The Politics Thread

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Meanwhile, exactly who does he think will be paying his pension? It won't be the declining number of British young people, that's for sure.

The Daily Mail hasn't blamed anyone for that yet, so he's somewhat in the dark on the subject

[Montreal Wanderer]

Meanwhile, exactly who does he think will be paying his pension? It won't be the declining number of British young people, that's for sure.

The Daily Mail hasn't blamed anyone for that yet, so he's somewhat in the dark on the subject

More to the point, who is paying BB's? I see where he is coming from now...

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Meanwhile, exactly who does he think will be paying his pension? It won't be the declining number of British young people, that's for sure.

The Daily Mail hasn't blamed anyone for that yet, so he's somewhat in the dark on the subject

More to the point, who is paying BB's? I see where he is coming from now...

Not me

[Hoboh]

Keep acting thick, it suits you!

I'm aspiring to be the genuine article using you as a role model, rather than acting...

Well your head was in the sand saying where are they? obviously they just came quietly.

I'm still waiting for your cost estimate for the "EBF" - European Boundary Fence - Project. I am a little curious for the Greek Islands as to whether we fence them off individually or whether we're just going to go sea-bound round the lot of them? I think the land border is estimated at about 7,900 miles according to Frontex. So rough calculation...Fairly sure UK shelled out £3m on a couple of miles worth to help Calais out. So I reckon at £1.5m per mile that comes to around 12Bn...

Seems like awfully good value...a grand project on a European scale...

Just need to ban all travel with ladders now, worldwide.

Sure-fire winner

Just about the amount of our foreign aid per year

[Hoboh]

The chicanery of calling them "economic migrants" is pathetic. They're fleeing barrel bombs and slavery. That, having reached one EU country where they have no ties and don't speak the language, they try to move to another country instead of obeying some arbitrary EU rules that mean nothing to them doesn't make them "economic migrants". To try to argue they fall in the same category as a university-educated Pole looking to boost his income is ridiculous.

I'm f*cking embarrased by our reaction to this so far.

Hi, my name is Mustbe Afreeloader from Pakistan, my government is barrel bombing me and I'm fleeing slavery, of course because I can speak a smattering of the most widely spoken language in the world, I need to get to the UK.

Hi, I'm from Africa and if I stay in my country I will have to do time in my national army. If I stay here I cannot earn enough money to afford an I-phone or I-pad. Really I am a bit of a shithouse who lets anyone do whatever they want with my country, I cannot be arsed, I'm off to Europe and maybe England where I will get these things and put up in a hotel with £35 a week spends right away,
All my legal aid is free as well.
Yours Typical 18-24 year old!

Hello, I genuinely fled a war in Syria and made it to Kos. I think it is disgusting that we were not given a hotel to stay in and it took 48hrs for our papers to be processed. My family and I did not leave the refugee camp in Turkey to come to the West and be treated like this, we demand to be allowed to cross whatever country we wish to either settle or go to Germany/UK.

Yeah it is fcking embarrassing the way 'genuine war refugees' are allowed to pick and choose with more rights than anyone else!

1) You can't just invent stories and then pretend that's evidence.

2) Even if those stories were true, how on earth do they have more rights than anyone else?

You don't try to get your family across the Mediterranean in a bath-tub for an i-pad.

How many families do you see coming across the Med? Most, the vast majority are single young males!
How many people can get legal aid these days simply by claiming they are Muslim gays in order to fight deportation?
Made up? based on interviews with a lot of these migrants I'd say it's nearer the truth than you think!
Anyway, how many are you putting up and feeding?

[Hoboh]

Meanwhile, exactly who does he think will be paying his pension? It won't be the declining number of British young people, that's for sure.

The Daily Mail hasn't blamed anyone for that yet, so he's somewhat in the dark on the subject

More to the point, who is paying BB's? I see where he is coming from now...

Not me

I would say if we can get the near 1,000,000 young into work and off the dole or the 'further education, hide the unemployed, it would help.
And anyway in a declining population there is less need for services and pensions etc. the opposite is true with mass migration.

[Bijou Bob]

It's not a declining population, it's an ageing demographic which means a steadily increasing pensions bill, including yours and mine.

[Hoboh]

It's not a declining population, it's an ageing demographic which means a steadily increasing pensions bill, including yours and mine.

But we would be but for all this bloody migration!

[Hoboh]

Policy will be made by Labour members and not the leader, shadow cabinet, or parliamentary party, Jeremy Corbyn has said in a debate with his three leadership rivals organised by the Guardian

Oh my giddy aunt! Didn't Stalin used to say things like that to his 'membership'?

I'll bet WtW's knocking back an extra glass of plonk right now reading that!

Mr Jones would be driven from the farm, and "All animals are equal."

[Prufrock]

To me, the biggest disappointment of the Labour Leadership contest has been how rubbish Yvette Cooper has been. How little she's had to say given how good she actually is. How it seems her strategy has been to try to say nothing and win by pissing no-one off. It's a shame when she's capable of speaking like this:

"These figures show David Cameron needs to stop the dishonesty over his failed immigration target and replace it with a sensible plan instead which properly separates immigration and asylum.

All his overblown rhetoric has achieved is a decline in public confidence as the electorate are faced with more broken promises. At the same time he has failed to tackle the exploitation by dodgy employers and agencies which is driving low skilled migration, undercutting wages and jobs and at its worst creating modern slavery. Meanwhile universities and businesses are finding the system too rigid to get the top international talent they need.

