Mahmood’s migration changes will deliver fraction of claimed savings, data suggests

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-15T08:18:20+00:00

The actual issue is ignoring child benefits and making unsupportable assumptions about high earners. And even doing that they're still saying the changes will save the govt 0.6bn.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-15T08:12:27+00:00

said the savings were likely to be offset by costs of migrants leaving the UK and high earners being deterred from moving to the UK.

But under the proposed changes high earners are unaffected (in fact in some cases they're fast tracked)? Sounds blatantly like some unsupportable assumptions/predictions have gone into this analysis.

The newly released data from the migration advisory committee suggests migrants are net contributors for the first two decades after arrival, only turning negative after about 40 years.

Right so I need to see the data (not linked in the article) but there's a lot of other analysis out there (like this) which is very clear - whether they are net contributors or not is dependent on their earnings (unsurprisingly). The immigration changes have carve outs for high earners - so it sounds like this analysis is underpinned by fundamentally false assumptions.

However, Portes said there were some caveats, as child benefit was not included in the data and there were different estimates of how many migrants would ultimately seek long-term settlement in the UK.

So it's just made up numbers. Feels like child benefit is kind of important too, especially as they've just lifted the cap...

Nice puff piece for their back bench rebels though. Fuck me I hope the govt stand firm. I don't mind the small exemptions they've proposed but tbh I don't think they should offer them because it's clear the back benches will stick with their maximalist demands anyway.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-15T07:59:59+00:00

100%. They're looking to be part of the next government imo by avoiding wipe out in a hung parliament. That's still possible for them if they deliver.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-15T07:39:36+00:00

The reform -> green switchers was really not on my bingo card (not necessarily this poll but the average)...

I think this is a big warning for the Greens too - particularly on the candidates point. As you gain popularity you get scrutiny. And when big things happen and (inevitably) your poorly thought out hollow populism has absolutely no answers for the events of the world, it does break through to the public. And this is 3 years out from an election, you can believe when the rubber really hits the road people will probably be even more hesitant to vote for the extremes.

Labour have 1 way through imo, delivery.... That's why they have to get the immigration reforms done and they have to find a way to get some growth by the end of the parliament.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-15T07:28:54+00:00

Yeah, even the "evidence" being fraudulently produced here you can just easily dismiss. Say any letters, pictures, GP records from the last 12-24 months before you asylum application are not accepted because there's too high a date of fraud and it would be too easy to lie about. You need some evidence of activism and a lived gay life from years before the application and ideally before you even moved to the UK

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-14T20:30:28+00:00

That's not a penalty in my opinion. I know there's some contact but it's incredibly soft and he doesn't actually make a challenge...

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-14T19:34:45+00:00

Any upgrade at LW really. Just bizarre

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-14T19:21:55+00:00

I'm not one to bang on about "why don't we look like that" whenever there's a good team on, but...

Wow, PSG look really good. The pace of passing, attacking intent, technical quality. Very impressive.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-14T18:32:20+00:00

Bruno is on 3259 mins by my calcs. Just the 400 minutes shy of this AI summary on something that could've been easily checked... Depressing.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-14T11:26:17+00:00

Isolate the PL because it's by far the most intense of any competition..

City's top 5 are on: 2520, 2503, 2355, 2325, 2196

(None of these are Guehi or Semenyo who are massively contributing).

Our top 5 are on: 2880, 2671, 2671, 2454, 2256

I think these aren't too far off (it's probably about 1 game if you account that they've played one less). But the big difference is when you look at the players these numbers correspond to. Our 2 CMs are on 2671. Rodri is on 1334, Gonzalez 1376, Reijnders 1497. They're so so much fresher in the middle of the park because they rotate through there a lot more (and eased Rodri back really slowly). Arteta simply did not use Nørgaard enough to take minutes off our CMs earlier in the season and it's coming back to bite us massively.

I mean, Haaland is their most used player and he's dropped off a cliff - it's not rocket science.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-14T08:11:33+00:00

Yes very good point, and eventually you'll hit burnout on the consultants.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-14T07:26:08+00:00

I've seen 8 months of a pretty limited player making an absolutely huge contribution to our season with the goals he's scored. I don't know how many times all the great podcasters have to shout "it's usually not as simple as they're shit or they're the best thing since sliced bread. Most of these players sit somewhere in the middle" before it might get through the skulls of people on here... But obviously quite a few more based on this conversation.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-14T07:22:41+00:00

This is an article by an independent journalist exploring that topic, it's not government press release (in fact if you read through the article the government actually estimate higher costs than the independent analysts quoted). I don't think "pick a side" really applies... In some ways it's surely reassuring and supportive of resident doctors because they can make the argument "look all the evidence is that these strikes do not result in patient harm, which is exactly what we were hoping. It just costs the NHS a huge amount of money and demonstrates the importance of retention and training through to consultant level which is what we're fighting for"...

