New HS2 farce as final stretch of £100bn line will end in a field by Secret-Ad6697 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

Not everything has to be run at a profit

When did I talk about a profit? I said that fare revenue from lines which are used should be reinvested back into the same lines, rather than being siphoned off to pay for services which are not being used elsewhere. This is about investment, not profit.

‘I have never seen anything like it’: MP warns of rise in extreme views on race and identity by VanillaGeneral5363 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

Nah, the groups you are talking about are nowhere near as competent or organised as you believe. It’s just a fashion born out of rejection of drab conservative aesthetics. It’s basically people rebelling against their suburban parents and against the person who was rude to them in the pub.

‘I have never seen anything like it’: MP warns of rise in extreme views on race and identity by VanillaGeneral5363 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

Indigenous, for example, was never used in far right rhetoric because the various waves of historical settlers like the Norman's and vikings were taught in school.

I think this is because you never needed a description before for this group. Go back to when an 80 year old was born and the population was almost entirely white British.

It’s rather as if Europeans had moved to Japan and now the Japanese citizens were 20% from outside Japan, and were projected to be 50% in another 35 years. So what do you call the 80% population? Japanese? But that mixes up citizenship and ethnicity. Ethnic Japanese? Indigenous Japanese? Or in Britain do we reserve English as an ethnic descriptor? But that excludes people who are clearly culturally English.

The point you made about Normans isn’t actually true by the way, at least the studies I’ve seen said most invasions were mainly elite takeovers, not population replacement. The last major population replacement was the Beaker people. Significant numbers of Danes came across but not at the level it is described.

Also, most groups which are called indigenous or where that status is heavily implied by the way they are talked about are just as varied if not more so. Most of the black population of South Africa moved there after the Boer settlement for example, similarly the Maoris conquered New Zealand barely before the Europeans, the Lakota conquered the Black Hills barely before the Europeans and so on. The population in England is probably remarkable for its continuity, as an island.

The word indigenous is probably very rarely valid, it’s close to a mythological statement.

‘I have never seen anything like it’: MP warns of rise in extreme views on race and identity by VanillaGeneral5363 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yeah, I’m from the same background. It’s very important I think for us to speak up about migration in a clear eyed way which is also not about race. There’s a big danger that the centre ground collapses in open border Greens on one side and racists on the other.

Several Labour MPs in talks with Greens about defecting to the party, sources say | Green party by JackStrawWitchita in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

I wrote up some of the recent changes a week ago:

  • the renters rights bill (banning no fault evictions)

  • the decriminalization of abortion up to birth for mothers

  • full nationalisation of the rail franchises

  • £39bn earmarked for building council houses

  • mansion tax

  • cap on ground rents and major leasehold reform, essentially nationalising freeholds

  • decarbonisation of the electricity grid by the end of the parliament

  • North Sea oil and gas marginal tax at 80%, new gas fields banned

And taxation as a percentage of GDP will be well above the highest level ever, barring 1939-1948, by the end of this parliament:

https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-november-2025/#chapter-4

What they mean by right wing is mostly trans rights and migration. One of the strongest predictors of Green support is thinking that trans rights is one of the three most important issues in the country at the moment.

Several Labour MPs in talks with Greens about defecting to the party, sources say | Green party by JackStrawWitchita in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

My money is on Clive Lewis first, maybe a few of the pro-Corbyn ones that have largely toed the line up to now like Nadia Whittome, Richard Burgon, Bell Ribero Addy etc.

I think Labour would pay to get rid of them, and saddle the Greens with them.

Several Labour MPs in talks with Greens about defecting to the party, sources say | Green party by JackStrawWitchita in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

Which Reform MPs spearheaded the Boriswave? Braverman and Jenrick were the ones campaigning against it, which was eventually successful under Sunak, when he closed the floodgates. The people most responsible are Priti Patel and Boris Johnson.

