Our PM lives in a different world

[Marmablade]

Article on BBC News today reporting Rishi Sunak reassuring people to hold their nerve and get through high interest rates.

This is the man who paid £325,826 in capital gains tax and £120,604 in UK income tax on a total of £1.9m in the last tax year.

Of that £1.9m, £156,163 came from his parliamentary salary, £173,398 come from investment and savings income and about £1.641m from capital gains - profit made on the sale of assets.

How can a man with an income of £1.9m a year possibly understand what the average person is feeling right now?? Holding our nerve won't pay the mortgage this month.

BBC News - Rishi Sunak urges people to hold their nerve on interest rates
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66012301

Because the priority is their removal.

Only the vast majority aren't removed because it is found (eventually given the underfunding in the system) that they have legitemate asylum claims or are granted other status which permits them to remain in the UK.

I don’t think that affects the underlying point.

Which is presumably that the government has chosen to demonise some of the poorest and most desperate people for their own politcal ends.

Blather. Really am ignoring you now.

There are plenty of very rich people in the UK, many huge properties, especially in London are own by Russians, Chinese etc.

does being rich prevent you being PM? Tony Blair, the warmonger is now a multi £££millionaire and still poking his nose into politics

No, it is possible for anyone, even an asylum seeker, to enter the country illegally. The only difference is that the UK chooses not to prosecute illegal entrants that claim asylum.

And the UK chooses not to prosecute such people because it is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention that forbids such prosecutions and the most recent UK domestic law that does the same is the 1999 Immigration Act.

Because the U.K. chooses not to prosecute for illegal entry if the illegal entrant claims asylum as I posted earlier.

That is a very different legal circumstance than not breaking a law at all by entering the country legally.

Besides, prosecution costs more money and takes more time than the extra-judicial removal by deportation powers that the Home Office possess.

Because of our own domestic law and the fact as Agatha mentioned, removal is prioritised over prosecution as it is faster and cheaper for same result.

I think then we are all in agreement that the government doesn't prosecute those it calls illegal asylum seekers because by virtue of international law that is reflected in various UK acts of parliament, asylum seekers are not and can not enter the country illegally.

I actually think we should move away from just elected politicians, I think a percentage should be created via something similar to jusry service.

So currently my town has 3 MPs, I'd amalgamate the 3 constituencies it to 2 geographical areas and have a third from a list like jury service

so you have any old muppet off the street randomly selected? I’d rather have motivated people who want to be in politics whether I agree with their viewpoints or not

How much money he (and his wife) have in the bank affects his life view and therefore how he does his job.

It also raises the question of why he wants the job.

This is incorrect. The UN refugee convention was not fully reflected in domestic law even prior to the recent controversial legislation.

True but that’s true of any PM. We all have our life view shaped by our experiences but that doesn’t mean you’re incapable of understanding other views.

And I think it’s to his credit that he does this job. He could have his feet up on a yacht, yet he puts himself through this shite every day.

NB I’ve never voted Tory in my life. I just believe in judging on merits, not background.

Even though the wording in the domestic law is practicallty identical and in order to be a signatory to the convention one has to have enacted it into domestic law.

So we should judge Sunak on the billions in fraud he permitted as chancellor then?

Paying less tax than a teacher or nurse puts you in a very privileged position relative to the people of the country he is leader of. By being hugely shielded from his own policies he is unable to empathize to the extent we need to get him to change policies in favour of normal people rather than rich people. I appreciate he is a Tory and thars what the Tory party stands for but right now we need someone in charge who prioritises the poor majority over the rich majority. And in his rich, privileged position he can't advocate for us.

A more accurate statement of the legal position can be found here:
https://levinslaw.co.uk/dinghies-in-the-channel-illegal-entrants-and-immigration-offences/

important to note that this discussion relates to the law predating the recently passed Act, which made the position in relation to
illegal entry tougher.

The mechanism that deals with the fact that no prime minister ever shares the experiences of the whole electorate is democracy itself. No PM can ever be “representative” of the population as a whole; but he or she needs as many of them as possible to vote for him. Rishi Sunak is quite capable of understanding that his political career is going nowhere if he can only get votes of people like him.

Who elected Sunak?

Madamewhiteleigh
He is doing his job very badly. He is supposed to make life better and provide well functioning public services. People are poor, struggling and the services they rely on are in crisis. Having an understanding of the real life concerns of people are important. If your kids are privately educated and you have private health are and a bank balance which means you never have to work again does not help in this endeavour.

But then we get exactly the same kind of people but wearing red rosettes instead of blue. "The more things change, the more they stay the same"!