due (am not a fan although he may have been on the right track & was given lots of advice by Frank Field) he recognised the problem of someone faced with an offer of a menial job where the pay would immediately result in an equal or greater loss of benefit and was trying to make his Benefits reform provide a real cash in the pocket incentive yo the unemployed.
As ever with the Tories the whole scheme seemed to me to be organised badly, especially when putting the Spare Room Subsidy cut ‘cart’ well in front of the lead ‘horse’ in quite a long team. Third or fourth time they have completely messed up Benefits reform.
Yes, it’s completely obvious isn’t it – yet our glorious, educated ’til they’re daft leaders never mention it. Who the hell would run a policy of mass unrestricted immigration in tandem with mass unemployment. You have to be an politician, and economist or one of their useful idiots to think that makes a blind bit of sense, yet it’s been going on for years. And our wonderful Soviet education system is pumping out A-star ‘A’-levels and graduates like jelly babies, yet when they go looking for a job they get pipped to the post by someone who just got off the ‘plane from Bratislava and speaks English as a second language. And with this army of indigenous unemployed and under-employed, we are told we have a skills shortage and must import people from anywhere and everywhere to “plug gaps”: bollocks! The most frightening thing is that most people seem not to notice; you really can tell them anything if you do it on t.v.
Oi vlad! I’d like to object to that a bit and stand up for economists. Please don’t bracket them with politicians. Yes, they can be bought & sold but so can nearly anyone these days, especially if there are six noughts after one, two or three digits ranging from 1-9.
I sadly now count myself among their ranks these days but do the economics bit for free. I’m a totally independent amateur, doing it for the (increasing) love of the subject.
A good economist will or should give two or three or more sides to any problem, proposal or policy and to an extent they are famous for saying “On the other hand … “. That used to be something of standing joke in the heyday of the BBC Economics Editor’s Blog. Come back Steffie, all is forgiven. If there was anything to forgive in the first place.
You are right, it is barking mad to run 1.7m unemployed while importing 330,000 almost of all of health and working age into the country. No decent economist worth her or his salt would recommend it without pointing out the potential downsides. It made me hopping mad that during a Labour Government 1997-2010, we had Minister after Minister in the DoTB&S saying “We need people with the right skills to come and work”.
One such incumbent of the post came from a nearby constituency and I just happened to know when they were bemoaning people complaining about ‘too many immigrants’ in 1999 and stating in response “We need people with IT skills” that she had three skilled, unemployed IT workers in her constituency, one indigenous, one an immigrant and another born here of immigrant parents. Then we had lads of Pakistani origin but speaking English with broad Lancashire accents, ie. they were Brits (‘ours’), who had no jobs, needed jobs but who the Labour Party had completely turned their back on. Their rioting was almost excusable (although I didn’t condone it) in those circumstances.
If unemployment was so deadly, so demeaning pre-WW2 and again in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, why isn’t it so deadly, so demeaning now?
Just as Maggie had to smash the 1970’s ‘full employment Keynesian’ consensus, somebody needs to smash the ‘open boarders / migrants doing the jobs Brits refuse to do’ consensus.
I remember arguing with a friend sometime around 2006 about this. I asked him if he’d sweep the streets for minimum wage – ‘no f________ way’. What about £30k ‘no thanks’. £80k? ‘Sign me up’. He’s an IT contractor, so his idea of a living wage is somewhat higher than most, but he agreed that it was the wages being offered that prevented Brits applying for jobs, not the work ethic. There is no point coming off £23k of household benefits for £14k of minimum wage. Not many people are going to take a job, work 37.5 hours a week and be worse off – e.g. even if the state reduces your benefits on a £1 earned to £1 benefits lost basis, you have to pay for transport, work clothes, etc, so you will be slogging your guts out and taking a financial hit of £3k+ per year for your efforts.
I think we need to cut off the imported unskilled labour supply and let wages rise in conjunction with a much stricter approach at the Job Centres. Some form of ‘bonus’ might also be needed for those that move from benefits to work – e.g. after three months continuous employment a government payment of £300, £600 at six months and £1200 at twelve months. It might give them something to aim for and hopefully after a year of employment, their self-respect will carry them forward.