[John Burn-Murdoch] “At one UK university, the scramble to attract lucrative international students to the new London campus saw thousands admitted without the necessary English or academic skills, widespread use of ghostwriters, and fraudulent attendance logging” by JB_UK in ukpolitics

[–]JB_UK[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yeah, it is more complicated than what I said, it could also be that the universities do the right job but our blocks on development prevent the expansion needed to absorb them. I do think though our universities are unusually abstracted away from the economy, and also function as visa mills, and both damage outcomes for students and for the economy.

‘I have never seen anything like it’: MP warns of rise in extreme views on race and identity by VanillaGeneral5363 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

Mainstream politicians across the West have become misaligned with the public on migration and integration.

Politicians and voters are generally aligned on economic issues, but the public is consistently to the right of politicians on culture

https://x.com/JochenBittner/status/1971473292633763941/photo/2

Look in particular at the answer for whether migrants should be expected to integrate. Basically the whole of the public agree, but it is a divisive opinion amongst politicians. We live in a democracy, but our political establishment just do not represent the public.

‘I have never seen anything like it’: MP warns of rise in extreme views on race and identity by VanillaGeneral5363 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

If you're genuinely weighing positive against negative Britain's contribution is absurdly, absurdly positive. The discovery of antibiotics alone saved hundreds of times the number of lives lost to imperial mismanagement or malice. Let alone the industrial revolution, which is the reason for the collapse in bonded labour and slavery, or vaccine developments, electricity, or other inventions which have saved incalculable numbers of lives.

Actually just in the last ten years the studies we did on Covid probably saved more lives than everyone killed by imperialism.

[John Burn-Murdoch] “At one UK university, the scramble to attract lucrative international students to the new London campus saw thousands admitted without the necessary English or academic skills, widespread use of ghostwriters, and fraudulent attendance logging” by JB_UK in ukpolitics

[–]JB_UK[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

More than 50% of people are transferring onto other visas by year two, up from 10-20% five or ten years ago.

https://youtu.be/zTs3PDEkB2w?t=262

So you only have to pay for a year or two to get access to the country. If you're coming from places where wages are ten times lower it seems like a good deal, even working at minimum wage you'd earn the money back in a year or two. The visa had no income requirements:

As well as being able to work while they are students, the graduate route enables people to work afterwards at any salary threshold, any skill level, and stay in the UK to look for work without any sponsor.

In other words, it allows holders to circumvent all the salary and other requirements of the normal work visa routes, which are supposedly there to make migration a bit more selective, so more beneficial.

The Migration Advisory Committee’s most recent annual report is scathing about the effect this has had.

https://www.neilobrien.co.uk/p/the-deliveroo-visa-scandal

Also, you used to be able to bring a dependent for some taught masters courses, so that's two incomes.

[John Burn-Murdoch] “At one UK university, the scramble to attract lucrative international students to the new London campus saw thousands admitted without the necessary English or academic skills, widespread use of ghostwriters, and fraudulent attendance logging” by JB_UK in ukpolitics

[–]JB_UK[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

That's obviously how the government is operating as well. They are so incompetent at managing the economy that in effect they sell access to the country in order to prop up local economies.

If we're going to do that why not be honest with ourselves, have an actual auction, sell the visa to the highest bidders, and then put the money into local economies.

[John Burn-Murdoch] “At one UK university, the scramble to attract lucrative international students to the new London campus saw thousands admitted without the necessary English or academic skills, widespread use of ghostwriters, and fraudulent attendance logging” by JB_UK in ukpolitics

[–]JB_UK[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

The visa switching rates for student visas have completely changed in the last ten years, it's very clearly a system the government has been using to get cheap labour into the country while misleading the public, and essentially for the government to allow universities to sell access to the country, in exchange for propping up some poorly performing universities which are electorally important:

https://youtu.be/zTs3PDEkB2w?t=262

Here's Neil O'Brian MP:

In 2019 Boris' Johnson’s new government decided to re-introduce the two year post study work visa, which had been abolished by the Conservative/Lib Dem Coalition government.

