To think Starmer has shot himself in the foot.

[TheQuickRobin]

This isn’t about my own opinion but political strategy.

So he does this Island of strangers thing wanting to appeal to Labour heartlands who have gone to Reform. But.

I just think Reform voters won’t believe him?

Tories hate him becaus he’s Labour.

Middle class Labour lefties will be put off by the message.

Who does he think he’s winning over?

Anyone on here had their opinion of him changed?

IABU - I thought he was a prat now I think he’s on my team

IANBU - EITHER I thought he was a prat, still think he’s a prat OR I liked him now think he’s a prat.

Very unscientific poll here!

Illegal crossings are higher than ever at this time of year, apparently.

Yep, 600 just on Monday.
I don't think Starmer wants to talk about the boats.

I’m sure some tourists feel the same. It’s not pleasant anymore so I spend my money elsewhere and save myself the stress of being mugged, harrassed etc. I can’t be the only one and I believe money from tourism will dry up unless the gov get a grip it..

Of course tourists feel the same. If they are spending a lot of money to come and visit London only for their phones and wallets etc to be snatched when they go sight seeing, they’re hardly going to recommend it as a holiday destination.
I beg our friends from Korea and Japan to be really, really careful when walking about London, but as it doesn’t happen hardly at all in their countries, they don’t pay attention.
One woman had £1000 pinched from her bag and the other left her phone on the table in a cafe and of course that was gone in seconds.
Sadiq Khan just denies it’s happening.

Looks like it. That was bound to fail.

Upstartled · Today 09:45
What happened to Smash the Gangs anyway, have they given up on that

I guess they’ve realised there’s nothing they can do about them.

Agree. People have had their fill of liberalism and open borders. Particularly in a broken economy.

Yes, this; the collective cultural neuroses is something they seem to be happy to entertain as valid and are responding to these extremes in an extreme way! It's just entertainment sinking to the depths of shamelessness that Reform do really well!

Tbf he already used bloat for job losses.

It's a slogan, not a policy. It's about as useless as the war on drugs because you can lock people up but it doesn't stop the supply because someone else will always step up when there's big money involved.

The country is on the path of destruction. Visitors will just stop coming. We're in managed decline, yet still pay billions to put illegal immigrants in hotels. It's absolutely bonkers.

Visitors will just stop coming.

Yes they will. It’s such a pity as there’s so many interesting and beautiful things to do and see in London.

How long have you lived in London? As someone who was born in and grew up in edgy part of West and South London, I don't recall these halcyon days of zero crime. My Dad and brother supported a London Football team and I was often dragged along by my Dad as a divorce activity for the weekends, I was largely quite scared of the experiences, even in the family seating areas! Outside of the grounds there would be rivalry and drunken fights brewing and organised fights, intimidating behaviour on the Tube. Equally, endless racism with the BNP aggravating it and institutional racism in the Police force highlighted by the awful death of Stephen Lawrence.

Things changed a bit in the 00s but it still wasn't a crime free Utopia, hasn't the crime just changed. I work in London as does DH and we don't see crime anything like I did growing up there.

Starmer on education sector reform:

‘Island of divvies! The damage is incalculable!’

Starmer on health sector reform:

‘Island of fat hypochondriacs! The damage is incalculable!’

Starmer on technology investment:

‘Island of thick Luddites! The damage is incalculable!’

London was better when it wasn't just for visitors, when people lived in the properties sitting empty. This totally has changed the character of the place. It is happening in the city by the sea where I live, it is totally changing the vibe of the place, endless period properties that were once homes to people, sitting empty - the buy to leave or the endless Air BNBs!