If you recall the period after World War II, we had an actual labour shortage. There were not enough workers for the jobs available. This may have had something to do with the fact that 400,000 fit young men had died in the prime of their lives. That is why we had the Empire Windrush in 1948, that is why we had Pakistanis brought in as workers for the cotton and woollen mills in the North.
If you had told anyone in the 1940s or 50s that one day Britain would have 1.7 million unemployed, whilst allowing 300,000 immigrants a year into the country, they would have rightly concluded that you were a lunatic, yet for some reason that now passes for the received wisdom. We live in strange times indeed.
Sadly the problem is that the UK is bottom of the league in terms of education. Migrant workers tend to be more motivated,better educated and have a better attitude to work. In respect of underemloyment you should note the lack of investment ,a direct cause of a profound lack of productivity within the UK
Manonclaphamomnibus
“Sadly the problem is that the UK is bottom of the league in terms of education.”
I agree with you !
Yes as, as posted by many on this site in the past . Its all down to the ‘liberal ideals’ implicated in modern teaching.
EG more and more students wasting their time and borrowed money studying to obtain ‘mickey mouse’ degrees. While there is a drastic shortage of Graduates with Scientific and Engineering degrees .
Ask anyone that has to the job to recruit in industry .
I long since realised ours is nothing more than a very expensive copy typist, who adds a 3 month delay between me raising an issue and him passing back ‘lessons have been learned’ letters on HoC notepaper from the Minister in question, who has usually moved by then, and didn’t give a rats.
And the people making the comment are usually from the side of the political firmament supported by the BBC who have been in power for many of the years we have been in the EEC / EC / EU.
So they are admitting that Labour would not have introduced anything like them if it were not for the EU.
Good spot, Mallard. Shame that none of the BBC presenters are sharp enough or sharp & willing/inclined enough to pick them up on that. Caroline Lucas MP, especially is able to talk piffle on several policy areas on the BBC without a murmur raised.
If my memory serves me well, clean beaches is a similar example. Who invented the clean beach scheme? Who started the fight to stop ships cleaning their tanks in the North Sea & English Channel? And in the 1960s, too, before we were EEC members.
Rumours and I state only Rumours, from the western shores of these island are, ‘some say’ that Owen ‘little boy’ Jones posts on this site.
Apparently he is very ‘controversial’ and ‘decisive’.
The sad thing about Christians is ,like all religious people , they actually believe in things that arent there.
If you do that without mentioning a god of some sort you generally get pills. Sometimes, even if you do mention god you still get pills.
I watched the Sunday morning politics shows today and I have noticed a definite shift in media interviewing, especially the KGBbc, after the recent polls favoured the Leave campaign…basically the leftards are rapidly approaching mouth frothing mode in the same way they did pre GE 2015.
First of all came Marr and the embarrassing interview with EU big noise John Major…’Sir John Major is most noted for his comments in September 1992 when he stated “Leaving the ERM would be a betrayal of our future”. The UK subsequently left the ERM and enjoyed years of growth’….Yes, this John Major. And the return to nasty politics began, Marr gave him all the time he needed but when it came to Boris it was the usual interruptions at every opportunity from Marr.
Boris dealt with it admirably, I believe the reamaniacs will get more desperate by the day and people will see what they really are as we did before the GE, nothing but lies and attacks.
I switched over for the Robbbbbberrrrrttttttt……………..Pessssttonnnnn SHOW! It featured Michael Gove, after making a brew and toast, filling the dishwasher and taking the recycling out Peston had managed to get his first question out, it was the same story, constantly interrupting Gove and stopping him from getting his point across. Again Gove kept calm and smiled through it.
Who’s idea was it to give Peston a show? The fop haired idiot loves the sound of his own gratingly boring voice, we certainly know it’s his show!!
Then came Andrew Neil’s car crash interview with Muhammed Ali Prescott. What a tosser he is. His points;
Without the EU we’d just be one voice in global politics…as opposed to 1/28th of a voice while in the EU, 72 put downs and Prescott thinks we count?