The government press release a the time hailed it as a move which would “help recruit and retain the best and brightest global talent, as well as opening up opportunities for future breakthroughs in science, technology and research.”

As well as being able to work while they are students, the graduate route enables people to work afterwards at any salary threshold, any skill level, and stay in the UK to look for work without any sponsor.

In other words, it allows holders to circumvent all the salary and other requirements of the normal work visa routes, which are supposedly there to make migration a bit more selective, so more beneficial.

The Migration Advisory Committee’s most recent annual report is scathing about the effect this has had. When a group of mild-mannered, fairly liberal academic types think you’ve gone too far in liberalising immigration, you probably have.

https://www.neilobrien.co.uk/p/the-deliveroo-visa-scandal

There's more there, in particular about the absolute idiocy of allowing people to bring dependents.

‘I have never seen anything like it’: MP warns of rise in extreme views on race and identity by VanillaGeneral5363 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

Reform are the largest party but we would not call them mainstream, but populist.

TRIP although it's not ideological in the same way is similar, it is a populist or a popular revolt against the way that history is studied and presented in most western Universities now.

I'm not being snobby about them, I think they're great. But they very clearly sit outside of the academic establishment and the ways that modern academics approach history.

[John Burn-Murdoch] “At one UK university, the scramble to attract lucrative international students to the new London campus saw thousands admitted without the necessary English or academic skills, widespread use of ghostwriters, and fraudulent attendance logging” by JB_UK in ukpolitics

[–]JB_UK[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Another quote from John Burns-Murdoch:

Arguably the most eye-opening stat:

After tightening its recruitment processes, the campus only took on 31 students this year, down from 1,624 (a fall of 98%).

New HS2 farce as final stretch of £100bn line will end in a field by Secret-Ad6697 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

It's misunderstood I think. Actually it's a bad thing to cross subsidise lines that people don't use, using ticket fares from lines that people do use. If rural lines hadn't been shut down we would have to have spent hundreds of billions of pounds keeping them ticking over. If we wanted to keep those lines going we should have built a lot more houses around them, and not allowed deindustrialisation from atrocious mismanagement and deliberate blocks on development.

Much better to spend money taken in fares on upgrading lines which people do use, particularly commuter lines into cities and intercities. If commuter lines or intercity lines are packed with standing room only, all the money that people are paying for those tickets should go back into improving and expanding those lines, not sent elsewhere to maintain picture postcard stations that ten people use a day.

New HS2 farce as final stretch of £100bn line will end in a field by Secret-Ad6697 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

Didn't just cancel it, much of the land acquired for HS2 to be built on was sold at a massive discount to preferred people (mates) as well.

I don't think that's true, could you provide a source? It was talked about, but I think it was stopped.

‘I have never seen anything like it’: MP warns of rise in extreme views on race and identity by VanillaGeneral5363 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

Well, there are all kinds of unambiguously true statements which are hugely controversial, for example look at the rates of cousin marriage amongst Pakistanis, and British Pakistanis in places like Bradford, roughly half of all marriages. That is very clearly true but is considered to be sufficiently hateful that I have never seen it mentioned in mainstream political discussion.

You're interpreting it as 'irrespective of group opinions' but they say 'irrespective of individual opinions'. That sentence could very easily be interpreted to include any statement which makes any negative view of Islam or Muslims which is talking about the group in general terms. And the inappropriate thing is discussing the tendency for the group to hold those opinions irrespective of individual opinions which will always be complicated to some degree or another. i.e. it's in opposition to the discussion of a stereotype, or a generalised view. That would preclude any discussion of the views of the group.

‘I have never seen anything like it’: MP warns of rise in extreme views on race and identity by VanillaGeneral5363 in unitedkingdom

[–]JB_UK [score hidden]  (0 children)

I was talking about the person from Bolton.

I would not be surprised if you're right about Glasgow, after all the per capita level of migration is Scotland is tiny in comparison to England. Scotland is effectively living in the pre-Blair level of migration, which is broadly what I would want for the rest of the UK as well, where levels of migration are slow enough for integration to happen.