The People demand that the Boats are Stopped.

[noblegiraffe]

I keep reading about the Tory government working hard to deliver the people's priorities:

"Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Government are focused on five immediate priorities. We will halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut NHS waiting lists and stop the boats."

Halve inflation (will happen anyway), grow the economy (vague), reduce debt (vague), cut NHS waiting lists (maybe by paying nurses and doctors more?), stop the boats (what?).

Maybe it's just where I live, but I'm not seeing this immediate urgent need to "stop the boats". It's certainly nowhere near my top 5 priorities for the government to be immediately tackling. If it was, I'd probably look at creating legal routes for genuine asylum seekers as a first step rather than shipping them to Rwanda.

Is it in your top 5 urgent government priorities? Are they speaking to the people and I've just completely missed it?

YABU: Stopping the boats is in my top 5 government priorities.
YANBU: I'm more concerned about something else and would bump Stop the Boats down the list.

Your problem, of course, is that there is no post on this thread that says that. But there, you carry on thinking that if it makes you feel better.

I think you are mistaken, they were on a stag night apparently!

@Anklespraying interesting you engage with that comment but seem to have no ability to actually answer the question I asked you.

I suggested you find out your self what the purpose behind every country in the world having armed forces is.

And, @Anklespraying, my opinions are mine and should only be taken in the context of my posts, not anyone else's. No matter how convenient you may find it to generalise wildly.

By the way, I don't vote Labour. Sorry to disappoint you and all that.

But it is up to us to vote in a government that will put this at the forefront of their agenda. You say it's 'not up to you' but we're the electorate who are supposed to have the right to decide how money is spent! If we don't vote with individuals who will do this for us, instead of voting for blatantly vote begging motives, how are we ever to get to the truth. Telling us that they're opposed to the 'boats' is cheap. We need to understand why they risk their lives to escape their awful lives to come to us. If we understood, and by that I mean each and every one of us truly understood what drives an individual to walk 1000s of miles, for females to risk rape or worse death, to risk slavery, to risk life long servitude for what, to risk their children being sold to slavery and what so that for the rest of our country is small expense?! Yes, of course some bastards will come in. But hey that happens no matter what - take the US as an example.

But before you feel I'm a lefty who wants to open the gates to all - you're soooo wrong! I want to welcome anyone regardless of colour, faith, sexuality etc that wants to work to improve our economy. I'm not a lefty 'let us have a haven for non workers' - in fact I'm far from it! My issue is that I feel that those that grew up in the 50s/60s/70s but are technically 'British' have got far too used to having everything delivered to them on a plate! As I said in a previous earlier post I live off the South East coast. I'm sick to death of learning that farmers around me can't pick their fruit because of bloody BREXIT. We could have had a voice within the European Union, but no - migrants are somehow bad, yet a bloody 7th generation needing state welfare is ok! So no I'm definitely not a lefty.

Those stag nights eh! What a laugh!

Please do have the last word cabernet, it seems important you.

Ah, the usual cop-out from someone who knows they can't sustain their argument. If you think our armed forces are in place to stop refugees getting here, you provide the evidence. I know rather a lot of members of the forces who would be shocked at the very notion.

Agreed - I know many myself.

I know what they're for. I never asked you: anklespraying, please do ask me in a very patronising way what are the armed forces for?
I asked you what they have to do with the particular question OP has asked. You have since posted no less than 5 times, but are yet to tell me the answer to my question. You keep asking me to look up what armed forces are for, I know what they're for. I don't know what they have to do with Rishis top 5 priority of stopping the boats, seeing as they're not the ones doing the stopping or the saving. I'd like you to explain please.

@Dodgeitornot Stopping these kind of boats would be in my top 5, it's absolutely horrific.

If you were PM, out of all the pressing and urgent issues on the country, stopping the boats would be in your top 5? What would be the others out of interest? I'm not saying stopping them isn't a priority, it makes me shudder, but there are things I would put above that, if I were PM.

I'm not sure if you're interpreting my post correctly. I agree with most of what you say, and I completely agree that it is indeed up to us to vote in a government that is actually capable of doing its job properly. I am in favour of genuine refugees being admitted, and unlike some contributors to this thread I have read the statistics which demonstrate that the majority of those claiming asylum are found to be genuine. My references to an efficient asylum processing system are directed at all the people who seem to think that the way to solve current immigration problems is to stop the boats, rather than setting up safe passage combined with a system for assessing asylum claims overseas and processing them quickly so we can weed out the non-genuine ones quickly.

Cost of living crisis
NHS
Transport
Education
Crime - including modern slavery

But 5 things is not enough really, is it?! The environment is so important also. Maybe I would try to tie it into education, offering bursaries for environment related careers or something. Honestly, I could probably think of 10 priorities. I am not a politician, but I would like to focus on improving people's lives, but it's late and probably I am lacking inspiration.