On immigration he said we should be talking about it as it’s ok to do so now, shame his gvnmnt spent so long telling us how racist we were for being concerned. It seems only tony Bliar won’t face up to the truth!
Then came his admittance that Corbyn-laden was a Euro sceptic in ’75 yet now spouts the pro EU message while telling major reform is needed? Just what are we to believe from these people?
All the while Rug head was very quiet, in an ‘impartial way’ of course. One thing I did notice is that Marr and Peston don’t interrupt with further questions or further clarification, no, they make political points of the opposite view especially if the interviewee is making perfect sense on a particular point, they just have to interject with the reamainiac view!
It’s just pathetically biased, but to be expected with just weeks till VE day, it’s also funny how the leftards now pay little heed to the polls? Not telling you what you want to hear? Bring on the 23rd.
Glen.ws
Cast you mind back to the last election when Al Beeb pushed with greatest of Al Beeb’s bias and effort to get Labour in and despite what the polls predicted, the Torys won by a small margin .
You cannot trust Polls or ‘Economists’ .
Vote out on the 23 rd and make Britain Great again
I think the problem is that Gove is a complete fuckwit. He came out and said we dont need experts with the clear implication he is free to make up whatever he fancies and sell it to the dimwits thatll vote for him along with that proven liar Boris Bunter. Same folk that sadly think Corbyn is a Marxist, that theyll get their country back if we leave the EU ( whatever that means) whilst at the same time acknowleging big business is running the show.
Ask yourself this people , if you were in a Jumbo jet waiting to take off and the guy up front told you he would have to guess how to fly the plane, how many of you would stay in your seats? From what Ive read on the site quite a few of you sadly.
MoCO,
Your point is? You appear to have mixed not your metaphors but their use.
If we had been asked, many of us would not have been on the plane for the last forty-four years on its incredibly slow taxi-ing from dispersal to holding with all the delays during that time for wing-clip accidents, punctured tyres and for the re-fuelling pauses required due to loss and wastage.
Glorious future above the clouds, full of influence, prosperity and with all problems solved?
Or alternatively if the plane was already fucked, the pilots clueless and inevitably on its way down and about to crash with all 27 other passengers on board.
Would you not grab the parachute whilst you could and be more careful who you fly with in future?
Stop speaking in Parables you tit. Who do you think you are, Jesus?
tomoDec 23, 23:23 Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024 Sadly there is no Steve Pineless MP but it does ring true…. [img]https://i.ibb.co/tcR1PYd/vlc-in-YPOi-Tmqh.png[/img]
tomoDec 23, 22:57 Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024 I’ll keep retelling the 2009 Miliband+Mandelson tale…. – where India cut short Miliband’s visit and actually wouldn’t allow Mandelson to…
Eddy BoothDec 23, 22:47 Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024 “The TV highlights to look out for over Christmas” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cewxjqn5vpeo I don’t know about you , but I’m regretting not…
tomoDec 23, 22:46 Start the Christmas Week 23rd December 2024 OK, it’s Germany and TikTok but the BBC is up to its armpits in gaming ‘news’ like this …. [img]https://i.ibb.co/yRhJQrW/Screenshot-2024-12-23-22-41-14-67-0b2fce7a16bf2b728d6ffa28c8d60efb.jpg[/img]
There is a hilarious piece on Beitbart showing that the BBC on its blog used a tweet of a non existent Tory MP saying how great Dave’s performance was! You couldnt make it up, unless of course you are the BBC.
BBC: Cameron ‘Did Well’… Quotes Tweet From Parody Tory MP
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/06/02/bbc-spins-cameron-using-tweet-parody-tory-mp/
That has quite simply made my day, reinforcing my theory that if you stand back and watch for long enough, the Libtard machine will eventually catch up with its own tail and start eating itself.
I hope Gove goes big on how much the rest of Europe rely on trading with us.
On how being in the E.U. did bugger all for Greece’s economy.
On how much our contribution to the greedy, bloated, venal E.U. really costs us.
I hope he suggests work permits, when questioned about the need for foreign workers, meaning they can work legally and pay into our coffers as well.
I hope he stresses the cost of housing, schooling and medicating incomers who don’t pay national insurance.
