To think Starmer is utterly reprehensible

[Thegreyhound]

I know everyone will disagree, that’s ok- But I just have to say that Starmer today seems to have sunk lower than I ever believed he would with his incendiary ‘island of strangers’ and ‘incalculable damage’ rhetoric.
I find it particularly shocking because he has calculated this and decided it’s worth it to throw immigrants under the bus and essentially give all the ground in the debate to Farage, Tommy Robinson and Enoch Powell types.
Policy can be altered without making statements that are designed to impact race relations and make life even more difficult for people who are just trying to get along and make a living here.
Starmer is vile. This country does indeed feel like an island of strangers these days but the strangers are not the immigrants :(

I think a fair amount of people might do the same but to get rid of Labour. It’s all up for grabs.

I’m of the view that the population should be managed around the housing supply not the housing supply managed around the population. If there isn’t enough housing we have to start saying we can’t take anymore entrants until housing becomes available.

It makes complete sense for the government to subsidise childcare and elder care for everyone (not means tested) out of higher taxes for everyone.

Childcare then becomes like state education: we pay tax through our whole working life to cover the cost incurred for us in our childhood. It's not all clumped up in 5-8 expensive pre-school years - destroying women's careers 'because it's not worth working'. Absent fathers don't get to opt out. And it's fair - since each of those children will (hopefully) become a tax payer as an adult. It just needs a shift in thinking.

Likewise elder care: it's reasonable to pay extra tax through our lives to cover the extra cost we'll have on aging, possibly including a residential care home.

These would absolutely need to be non-means-tested: paid for by everyone over their whole working life, benefitting everyone. Like the NHS, state education and the old age pension. Large state costs need to be fairly available, otherwise the country fractures even more. Look at the huge dissatisfaction about people having to sell their homes for care when others get exactly the same care paid for by the taxpayer.

Our tax and benefit system has become unbalanced. It needs to be a way for everyone to contribute to social costs, and everyone to get a safety net/support. Not the unfair, unsustainable one-way redistribution we have sleep-walked into (very different to any other European country, including the Nordic countries).

I do not agree with forcing everyone to put their children into childcare 5 days a week. The research I have seen from the Nordic countries is primarily that grandparents chipping in, mum and dad working 4 days each a week, employers being understandable, shorter commutes, is best for the whole family and children’s mental health. We have a crisis with children’s mental health and early pressures and too much childcare and not enough outdoor play and being around family may all be contributing factors. I think expectations for work should be set at 80% for both parents with young children.

Nope. Taxpayers and those who were born here should. People coming here to take tax payer money shouldn’t.

Absolutely agree.

I think once they secured their position they would probably lower the rhetoric. Who knows

Then they’ll lose support. Like it or not but people do not like the state of play as it is now.

So you can't provide valid stats and a reasoned argument. You can only generalise and sneer. In that case I can't make a response and am once again disappointed to find I'm debating with someone who isn't that bright. A hazard of online debate I suppose.

@TheFastTraybake
Are these statistics any good?

According to data from Numbeo, Seoul’s crime index stands at 24.23,
Tokyo’s crime index is 24.81

London's crime index, according to Numbeo, is 54.6.

Not sure what sort of ‘reasoned argument’ I’m supposed to make except that the populations of Seoul and Tokyo commit less crime than that of London. Whether that is because there fewer criminals in those cities or because law enforcement is better I don’t know.

Which countries cover high childcare /elderly care costs?

Most European countries, actually.

They also provide a genuine safety net against unemployment/incapacity for all citizens, by giving state support based on your previous contributions - not means tested - for a limited period.

So unlike in the UK where after paying tens of thousands of tax every year for decades, if you lose your job for 6 months you can end up losing your home ... other European countries recognise that helping you with the cost of the life you have for a few short months means you're likely to actually get back on your feet. You actually get a meaningful safety net out of all that welfare you're paying into.

Likewise, most give a state pension which is based on your average income (hence contribution), over your working life, usually up to a maximim which is about twice what you get if you contributed nothing at all during your whole working life. To support pensioners continuing the life they are used to - and because it's fair.

All this is possible - and in fact the norm in the rest of Europe, which people for some reason believe is more socialist than us

Incidentally, that link between previous contributions and welfare in other EU countries but not the UK is arguably what made free movement a problem for the UK and led to Brexit.

Do you think you might be minimising a bit to call nearly a million immigrants (net so actually far more than that) in 2023 and 720,000 net in 2024 "a handful"?

I have the same instinct as you OP, but I'm also aware that the left needs to be able to talk about immigration, and put forward solutions, without freaking out and calling anyone who does that a racist.

I just read the speech and it is honestly pretty mild,. You pull a few quotes out of context and you can make it look like he's chanelling Enoch Powell, but he obviously isn't when you read it.

I think Starmer will go down as a failure of a leader and I imagine he may lose the next election, or be replaced before that. But I think in the long-term he will be remembered as someone trying to make long-term imporvements that aren't glamourous of popular. I don't think he cares if he's elected again - he would rather make changes he believes in.

Starmer is listening to the majority of voters

That some of Labour's voters will not agree will not matter the vast majority do (its not just here in the UK/England that concerns over the changes in society through its across the western world) because of high levels of immigration

Immigration has not always had a positive impact and the positive impact on immigration is lesser for the working classes

Labour needs their working class voters (and those from immigrant families too which a large number are not Labour voters), it needs to listen to them even if some of the rhetoric they are hearing is not palatable

Or Labour can put their head in the sand and witter on about the positivity of high immigration we really do risk Reform getting into power

No they're really unhelpful in isolation.

And is is certainly not channelling Enoch Powell

Knee jerk reactions just create negativity in discussions

What would you do about the large amount of empty stock/second homes?

Thanks for explaining. It’s a shame now that things in the EU countries can’t be a template for the UK.

Smart. Stop people ever being able to become taxpayers on a spiteful ideological basis. Sounds like a plan.

When they start paying into the system, they can take out. Why should we support them on the basis that they may start paying in? Why should we take that risk?

Well they can’t because we have such huge levels of immigration that we can’t look after our own!!!!

Hard to become a taxpayer when your basic needs aren't met.

They're not but Tories were hopeless on doing anything about immigration bar opening the borders wide open. And then bringing in the Rwanda plan knowing the human rights lawyers would stop anyone ever going.

We don’t need to meet their basic needs. If they want that, they should get those needs met in their home country.

And that is where stupidity stops play.

How so? Because you realise you’re completely wrong, so you resort to personal attacks?

If they’re genuinely seeking asylum, they would stop in the first safe country they entered.