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 :(

Close, but not quite. The issue is that the state pension was introduced when people retired at 60 and died by 70. Now, people retire mid-60s and live to 90-100+. With increased care needs and health needs

Yep

Well I can't bugger off to any country I fancy

Yes exactly - it was never introduced with the idea that the population would grow so fast so the burden on the next generation would be so heavy. There is only one solution now with is exponential population growth

Yes, but these changes are what has made ethe State Pension a Ponzi scheme. Many of today's pensioners haven't paid enough into the system to find decades of state pension payments. It also wasn't envisaged that they would need such expensive health and social care. Working people are therefore meeting the shortfall alongside a whole heap of national debt.

I think if people quite realised what a mess we are in they would be more interested in clawing back some money from wealthy pensioners and thinking long and hard about how we artificially prolong life at great cost to the individual's wellbeing and our finances as a country.

True refugees would settle in the first safe country they come across. Not travel across Europe risking their lives to come here.

What?! No. You don’t solve the pension crisis by inviting millions of immigrants that can’t speak English into the country!! You have to deal with this by raising the pension age I am afraid, taxing wealthy pensioners and the huge houses some of them own and don’t use. Taxing their second and third homes. Stopping free social care unless they have no means to pay for it, free prescriptions, bus passes etc etc. This all needed to stop.

We do not fix this with more immigration! Because funnily enough we will have an even bigger crisis in a few decades time, as people age, even immigrants!

I believe the state pension should be fully means tested and property should be sold to fund retirement if you’ve not saved enough.

Perhaps that refugee should be glad they arrived in one of the multiple safe countries on their way here and make a new life for themselves.

Being a refugee does not and should never give you a preferential choice of where you are going to live and claim.

There's enough empty properties all over the country. Loads would be compatabile for repurposing.

Some people like a view and studies show the light from chlorophyll in plants alter your brain waves for the positive. As with the sky (if not totally grey)
We regulate our nervous systems through being in nature. Put stress based disease into remission. Very important for nd ppl.
People also regulate nervous systems to the dark and to star light.
The land and trees also carry 'memories'
We 'loose ourselves' in old forest a tiny brook. An acient glade. Our land is our heritage. Some people believe its very much its own living presence. We have rainforests here, sounds ridiculous but there's small ancient patches that are temperate rainforest. Showing so much of the island would have been like that. They have moss that may have been there for millennia.

But please, I'm getting ahead of myself we need another costa and jd.

It didn’t.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wrvvw0nkpo

You know what’s also good for wellbeing? Being able to afford a home.

That depends. Where I live. Polish people have always resided here since WW2. A lot were stationed at nearby air bases, many married local women and stayed.
Now the local food factories are mostly run by Eastern Europeans.
It works here, but for Boston in Lincs, Peterborough and Mansfield in Notts, it's gone badly wrong. There seems to be a lack of jobs, resulting in a lot of heavy drinking on the streets, trouble making, urinating in public.

Does it work here because it was organic, but the other towns suddenly had a vast number arrive?

So what your suggesting is that older people who worked hard all their life and invested in their homes for when they retired, should be penalized?

Are you going to force them to sell their homes and then what? Force them to rent off their proceeds? What a spiteful and nasty idea.

A majority of them saved scrimped and worked insane hours their entire lives putting nothing away, just so they could own their own home when they retired. Just so they would not have to rent and worry about housing themselves and politics of envy wants to take that away. 🙄

Oh, please. Genuinely.

If you are sat in a £1m home you should not be receiving state benefits. Simple as. I’m sorry but my generation will not have the state pension. I’m fortunate enough that I can save into my own pension very well. My sister, for example, cannot, and is relying on family help to purchase a home. I find that disgusting.

Also, it’s not politics of envy. My husband and I bring in a lot of money and we save for ourselves.

Oh that's interesting, it makes sense though: mass immigration works for you as you aren't scurrying around on the bottom rungs fighting for resources

Oh the old trop of 1million pound house, rolled out again. Please you are taking the 0.1% outliers as your example.

What about the old retired couple in a 2 bed terrace worth £150K, who had menial jobs all their lives scrimped and saved to pay for their kids food and only just managed to pay for their home with the rest with nothing to put away.

That's the true majority, yes okay lets kick them out now and make them sell and claim, just to make you and your sister feel vindicated 🙄

For those who are so pro immigration (including illegal it seems) that you can't move your own backsides out of your own way to see what is going on, what part of seeing thousands of young men ripping up their paper work, laughing and joking, making inappropriate gestures to the camera and disappearing into society as soon as they hit our shores garners sympathy for them from you?

Do you sleep better at night knowing that hundreds of illegal migrants are living the life of luxury in hotels at our expense when we have children and pensioners living in poverty?

Those are quite clearly not who I am talking about, are they?

…. I am against uncontrolled immigration

Yes I know - sorry I wasn’t clear. I don’t agree with it. But I was just pointing out that unless something is done the only solution is exponential population growth as ‘who will pay our pensions?’ otherwise

the whole economy is messed up. Immigrants are both the problem and the solution. No one can have a rational discussion as everyone has a different opinion on it. You get name calling and people angry at prime ministers making a pretty reasonable point (if you actually read the comment in context). The country has too many people now in too many different groups to ever be on the same page so as usual it gets kicked to the long grass for the next generation

Until you get old when you propose having it taken away from you.

I have proposed means testing the state pension. Encouraging people to save and, if you fail to do that, and have a house worth over £X, you may need to sell to fund your retirement.

How does that help the wellbeing of people who have saved for their home? And where are they supposed to live? You haven’t thought this through, have you?