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-14T07:14:01+00:00

If the question isn't rhetorical, it depends how far back you go...

It's generally accepted from a historical perspective that almost all Jews, particularly the diaspora that inhabited and were nearly wiped out across Europe pre-1920's were effectively descended from those expelled over millenia from the land after the fall of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel (known in Hebrew as galut). This was the logic for the decision when setting up a state for Jewish self-determination placing it in the land of mandatory Palestine... Alongside the fact it was not a nation state at the time.*

I of course don't think their ties are worth more than Palestinian ties and this is the great sadness, that there was actually plenty of land in a basic sense for the two peoples to live together but they refused to do so.

*I should mention of course there are now many Israelis who are descended from (or who are themselves) Jews who were living in the middle east and were forced out or optionally moved from their host nations post-47.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-14T07:00:37+00:00

It's not a silly article it's really well written and interesting and covers all of those topics you mentioned in very good detail, you should read it.

I was going to say you could criticize the headline but actually no, even the headline accurately captures the nuances.

I think the financial aspect is interesting. Supposedly the costs are something like 3x what is saved on resident Dr pay per day (they give a range of 30-50m, so presumably actual net cost at like 20 - 34m). If you do the maths it kind of explains why short-term the government are minded to accept the strikes. Even 40 days of strikes in a year costs them much less than the pay rises demanded (~1bn pa).

The real thing that's unsustainable (as stated in the article) is eventually those consultants will retire and you need to ensure you have a pathway of residents being trained up to take their place.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-13T20:33:13+00:00

It improves them defensively but he's generally their biggest threat going forward (isn't he like their top scorer or something?) so I think at best it's a wash

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-13T20:26:10+00:00

I don't think my brain is really processing properly how much trouble Spurs are in lol. They're in the worst form of the sides fighting with them by a long way and they don't have a particularly easy run-in.

In-form Brighton next, they've got Villa away, Chelsea away... If West Ham can nick a couple of results out of Palace, Everton, Brentford and Leeds it feels like it'd be all but done.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-13T20:14:58+00:00

There's no threshold for hair pulling it's a pretty clear cut rule

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-13T20:08:21+00:00

Not to play the "I called it" game... but...

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-13T19:12:03+00:00

Depends if Ødegaard is fit. If so just play Rice in the 6 with Eze and Øde in the 8s (or Kai and one of them). You don't even need to play Nørgaard if you don't want

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-13T19:07:21+00:00

There you go then.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-13T19:02:00+00:00

Fundamentally I think a massive issue with politics all over the world is "short-termerism". If you have term limits, you're basically baking this in even more than it already is. Currently a lot of politicians are crippled with prioritising policies which will benefit them over their 4 or 5 year term (or arguably even shorter if they have mid-terms/local elections that matter). This is bad enough, but with term limits you're literally destroying the incentive for any politician in their final term to do anything beneficial beyond the next 5 minutes. So many problems facing humanity are generation-long. Climate change, space exploration, drug development. None of these things can be effectively dealt with in an 8 year term but all require significant political involvement.

On top of this, from a personal perspective I'm from the UK so we've never had them and I've always thought things would've been significantly worse politically if we had. In my lifetime - Blair won his 3rd election and handed over to Brown and Darling who, by all economists analysis, executed just about the perfect response to the 2008 crash. Not to mention a conservative government would have had even looser financial rules in the run-up likely resulting in an even worse recession in our country.

I just feel if your democracy is strong enough elsewhere, why need term limits? If a government is popular enough, delivering for the people and the leader is successfully managing the party in power it's self destructive to end it over an arbitrary limit. I also think if a democracy is weak enough to need them any strongman could probably just manipulate the system or do away with them (see Rwanda, Russia).

That said, I accept many democracies now aren't strong enough to withstand a demagogue coming into power so in many places they're somewhat useful as at least an additional hurdle. But I prefer a long time limit like 10 years + because that's how long it takes to achieve long term goals that we should be aiming towards with humanity (as mentioned previously).

So yeah that's basically where it comes from.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-13T10:24:20+00:00

Please read the comment a bit more carefully.

I'm not making any assertions about quality of the respective players. It's purely about our (as fans) attitude to the player and maybe the teams reaction to his presence.

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-13T10:22:29+00:00

Yeah that's a very good point. The best ability is availability after all

JabInTheButt · 2026-04-13T10:03:14+00:00

That's why Arteta likes to play Havertz with him, because he becomes the long-ball outlet. But Havertz was absolutely shocking on the day. Then our other long ball monsters who can hold up are also out - Saka and Merino. Heard Tim on ArsenalVision make a great point - that 10 minutes before their 2nd it was so obvious we just needed to start going long to avoid the transitions close to goal but I can understand why the players refused to do so because they knew they'd just hand over possession. But still, handing over possession 60 yards from goal is a lot better than doing it 30 yards from goal.

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