I hope he hammers home the enviromental damage of concreting over the countryside to provide homes for our increasing population.
I hope he reminds people what happened to our fishing industry.
However I fear he is going to get a bigger roasting than Cameron.
I’m still not sure if the Tories on the leave side are fifth columnists, set up to fail, so at least they can say ‘well we tried’ at the next election.
“On how being in the E.U. did bugger all for Greece’s economy”
To be honest it wasn’t the EU which did for Greece, it was their own stupid left wing party which saw an opportunity to borrow once in the Euro, and like all Socialists they bankrupted the economy.
Far better to look at the ‘PIGS’ as a whole where they haven’t been quite so stupid as Greece. Portugal Italy Spain & Greece, all in severe difficulties, and also France too. Then there’s Eastern Europe which is being forced to take migrants and pay for them, will soon be in the same boat, while EU money is spent on vanity projects which aren’t needed, and provide little value.
I would disagree on Greece. The people of Greece have been hung out to dry mainly to satisfy Germany. The rest of the EU knew exactly what was going on in Greece prior to 2008 and chose to ignore it. 8 years after the financial crisis and they are still on their knees and the EU continues to kick the can down the road.
Agreed the whole PIGS farrago gives lie to the repeated mantra that an uncertain financial future awaits anyone wishing to leave the EU.
Hopefully Gove won’t turn into a quivering jelly tonight, or get ambushed by Sky.
Mind you I wish someone had mentioned PIGS to Cameron last night.
A najor factor in the PIGS difficulties in the Euro, and indeed for many others was that the interest rate (and world value) of the Euro has been that which suits Germany and not what would be best for less financially strong countries.
The result was the ability to borrow money cheaply in the less financially strong countries, which both governments and individuals did.
Much of the private borrowing being invested in the property market, which we all know is a one way bet.
When property crashed the banks that loaned the cash end up with a huge number of non-performing loans and so the house of cards wobbles until cash arrives to shore it up for a while.
Ireland is struggling to get out from under by slashing actual wages, but others are rather more reluctant to swallow the economic straightjacket medicine.
Except it wasnt socialists that did the borrowing was it. And it was overeger and greedy banksters that did the lending in the same way they hike up house prices in this country.
Is that the dirty greedy bankers who want to stay in the EU and who the leftards now are in bed with? What a strange and corrupt socialist world we live in.
Have you ever been forced by anyone to borrow money from them?
I thought it was an excess of demand over supply that “hikes” up house prices.
Still having problems with spelling, punctuation and grammar I see. Strange how it comes and goes.
Could almost be more than one person!
60022Mallard
Manonclaphamomnibus has always had a ‘split personality’.
“both the BBC and even the Marxists like Corbyn seem to have buried their ideological differences with Big Business as they team up with the enemy to keep us in the EU.”
It might seem like it, but it’s not the case.
Chukka Ummuna who appears to be leading the remain camp of the Labour party has apparently threatened Corbyn with a party rebellion if he supports Brexit.
Also Corbyn met Alexis Tsipras in Brussels, and they have agreed to form a far left voting / pressure group called DIE 21 to force through far left legislation. – not a pleasant thought should we vote to remain.
Corbyn might be many things, but he cannot disguise his lack of enthusiasm for his parties position, his moving to support the aims of big business however would be a step too far !
Corbyn may be many things but a Marxist he clearly isnt!
Err, if you say so.
One of the pachyderms in the corner of the property that has not really been mentioned to any great extent in this Referendum debate so far is UK unemployment.
The numbers cannot be gainsayed. We have 1.7m unemployed in the UK at present. (We probably have a similar number of economically inactive people, not claiming any Benefits but existing and vulnerable to becoming major claimants, especially in old age.). Every taxpayer is supporting those 1.7m.
Labour, the Lib Dems & the Greens have completely abandoned the unemployed. A marked contrast, by the way, to the period 1972-1997.
The Conservatives are the only Party that currently cares about unemployment but the concern tends to be rather sporadic and is very much tied to reducing the size of the annual Treasury bill for Benefits. If they are totally in hock to Big Business then Big Business is not doing them any favours at the present time. However, Big Business is not totally blessed by having to constantly recruit new people. One of the costliest activities these days of any sizable business is its Human Resources department.
