Thread 25 Starmer - Cheers for a falling out among thieves

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5338688-thread-24-starmer-casting-the-net-wider?

Every one knows that more people cross the channel when the weather is calmer which is why the French and British governments should put more patrols and border force officers on at these times and be ready, but they act as if it is out of their control.

It doesn't take a genius to work it out. I shall praise Labour when we have a week of calm weather and no boats have crossed.

Indeed. When the facts, you need to change your plan.

Would you be happy with safe and legal routes if it means the same number of people arriving?

Those were manifesto commitments - just like the Blair government committed to sticking to Tory spending limits. It can be changed down the line when there’s more headroom.

I know they were - commitments made before the extent of the mess they inherited was apparent. The thing to have done would have been to look at ways of filling that hole and reversing unfunded NI cuts which helped create the hole would have been an easy win and politically palatable given the desperation there was to get the Tories out. I genuinely think they need a new braver and more creative chancellor now.

Do they? Just last week the weather dependency seemed to be new news to you.

Do you have anyone in mind?

I don’t disagree that they should be braver and more radical. I can just see why they didn’t do it at the first opportunity. Look at the backlash about the things they did do - can you imagine if they’d said ‘I know you voted for our manifesto where we said we wouldn’t raise taxes and NI, but whoops! We are going to anyway’. However good the reason.
They need to go for it now though.

Not sure. David Pinto-Duschinsky was an advisor to Alistair Darling so he might be an interesting choice.

Recently I wrote that some people will never be happy.

I have met more than one person who when presented with the thought experiment that the UK has infinite resources and could therefore accommodate refugees responded "Yes, but how is that fair on the white people born here ?"

So their concerns aren't around housing, education and healthcare. It's around not liking foreigners.

And this is why some people will never be persuaded by political parties that promise to improve housing, education and healthcare - they don't really care.

After last week's partial payment, I managed to collect my cathedral tax in full, this morning. Well almost. It's quite big!

Yes, I agree with this. Regarding the media demanding an apology, when did they demand apologies from the Tories for atrocities such as Covid wastage, delay in lockdown and overspend?

I did briefly defend JRM over some of the COVID costs (another fuck you to the simpletons who think these threads have an agenda).

If you are in an emergency, then I don't care how much the hose costs, I want to save my roof.

So a degree of relaxation of due diligence was expected and indeed priced in.

Of course, give them a centimetre, and they'll take a kilometre.

Seriously though, I stand by that. It would have little benefited the nation if we'd had the best PPE suppliers available in 2027.

The whole issue of encouraging refugees to move to the cheapest parts of the country is something that causes a lot of local resentment round here. Places like Tunbridge wells and Hemel Hempstead, nice market towns in the south and posh parts of the north just don’t get the same number of traumatised, often poorly educated, low skilled refugees. Then that creates a crabs in a bucket mentality whether it be about NMW jobs, social housing, schools being inundated with children who can barely speak English and social services already under pressure, further strained. I’m not sure that people don’t like foreigners per se, it’s more that everything is more stretched in socioeconomically deprived areas, why add more strain to the system.

🤔

Respectfully, I tried to address that.

Yes, all you write is true. And there is a lot that can and should be done (which may not necessarily involve large sums of money. Or even "money" at all). And people who have genuine anxieties borne of concern for the society they live in obviously form the majority.

However that still doesn't un-true my suggestion that there is a hard core of folk who even if they had all the money in the world would keep it for themselves and not give any away, Now that behaviour may equate to some evolutionary benefit, but then why do we have conscience and agency* ?

*Evangelicals often see that as an opening.

Do refugees get a choice as to where they are moved to?

Oh I agree. For sure some just hate foreigners simple as.
I’m fairly relaxed about immigration but tbh if I walk around my local northern TC it has definitely changed. It actually feels more like London inner city than a Lancashire cotton town. I suspect that many local Brits shy away from there now because it’s just so grim, no decent shops, homeless and beggars on every corner, hence the feeling that there are more ‘foreign’ faces here than ever and people feel uncomfortable/out of place in their own town. I’m not sure what the answer is. Maybe levelling it would have been a good idea ?

Well clearly they head to low cost areas don’t they ? Our council misguidedly joined the gateway scheme years ago because it received much needed monies from central government. From what I gather that created areas of severe deprivation and problems.
https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/15205889.staggering-disparity-in-number-of-refugees-settled-in-bolton-compared-to-rest-of-uk/

MN is bonkers.

WFA is scrapped for all but the poorest pensioners. Howls of rage (rightly, tbf).

Threshold increased significantly. Howls of rage at the cost and hate hurled at Boomers ( other flavours of pensioner are exempt).

Fact that the Tories paid out billions for the WFA and did not attempt any sort of reform.🦗

Obviously Labour cocked up, but the inconsistency amongst posters is unreal.

if I walk around my local northern TC it has definitely changed.

If you wanted to write the Historia Brittania, that could be the strapline

People move to places where they know others, bit like expats in Dubai, Spain.

schools being inundated with children who can barely speak English

This doesn't really compute with 'young fighting age men' rhetoric

Meanwhile, can someone tease out the metaphor of foxes and henhouses from this. I can't help but feel it's there somewhere. (Will the room accept a fox picture, if the link previews OK ?)

Google outfoxed by crafty squatters in $1B London HQ's rooftop garden

https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/10/fox_google_london_hq/

The other night I saw a fox lounging on a car roof in our street.

The new Reform chairman, tv host David Bull, once appeared with a bandaged ear in support of the 🍊🌮

As a Brexit party MEP, he didn't realise the European Parliament was in Strassbourg and he had to travel there from Ipswich

Have any of you visited some of the deindustrialised towns in the north ? Would you like to live here ? I’m not blaming migrants for the state of the UK, entirely Tory austerity to blame but you seem to be belittling how some ordinary wc people rightly or wrongly feel.