I like your list, but I can't see the stopping boats on there.
What you said after your list is really it, isn't it. Top 5 isn't really on and the fact our PM is giving a top 5, and isn't including many very pressing things on there, is a bit deflating. The boats thing is serious, and it is something that needs to be addressed. I'm not sure it's as desperate as the state of education or the care sector, or housing or quite a few other things. 50k boat migrants last year, let's add another 100k for good measure for the ones that slipped through the net, I mean it's a lot, but it no where near equal to the number of kids currently without a teacher. I'm not into politics so I don't know if this top 5 list is compulsory, but it's giving me MySpace top 5 friends vibes. Move it around when someone pisses you off to cause some drama.

@Dodgeitornot Ah well, I thought I could file stopping slave boats under crime and modern slavery. Asylum seeker boats are a separate issue, but not as urgent, I agree. Rishi's list is non-specific and spectacularly unambitious, and it's quite likely they want it that way.

I agree completely with everything you've said. Unfortunately their stop the boats plan doesn't touch on modern slavery, it's mainly sticking to the processing centre of Rwanda.

@Dodgeitornot I haven't been following the news, but I am not surprised Rwanda is their only idea! I am leaving the thread now as I must sleep, though.

@8state Same! It's waay past my bedtime. Goodnight x

@Dodgeitornot Goodnight x

It's not in my top 10 but yes scores of single fit healthy undocumented men arriving is worrying.

I do wonder why people have no problem with Japan and South Korea desiring strict homogeneity but in the west its considered very bad for people to want a national identity?

His top 5 priorities should be

1 Cost of living
2 Health service
3 Housing
4 Education
5 Social care

No matter what he says, the cost of living problem hasn't been solved. Even with the 10.1% increase on welfare benefits food has gone up 16%, Energy price guarantee has gone up £500, things like broadband, landlines, & mobile phone charges have gone up, petrol & diesel have too. Wages aren't keeping track with inflation & haven't been for years, so even if everyone got a 10.1% increase this year their pay still won't have kept up with inflation in real terms.

The health service needs a massive injection not only of cash but in staff, we need more doctors, nurses, radiographers, physiotherapists etc. We have a crisis in NHS dentistry, too many dentists are leaving the NHS because the contracts just don't pay enough for the treatment. It needs a total rethink of the contract & enough dentists to guarantee everyone who earns less than £50k can get an NHS dentist.

We need more social housing, if the country could build as many council homes as it did when the country was practically bankrupt after WW2, why can't it now?

We need more teachers & the government need to get to the root cause of why so many teachers are leaving the profession. Schools need to be given the money to improve both the levels of teaching but the buildings themselves. You shouldn't have to move house purely to get into catchment for a good school, very school should be a good school. Ofsted needs to be changed putting pressure on schools & staff when they turn up is not the way to improve schools.

Social care should be run in partnership with the NHS, it needs a massive injection of funding, bring back home Social care services to council control, no care agencies that cream off profit, pay care staff a proper wage & make being a carer a profession with proper training & exams. It would be a good thing if there could be an apprenticeship programme to bring in new carers, 3 years training with basic nursing skills, teach the importance of treating the person who is being cared for as a human being, not just someone who you fling a sandwich & tablets to then run off to the next client. Pay carers a wage that covers moving from client to client & have more carers so that they have chance to build a relationship with their clients & time to care for them properly. Stop the practice of getting clients up at going on for lunch time & putting them to bed at 6.00pm, increasing the number of carers would help this & reduce the number of clients per carer. If Social care was run properly it would stop bed blocking & improve the flow in hospitals.

I don't have cash and I do live in the SE and I don't give a monkeys about it.

It is important to me. I think it's all gone about rather strangely but something needs to be done. I'm from a coastal town in SE that has been ripped apart by more and more people coming in with no regard whatsoever for their effect on the local town. And worse, the men that follow women around shouting sexy sexy out the bedsits which are forever growing in numbers. It's now been 20 years since the first asylum seekers arrived in the town. The town has been utterly destroyed by it. There are now several no go areas where interracial wars are ongoing between various countries bringing their tribal behaviour here,

I have literally been chased down the road by these men as they think it's their god given right to have a woman. They are openly misogynistic and raising misogynistic dc who attend local schools and the cycle continues into our own society.

If you haven't lived this first hand I can see why you think we are the 'nasty people' but actually my experience in a working class town is everyone genuinely tried to accommodate them but these people didn't want help. They wanted to continue their own culture with the benefit of western perks with no care for integrating with the locals whatsoever. They openly don't care and no they'll get away with it. Something does have to change imo.