Net annual inward migration of 300,000, mostly younger people, is going to make that figure of 1.7m very hard to shift downwards. The Conservatives’ electability in 2020 may depend on how well they do on that commitment to cut the Benefits bill by getting people into work. (I hear David Cameron’s voice in my head as I type!) I saw a statistic recently that suggested the Benefits bill has actually increased, I think, since the General Election, by £4m. Not a large sum if it was £4m (am writing from memory, I hope it wasn’t £4bn!) but Osborne would, nevertheless, have been hoping for a reduction.
The Unemployment statistics that we saw during ‘the longest period of sustained economic growth the UK had ever seen’ stayed resolutely above 1m, around the 1.3m mark. Prior to the 21st century, that was the sort of figure only seen in a severe recession.
I suspect that in the future we are going to see an ever higher platform to the UK unemployment figures and it may be that instead of 1m or 2m unemployed in a downturn, depression or minor recession, the new norm will be 3m-3.5m, then 5m and upwards. Similary, when growth and the good times return, the firm floor below which unemployment cannot be reduced will also be increased upwards. That will have to be supported by taxpayers in work together with those paying tax in retirement. All this while funding the EU as well as increases in devolved government within the UK.
Be careful about that choice on 23rd June. Make sure you vote!
And how come, with 1.7 million unemployed, we’re told we have to import so many from abroad because no-one here can do the jobs. Are these 1.7 million really incapable of being trained to do these tasks, thus making them effectively unemployable? Or has it been made too easy for them to remain unemployed?
The jobs that the 300,000 a year immigrants do for the minimum wage are probably jobs British people cannot afford to do for £7.20 an hour, because they do not live 12 to a house or in garden sheds. As the leader of BSE, Sir Stuart Rose, said (before he was gagged, never again to be seen in public), if we leave the EU, wages will rise. Employers do not need to pay any more than the minimum wage for many jobs, because they have access to an endless supply of cheap labour willing to work for bobbins. And the Labour Party and TUC support this!
Rob, you make a good point. I have been shouting warnings for years about the politically (and often fiscally) inflated cost of UK living. It has an inevitable downside: two-fifths of the working population in the UK have to receive State help to survive from one month to the next. That includes immigrants that have an entitlement to Benefits (not all do) but as you say, they are often willing to put up with considerable hardship in the short-term to raise money for higher education, to buy housing or start a business, perhaps back in their country of origin.
It benefits business and it benefits the Government (“more jobs created, more in work than ever before”) and the Treasury in the short term, via Employers National Insurance, while piling up problems for the longer term.
It is well established that foriegn labour neither effects wages or unemployment. The evidence is that EU workers come here to work and it is the case for both Leave and Stay that continued migrationwill be required to keep the economy going. If however we Brexit wage levels will undoubtedly fall as the encumbent Tory party ,now led by the brexiteers, will cut all worker protection in order to fullfill theor neoliberal agenda. On the point of minimum wage legislation Labour and the Unions support it because without protection workers wages will undoubtedly fall.
It was interesting to hear Corbyn-laden, during his recent ‘convincing’ speech, claim that the EU had done so much for UK worker’s rights and that without that input the UK workers would be worse off by far…it begs the question exactly what have the unions been up to all these years?
Happy to take money off hard up British workers, do very little for it and actually support everything the EU stands for including mass immigration and the depression of wages for UK workers. This country is a very strange place to live in at the moment. Where has that gobshite McCluskey been of late?
Roland, there may be an element of both in that but I know people who would either like to be working & are capable or who would like to be working more.
You also have a point in that I think it has been identified in some parts of the country that have been hit continually with a loss of traditional industries, a culture of non-learning exists in some schools in those places on the basis: “What’s the point, Miss/Sir? There are no jobs.” Add to that the socio-political education add-ons which I suspect allows no time for inspirational teachers to be just that – inspirational – then a turn around of that dire situation is doubly difficult.