But most troubling of all, the net migration target treats immigration and asylum as the same. That is morally wrong and is preventing Britain playing its part in responding to the terrible refugee crisis that stems from Syria and has spread across Europe. We have a long tradition of providing sanctuary for those fleeing conflict and persecution abroad - yet we are completely failing to live up to that tradition now. Other countries round the world are doing their bit. It is time Britain did too."

[thebish]

it's a shame she is hiding that lamp under a bushel... is it for fear of not sounding tough enough? if so - where was it she spoke that extract?

[Hoboh]

To me, the biggest disappointment of the Labour Leadership contest has been how rubbish Yvette Cooper has been. How little she's had to say given how good she actually is. How it seems her strategy has been to try to say nothing and win by pissing no-one off. It's a shame when she's capable of speaking like this:

"These figures show David Cameron needs to stop the dishonesty over his failed immigration target and replace it with a sensible plan instead which properly separates immigration and asylum.

All his overblown rhetoric has achieved is a decline in public confidence as the electorate are faced with more broken promises. At the same time he has failed to tackle the exploitation by dodgy employers and agencies which is driving low skilled migration, undercutting wages and jobs and at its worst creating modern slavery. Meanwhile universities and businesses are finding the system too rigid to get the top international talent they need.

But most troubling of all, the net migration target treats immigration and asylum as the same. That is morally wrong and is preventing Britain playing its part in responding to the terrible refugee crisis that stems from Syria and has spread across Europe. We have a long tradition of providing sanctuary for those fleeing conflict and persecution abroad - yet we are completely failing to live up to that tradition now. Other countries round the world are doing their bit. It is time Britain did too."

Fcuk me you are easily pleased!

How little she's had to say given how good she actually is.

This is a woman whom when on the opposition front bench never made any meaningful opposition to anything!!!

[Worthy4England]

Help! Hoboh and I agree on something...

[Hoboh]

Help! Hoboh and I agree on something...

Oh sh*t
Hang on a min, did you propose once working as law and order minister on planet hoboh?

[Prufrock]

it's a shame she is hiding that lamp under a bushel... is it for fear of not sounding tough enough? if so - where was it she spoke that extract?

It was a statement she put out yesterday in response to the Migration Observatory figures Hobes quoted above. (So not sure she actually "spoke" like that, but that's not the point). Reported by the BBC here: http://t.co/u08pYWsVth" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not sure if that was the full text.

[Hoboh]

But most troubling of all, the net migration target treats immigration and asylum as the same. That is morally wrong and is preventing Britain playing its part in responding to the terrible refugee crisis that stems from Syria and has spread across Europe. We have a long tradition of providing sanctuary for those fleeing conflict and persecution abroad - yet we are completely failing to live up to that tradition now. Other countries round the world are doing their bit. It is time Britain did too.

How many is she and Mr Balls going to house and feed, after all they can afford it! Put it on your expenses dear.

[thebish]

Burnham is a strange one...

he is (allegedly, or at least, this week!) an Everton fan - and he is holding a fund-raising dinner for his election campaign at Old Trafford with celebrity guest - Jamie Carragher..

so - Everton fan with a dinner at ManU and a celebrity Liverpool guest??

oh - and - the cost for attending the dinner is £125... (not to mention the mental cost of having to sit and try to make sense of what Carragher is saying...)

[thebish]

Hello, I genuinely fled a war in Syria and made it to Kos. I think it is disgusting that we were not given a hotel to stay in and it took 48hrs for our papers to be processed. My family and I did not leave the refugee camp in Turkey to come to the West and be treated like this, we demand to be allowed to cross whatever country we wish to either settle or go to Germany/UK.

hmmm...

an alternative view...

this is Kirsty McNeill - Campaigns Director at Save the Children... she spent some time on HMS Bulwark, the Royal Navy ship deployed as Britain’s emergency contribution to Mediterranean search and rescue missions, and wrote about what she saw in a column in the New Statesman...

It is worth remembering that these children and pregnant women are not the visa over-stayers or illegal workers of tabloid nightmares. Instead they are people who have taken terrifying journeys in what the crew described as little more than “lilos with sides”. What kind of parent lets their child get in something like that? Only one who fears what’s behind more than what’s in front.

here's one such woman, trying to hold her baby above the water, after the boat they were on sank in the Mediterranean...



somehow I'm struggling to imagine Hobo's imagined words on her lips...

[Hoboh]

And here's the others, but hey, single men don't quite fit the story!

[Hoboh]

Mean while in Germany.

The traffickers – believed to be mostly Romanians and Bulgarians – take advantage of the dark to escape, discarding most of their vehicles in which they have typically travelled in convoy to Germany, having crammed as many people as they can into each car.

Often the first the police get to hear about them is in early morning calls from locals who find the exhausted migrants sitting on their front lawns.

Those 'nice' people who have doubled in numbers coming to the UK this year!

Hanan and Marwan comfort their daughter and son, Betul, 5, and Can, 7, who are exhausted and irritable after their 10-day journey from the city of Kamishli in north-eastern Syria, which took them via Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Germany. “It was cold and dirty, and we had no food,” says Hanan in broken English. “Then this morning we were left in a field at around 4am, I did not know where we are.” She proudly showed off her armband bearing the code AS 397 127 2000 – her all-important German identification number.

And they had to go to Germany? None of the other countries are safe? Not seen any foreign office warnings to travellers about them yet!