@TheQuickRobin

But it’s not just the immigration, it’s the lack of expectations on integration on shared values and ongoing contribution too, which is I think that the “island of strangers” is intended to convey. I’m not saying I liked the wording - I don’t and would write it differently. But I think it’s not racist and xenophobic to say that there should be some expectations around shared culture, behavioural expectations and contribution to society. That shouldn’t be about villainising migrants, I totally agree, but about designing a system and a society that sets out its expectations better and in a compassionate way. It’s not compassionate to pretend that we don’t care at all about specific things and then be quietly or gradually more loudly resentful (or, in the case of wealthy liberals, privately grateful that they don’t suffer the consequences).

and @TheQuickRobini think we all do recognise that it is difficult to convey. The reality is that a set of bad choices have been made and quite a lot of people are feeling negatively about that. That doesn’t and should not imply disliking those people individually or specifically. But it does imply recognising the issues that have arisen and designing the system so that fewer people with identical profiles to those people settle and become citizens in future.

London was better when it wasn't just for visitors, when people lived in the properties sitting empty. This totally has changed the character of the place. It is happening in the city by the sea where I live, it is totally changing the vibe of the place, endless period properties that were once homes to people, sitting empty - the buy to leave or the endless Air BNBs.

I agree with you on this and the amount of properties in London and elsewhere bought as investments and left empty is shocking.
However, I suppose if tourists stop coming because of crime then the Air BNB owners will go out of business and the properties will go on the market.

But your setting up this narrative of the “good” and “bad” migrant, that perpetuates racist ideas that harm everyone in society.

Labour deserted the working class decades ago. In fact I'd go so far as to say Labour despise the working class.

It started with Gordon Brown calling Gillian Duffy a bigot in 2010. Thornberry hating and mocking white van man / St George's Cross in 2014. Starmer blocking and mocking the working class for voting Brexit and being anti immigration due to the wage suppression the working class suffers etc. And so it goes on.

Labour have hated the working class for decades hence why they voted Tory in 2019 and Reform now.

There's more to the UK than London!

"IABU - I thought he was a prat now I think he’s on my team

IANBU - EITHER I thought he was a prat, still think he’s a prat OR I liked him now think he’s a prat."

What if you didn't think he was a prat, and your opinion of him hasn't changed?

I think he comes across as rather ineffectual at times, but is certainly a big improvement on the various cartoon characters the Tories have installed in recent years.

I also think there's been unjustified over-reaction to his "island of strangers" speech, which was a lot more balanced than some are claiming.

Nail on the head. Brown really did set the scene with his bigoted woman comment all those years ago. It's a line in the sand, date wise, which proves that the immigration problem isn't even a recent thing, it goes right back 15-20 years or more. Yet the London centric elite politicians just won't accept it's a problem, because they're the ones benefitting from top end ethnic restaurants and cheap quality labour (private nannies etc). They don't see the reality of Just Eat drivers in uninsured cars, money laundering barber shops, modern slavery, gangs of young adults abusing women in the street, etc out in the more disadvantaged regions which they've ignored for decades. It's taken a long time, but now the problems are so widespread across the country, that the politicians can't get away with pretending the problems don't exist and that anyone who says anything is a rabid extreme right racist. Finally they've woken up, but it's taken Farage to galvanise enough voters to make an impact.

Just like “Stop the boats”, that went well too.

There's more to the UK than London.

Oh definitely - that’s why I recommend to our friends and acquaintances from East Asia to go to the countryside and cities like Bath and Cambridge - though maybe crime is rising in those cities.
We’ve got a friend who is a guide and apparently some people think UK is smaller than it is.
“We’d like to go to Edinburgh and maybe Islay or Skye, then York which I think is near Chatsworth so we want to go there too, and then Cambridge and Oxford colleges, and of course the Cotswolds are a must, including Blenheim Palace, and to end up with Salisbury Cathedral and the Eden Project. Oh yes, and my grandmother was born in Brighton so I’d love to have a quick look round there.
Can we fit that in a long weekend?”

Sorry, that’s completely off topic.

There’s nothing they can do about it because we are such nice law abiding people the illegal imigrants can take the p.
There are warehouses full of inflatables in Germany - manufactured in Turkey. We could send in an SAS type raid and destroy the lot.

Somehow other countries are bending the rules and controlling stuff but our judges are on the side of the immigrants.