I also suspect that Labour’s opening the floodgates of inward migration was done, at least in part, as a shock, a wake up call, to those who had been left to be cuddled by the State. Cynical? Very. Very Labour, very New Labour.
I think the idea was to allow their clients (unemployed Labour voters) to remain comfortable in their Council Houses on £23k+ a year while the immigrants did the work. The immigrants would also vote Labour, so a ‘double win’ for Labour.
You have a point, Grimer. Win/win instead of ‘Double Whammy’.
If my memory serves me well, Labour in 1997 started very quietly on those on Benefits but within a couple of years, probably just before or during the Taiwan/dot.com induced crash realism hit and they started to try to get tough, as tough as the Tories have been at times. However, when Grannies started getting locked up for not paying their Council Tax or going on hunger strike because their larder was empty things were relaxed with the introduction or Working Tax Credit and increased Pension Support.
To give Ian Duncan-Smith his due (am not a fan although he may have been on the right track & was given lots of advice by Frank Field) he recognised the problem of someone faced with an offer of a menial job where the pay would immediately result in an equal or greater loss of benefit and was trying to make his Benefits reform provide a real cash in the pocket incentive yo the unemployed.
As ever with the Tories the whole scheme seemed to me to be organised badly, especially when putting the Spare Room Subsidy cut ‘cart’ well in front of the lead ‘horse’ in quite a long team. Third or fourth time they have completely messed up Benefits reform.
Yes, it’s completely obvious isn’t it – yet our glorious, educated ’til they’re daft leaders never mention it. Who the hell would run a policy of mass unrestricted immigration in tandem with mass unemployment. You have to be an politician, and economist or one of their useful idiots to think that makes a blind bit of sense, yet it’s been going on for years. And our wonderful Soviet education system is pumping out A-star ‘A’-levels and graduates like jelly babies, yet when they go looking for a job they get pipped to the post by someone who just got off the ‘plane from Bratislava and speaks English as a second language. And with this army of indigenous unemployed and under-employed, we are told we have a skills shortage and must import people from anywhere and everywhere to “plug gaps”: bollocks! The most frightening thing is that most people seem not to notice; you really can tell them anything if you do it on t.v.
Oi vlad! I’d like to object to that a bit and stand up for economists. Please don’t bracket them with politicians. Yes, they can be bought & sold but so can nearly anyone these days, especially if there are six noughts after one, two or three digits ranging from 1-9.
I sadly now count myself among their ranks these days but do the economics bit for free. I’m a totally independent amateur, doing it for the (increasing) love of the subject.
A good economist will or should give two or three or more sides to any problem, proposal or policy and to an extent they are famous for saying “On the other hand … “. That used to be something of standing joke in the heyday of the BBC Economics Editor’s Blog. Come back Steffie, all is forgiven. If there was anything to forgive in the first place.
You are right, it is barking mad to run 1.7m unemployed while importing 330,000 almost of all of health and working age into the country. No decent economist worth her or his salt would recommend it without pointing out the potential downsides. It made me hopping mad that during a Labour Government 1997-2010, we had Minister after Minister in the DoTB&S saying “We need people with the right skills to come and work”.
One such incumbent of the post came from a nearby constituency and I just happened to know when they were bemoaning people complaining about ‘too many immigrants’ in 1999 and stating in response “We need people with IT skills” that she had three skilled, unemployed IT workers in her constituency, one indigenous, one an immigrant and another born here of immigrant parents. Then we had lads of Pakistani origin but speaking English with broad Lancashire accents, ie. they were Brits (‘ours’), who had no jobs, needed jobs but who the Labour Party had completely turned their back on. Their rioting was almost excusable (although I didn’t condone it) in those circumstances.
If unemployment was so deadly, so demeaning pre-WW2 and again in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, why isn’t it so deadly, so demeaning now?
Just as Maggie had to smash the 1970’s ‘full employment Keynesian’ consensus, somebody needs to smash the ‘open boarders / migrants doing the jobs Brits refuse to do’ consensus.
