To think 335,000 extra people coming to the UK in a year is too high

[jdoe8]

Where will they all live? What jobs will they all do? I know it may help GDP, but that is irrelevant as GDP per head is the important thing.

It does seem to be race to the bottom with more part time work , uber type work and the country is borrowing more and more and the national debt is 35k per head now.

Limer it doesn't matter how supposedly work shy or lazy brits are - which by the way I find awful things to say - our governments FIRST responsibility is to these people, not to the poor people of EE.

Our government or rather Blairs Government should not have just written off whole generations of people and replaced them with peoples from elsewhere. His duty of care was to the citizens of this country. If they are lazy and workshy we need to know why and sort that out.

Myschool Maybe you didnt read thread from p.1 - but we are talking about unskilled immigration. Few of these people can sustain themselves and therefore need public assistance. We are facilitating them to find a better standard of living in the UK, but the country is getting very little in return and they are displacing our own unskilled workers.

It is not crumbling because of immigration

But you dont ADD to the problem either.

Wages will never increase if there's a massive oversupply of cheap labour from the EU

Yes, and those elderly parents who have moved here from the EU all contribute to longer waiting times and rationing of medical investigations. EU children need to go to school, have a GP, a dentist, and the women need maternity services. My local maternity unit in a large teaching hospital has had to close 3 times this year already because they were full. To be fair, this has partly been due to health tourists from outside of EU, never seen before, just arriving in Maternity after their waters have broken.

100% agree Winter

The so-called "underclass" has been created as a direct result of the flooding of the labour market by unskilled migrants. The British taxpayer picks up the bill for the ever-spiralling welfare costs, while the fat cat employers laugh all the way to the bank.

The Gulf States and the migrant crisis. The Gulf is very protective of its way of life.

"The influx of thousands of Syrians at once would threaten to overturn a highly delicate demographic balance that the Gulf states rely on to keep functioning.

"For example, citizens in the UAE and Qatar number a little over 10% of the resident populations in their respective countries. The vast majority of residents are transitory economic workers.

"Foreigners are only allowed residency if they or their spouse have full-time jobs - there is no possibility to remain permanently in the Gulf without work - and once their contracts are up almost all migrants return home.

"This is how the Gulf works - with a high turnover of low and high skilled labour, which allows the native Gulf Arab populations to maintain their dominant status without being overrun by Arabs from other countries, or South Asian labourers."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34173139

Oh no, not the grouse moors, I said I'd stop talking... but here's a link to how grouse moors affect just one aspect of the environment. They attract subsidies from the EU, and owners often remove other species that might reduce the amount of grouse. I think a few less of these and more land for housing might be a good thing in the long run.

If the 300,000 pa arriving were all professional, high income, high grade jobs, we would be having protests about wage cuts by a third to the professions due to competition.
We aren't, because they are not.

Driving down wages benefits everyone who consumes the fruits of that labour. That's not the problem. We can have low wages if the cost of living wasn't so high. if the government wasn't constantly and actively trying to raise the cost of living, low wages wouldn't be a problem, and we wouldn't have such a high benefits bill.

This hasn't worked too well for the working classes over the last 15 years though?
Are you suggesting the professions join the pain with a 30% haircut too?
Lets see how that works out then.

This hasn't worked too well for the working classes over the last 15 years though?

Of course it hasn't. Because there has been a massive rise in the cost of living.

Are you suggesting the professions join the pain with a 30% haircut too?

why not? the difference is that there isn't enough labour competition to drive down wages.

An increase inthe 40% income tax band to 60% would cover that. The income raised could be ploughed into whatever would make Britain competitive, perhaps infrastructure and Stem companies.
But definitely not in to work benefits, they don't work, and have added gravely to the low wage problem.

user those on 60 percent income tax would leave. We had 80 percent tax on high earners in the late 60s/70s I believe. They all pissed off overseas.

It's usually a hollow threat, most middle earners are well and truly tied to the Uk.
The financial sector cried similar against tighter regulation, they still remain.
Post article 50 and its catalyst effect on Europe, i'd wager Europe, distinctly, may not be an attractive option.

That'll work.

Tax higher earner even higher and they will cost more.
Private school money gone, children go the oversubscribed local schools.
No money for BUPA, more pressure on the NHS.
Cleaner gone, she demands more in benefits.

It's not all black white and simple.

The revenue generated would be vast, plenty enough to finance the schools and hospitals we require.
Crucially, investment in real, not make work jobs which exist purely because of in work benefits.
Work must pay.

An increase inthe 40% income tax band to 60% would cover that.

That would make us even less competitive post-Brexit.

Work must pay.

Very true. And work must pay for the higher earners too.

Income tax?
Corporation tax is already low, it could be then lowered to further attract solid global investment.

Totally agree Southall. I suspect you encounter this situation if your name reflects where you live.

An increase inthe 40% income tax band to 60% would cover that. The income raised could be ploughed into whatever would make Britain competitive, perhaps infrastructure and Stem companies.

Research infrastructure ok. But if we are not competitive in some areas, why throw good money after bad?

The trouble, however, with our competitiveness is that we want far more money than other people in the world are willing to take for certain tasks. That wouldn't be the case if we weren't so interested in, for example, propping up housing (our only real industry).

There's nothing stopping the UK remaining competitive in the global market as well as increasing public spending. It just takes good management.

*from

Currently there is a sizeable number of people who have private health insurance and therefore never go to an NHS hospital for investigations. Just think if all of those people were suddenly to drop their private insurance and fall on the mercy of the NHS.

Ditto those in HM Prisons. If half of them were to be released it would show up the crisis very NHS crisis quickly as well as housing and jobs.

Southall, you and I agree on one thing:

This country is overpopulated.