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 :(

You're offering this as evidence that Christmas is being officially 'erased'?

😂

Oh good grief that's pitiful.

yes Because most is used for farming and national parks. Out of the developable area most is now built on and over time bits of greenbelt are being built on so there is slow urban creep. I think it should be illegal for any greenbelt land to ever be developed now and in the future .

i also think residential buildings over 5 stories should be banned except in very extreme circumstances

It was my, clearly very poor, attempt at sarcasm.

Santa's Grotto was not a mosque. It was very obviously Cinderella's Castle. There were mice and pumpkins outside it, but the rage about it being a mosque and the boycotts of the charities and businesses which paid for it got so out of hand that the local council had to issue a statement explaining it was a Disney castle and we were indeed still allowed to say Merry Christmas.

The original Grotto made a return the following year, but many local's still remember the time that "Muslims stole Christmas" in our town

I agree with you @DonkeyDumpling I like in east London and as an ethnic Indian myself this doesn't even feel like I'm living in England.

I remember once a woman being unable to speak English and this being unable to deal with the receptionist at the GP. If you cannot speak the language you cannot integrate well into society.

Agree. There's loads of planning applications going through.
Probs the same everywhere but the developers targeting farm land. The flat useful accessible bits for shite pixel housing no garden ifcourse but you get to look out of your light tax window at a hill until they develop that next month.

No don't seriously. Relative, police officer who did that beat says the police have basically withdrawn for the sake of peace.

Yes, they are and yes it has been referenced in the DM on numerous occasions in the last few years. Girls dressed for clubbing, girls walking holding their girlfriend’s hands (whether lesbian or not) suffer extraordinary harassment from young Asian men in London. My DD and her friends have witnessed and experienced it. Especially around Brick Lane. I haven’t, because I’m an older woman, rarely out after 11pm and usually always accompanied by my husband… doesn’t mean that I disbelieve it.

I am also an adoptee into an Iranian family. A liberal muslim one who sought asylum from the oppressive regime there so that my aunts might have the freedom to have an education and not be forced into marriages at a young age. Yet, nonetheless, there were totally different expectations for girls. For example, if I (and/or my aunties) was sat on a large sofa and a male relative entered the room, I/we would be required to leave the seat and seat myself on the floor unless invited to join him. I was prohibited from wearing jeans and tees once my periods started/I wore a bra as ‘such revealing clothing’ was ‘sexually provocative’. I was petrified of men for a long while after that talk with my adoptive dad. And, like I say, this was an educated, liberal family. An aunt took to wearing the burka when her father was murdered by white youths in N London and still wears in 20 years later. Despite being a lawyer, she regularly kneels at my uncles feet to remove his outdoor shoes/socks and replace them with slippers.

I think you are lucky that you have not gleaned this side of muslim culture, but it’s there.

You're being deliberately obtuse.

It is UK law and practice that people can follow their own beliefs so long as it doesn't contravene UK laws or impact unreasonably on others. The core value that leads to this is that an individual is considered more important than any belief system or religion.

Other cultures believe (as a core value) that the only right way to run a society is in accordance with the laws of their god. The core value that leads to this is that their god's laws are more important than any individual.

The first value system is very clearly more tolerant of different beliefs and people's right to hold them and express them than the second.

It's not in any way inconsistent to say that our culture is in general more tolerant; that we believe it's a better way to run a society; and that we will not tolerate immigrants giving precedence to their religious laws over our country's laws, or trying to change the UK's value system to reflect their own (ie to give precedence to religious laws and the expectations - around eg women's role in society - which have come from them)

Do you understand that immigrants on temporary visas, which would apply to this person, are not entitled to state benefits?

Seems like a reasonable speech from Starmer, an attempt to acknowledge longstanding public concern, while positioning his government as the calm centrist voice amongst the usual screaming and moaning from left and right.

Let's hope it does actually result in a more sensible immigration policy.

Native Americans and Indigenous Australians are still complaining hundreds of years later!

The racism card gets pushed in front of your face if you're white British, so it's refreshing to see the amount of second and third generation non white British people standing up against the invasion - thank goodness the racism card can't be used against them. I'm so pleased someone is allowed to stand up for this country!

Absolutely. I think many on the Left are actually very narrow-minded, condescending and (ironically) imperialist when it comes to their cultural values.

They believe that every culture is fundamentally the same as their culture, and that the differences are merely superficial.

The fact is that certain cultures (especially some in the Islamic world) are implacably opposed to democracy, tolerance and individual freedoms, and are built on very different foundations. But those on the Left either can’t or won’t see this. They assume everyone is really just like them. It’s actually incredibly prejudiced in an inverted way…I was one of them until the last year or two.

Add this to your list.

please be more clear no idea what u trying to say.

Will disabled people just stop being disabled after a finite period of time then?!

Working does pay. Use a benefits calculator to work that out.

Re: wages, the minimum wage has just been put up. But that provoked public commentary that “small businesses will now go under as they can’t afford it”.

Care work is hard work and takes skill. Workers need qualities that many don’t have. Care companies are actively recruiting in areas such a Ghana, and offering sponsorship to the UK. British nationals are not doing these jobs because they do not want to, so there is a health and social care crisis.

Then people need to start doing jobs they don’t want to. Simple as.

Again it isn’t that British people won’t do these jobs (bear in mind many British people are children/grandchildren of immigrants). They just won’t do them for minimum wage because it a very difficult job. we have been taught through our education system that those sorts of jobs have a higher value. If someone has been educated to the age of 18 and potentially done a degree, if they move into social care, they want a higher wage. Pay what the job is actually worth and you will get British people applying no need to go to Ghana to bring them over to pay them below market value for the job.

Would you want someone caring for your elderly parent, or disabled child, when they didn’t want to do that job?! It takes a tremendous amount of patience at the best of times. As an employer, would you employ someone who didn’t want to be there?!

There is nothing simple about it.

Bravo

Did I want to work when my daughter was six months old? No. But I did. Sometimes you have to pick yourself up and do a job, like it or not.

And how will care companies run? How will adult social care pay for care? (Councils already bankrupt or close to it)

Who will do minimum wage jobs? (Once you’ve removed immigrants). By your reasoning, no-one should work for minimum wage.

You can’t just make things up as you would like them to be. Basic economics plays a part.

Such good points.

@ Sapana
I'm from Bradford and went to school in Manningham

April 2025
Manningham in Bradford has the second highest rate of child poverty in the UK, with nearly three-­quarters, 72%, of children living below the ­poverty line, according to the latest data from the Department for Work and Pensions, released earlier this month. This compares with a national average of 22%.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/20/child-poverty-bradford-easter

"Vulnerable people"? The pure definition of the over used word racism, is to treat those from a different race as less than you. By saying immigrants are vulnerable, is doing just that.
"Third World countries"? No, the term is Developing countries. By saying Third World, you imply they are not as good as us.

There's racism, right back at you. You see how you need to check your own speech, before lobbing that word at others?