I remember arguing with a friend sometime around 2006 about this. I asked him if he’d sweep the streets for minimum wage – ‘no f________ way’. What about £30k ‘no thanks’. £80k? ‘Sign me up’. He’s an IT contractor, so his idea of a living wage is somewhat higher than most, but he agreed that it was the wages being offered that prevented Brits applying for jobs, not the work ethic. There is no point coming off £23k of household benefits for £14k of minimum wage. Not many people are going to take a job, work 37.5 hours a week and be worse off – e.g. even if the state reduces your benefits on a £1 earned to £1 benefits lost basis, you have to pay for transport, work clothes, etc, so you will be slogging your guts out and taking a financial hit of £3k+ per year for your efforts.
I think we need to cut off the imported unskilled labour supply and let wages rise in conjunction with a much stricter approach at the Job Centres. Some form of ‘bonus’ might also be needed for those that move from benefits to work – e.g. after three months continuous employment a government payment of £300, £600 at six months and £1200 at twelve months. It might give them something to aim for and hopefully after a year of employment, their self-respect will carry them forward.
If you recall the period after World War II, we had an actual labour shortage. There were not enough workers for the jobs available. This may have had something to do with the fact that 400,000 fit young men had died in the prime of their lives. That is why we had the Empire Windrush in 1948, that is why we had Pakistanis brought in as workers for the cotton and woollen mills in the North.
If you had told anyone in the 1940s or 50s that one day Britain would have 1.7 million unemployed, whilst allowing 300,000 immigrants a year into the country, they would have rightly concluded that you were a lunatic, yet for some reason that now passes for the received wisdom. We live in strange times indeed.
Sadly the problem is that the UK is bottom of the league in terms of education. Migrant workers tend to be more motivated,better educated and have a better attitude to work. In respect of underemloyment you should note the lack of investment ,a direct cause of a profound lack of productivity within the UK
Manonclaphamomnibus
“Sadly the problem is that the UK is bottom of the league in terms of education.”
I agree with you !
Yes as, as posted by many on this site in the past . Its all down to the ‘liberal ideals’ implicated in modern teaching.
EG more and more students wasting their time and borrowed money studying to obtain ‘mickey mouse’ degrees. While there is a drastic shortage of Graduates with Scientific and Engineering degrees .
Ask anyone that has to the job to recruit in industry .
If we remain then we should get rid of the MPs as they are only window dressing,unable to change EU law.So why have them.
I long since realised ours is nothing more than a very expensive copy typist, who adds a 3 month delay between me raising an issue and him passing back ‘lessons have been learned’ letters on HoC notepaper from the Minister in question, who has usually moved by then, and didn’t give a rats.
Quite like CECUTT in many ways.
Exactly; those people who bang on about the labour-protection laws emanating from Europe make me sick. What the hell do they thing Westminster is for?
And the people making the comment are usually from the side of the political firmament supported by the BBC who have been in power for many of the years we have been in the EEC / EC / EU.
So they are admitting that Labour would not have introduced anything like them if it were not for the EU.
What an own goal!
Good spot, Mallard. Shame that none of the BBC presenters are sharp enough or sharp & willing/inclined enough to pick them up on that. Caroline Lucas MP, especially is able to talk piffle on several policy areas on the BBC without a murmur raised.
If my memory serves me well, clean beaches is a similar example. Who invented the clean beach scheme? Who started the fight to stop ships cleaning their tanks in the North Sea & English Channel? And in the 1960s, too, before we were EEC members.
Rumours and I state only Rumours, from the western shores of these island are, ‘some say’ that Owen ‘little boy’ Jones posts on this site.
Apparently he is very ‘controversial’ and ‘decisive’.
Good article here from a Christian who wants out of Europe.
Handy next time some clergyperson idiot shows you a powerpoint of Aylan Kurdi that replaces a sermon by way of “The Churches” begging us all to stay in the EU-long enough for Islam to cut more than their funding.
http://www.christiansinpolitics.org.uk/eufocus/eu-latest/the-democratic-imperative-a-christian-case-for-brexit/
Just had a quick glimpse, chris. Useful link, thanks for that.
The sad thing about Christians is ,like all religious people , they actually believe in things that arent there.
If you do that without mentioning a god of some sort you generally get pills. Sometimes, even if you do mention god you still get pills.
Hi MoCO, long time no see!
I have a Jewish Christian friend who believes the EU is the Antichrist. There are times when I find it hard to disagree with him.
The EU is there, is it not?
I watched the Sunday morning politics shows today and I have noticed a definite shift in media interviewing, especially the KGBbc, after the recent polls favoured the Leave campaign…basically the leftards are rapidly approaching mouth frothing mode in the same way they did pre GE 2015.
First of all came Marr and the embarrassing interview with EU big noise John Major…’Sir John Major is most noted for his comments in September 1992 when he stated “Leaving the ERM would be a betrayal of our future”. The UK subsequently left the ERM and enjoyed years of growth’….Yes, this John Major. And the return to nasty politics began, Marr gave him all the time he needed but when it came to Boris it was the usual interruptions at every opportunity from Marr.
Boris dealt with it admirably, I believe the reamaniacs will get more desperate by the day and people will see what they really are as we did before the GE, nothing but lies and attacks.
I switched over for the Robbbbbberrrrrttttttt……………..Pessssttonnnnn SHOW! It featured Michael Gove, after making a brew and toast, filling the dishwasher and taking the recycling out Peston had managed to get his first question out, it was the same story, constantly interrupting Gove and stopping him from getting his point across. Again Gove kept calm and smiled through it.
Who’s idea was it to give Peston a show? The fop haired idiot loves the sound of his own gratingly boring voice, we certainly know it’s his show!!
Then came Andrew Neil’s car crash interview with Muhammed Ali Prescott. What a tosser he is. His points;
Without the EU we’d just be one voice in global politics…as opposed to 1/28th of a voice while in the EU, 72 put downs and Prescott thinks we count?
On immigration he said we should be talking about it as it’s ok to do so now, shame his gvnmnt spent so long telling us how racist we were for being concerned. It seems only tony Bliar won’t face up to the truth!
Then came his admittance that Corbyn-laden was a Euro sceptic in ’75 yet now spouts the pro EU message while telling major reform is needed? Just what are we to believe from these people?
All the while Rug head was very quiet, in an ‘impartial way’ of course. One thing I did notice is that Marr and Peston don’t interrupt with further questions or further clarification, no, they make political points of the opposite view especially if the interviewee is making perfect sense on a particular point, they just have to interject with the reamainiac view!
It’s just pathetically biased, but to be expected with just weeks till VE day, it’s also funny how the leftards now pay little heed to the polls? Not telling you what you want to hear? Bring on the 23rd.
Glen.ws
Cast you mind back to the last election when Al Beeb pushed with greatest of Al Beeb’s bias and effort to get Labour in and despite what the polls predicted, the Torys won by a small margin .
You cannot trust Polls or ‘Economists’ .
Vote out on the 23 rd and make Britain Great again
I think the problem is that Gove is a complete fuckwit. He came out and said we dont need experts with the clear implication he is free to make up whatever he fancies and sell it to the dimwits thatll vote for him along with that proven liar Boris Bunter. Same folk that sadly think Corbyn is a Marxist, that theyll get their country back if we leave the EU ( whatever that means) whilst at the same time acknowleging big business is running the show.
Ask yourself this people , if you were in a Jumbo jet waiting to take off and the guy up front told you he would have to guess how to fly the plane, how many of you would stay in your seats? From what Ive read on the site quite a few of you sadly.
MoCO,
Your point is? You appear to have mixed not your metaphors but their use.
If we had been asked, many of us would not have been on the plane for the last forty-four years on its incredibly slow taxi-ing from dispersal to holding with all the delays during that time for wing-clip accidents, punctured tyres and for the re-fuelling pauses required due to loss and wastage.
Glorious future above the clouds, full of influence, prosperity and with all problems solved?
Yeah. Right.
When is take off?
Or alternatively if the plane was already fucked, the pilots clueless and inevitably on its way down and about to crash with all 27 other passengers on board.
Would you not grab the parachute whilst you could and be more careful who you fly with in future?
Stop speaking in Parables you tit. Who do you think you are, Jesus?
Rob,
LOL ! Great post !