to think that Jim Ratcliffes statement is not an apology.

[PyongyangKipperbang]

If you looked up the meaning of "sorry not sorry" there would be a link to this!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cdjm3n8yrwnt

Because men of "fighting age" who are coming into the country illegally should be fighting the "wars" in their own country. Many are not even from countries at war and have travelled through many safe countries before landing here.

The Tories increased immigration in order to try and boost GDP & why blame Bojo? the majority came here under Sunak, under Bojo 1.2m, under Sunak - 2.5m.

The Tories managed to achieve the almost impossible, huge increase in migration, whilst doing nothing to solve Labour shortages in sectors such as Care.

Govts since WW2 (tbh long before that) have not looked after veterans as they should, be it mental and physical heath, housing, work... its all been outsourced to charities.

You seem to be trying to pretend this is a new problem.

We voted for this, pre 2020 and leaving the EU, very very few migrants crossed the channel in dinghies.
Yes they tried lorries etc but we had a very efficient way of stopping/limiting that.

Plus, whether we used the Dublin Agreement or not, migrants did see DA as a deterrent... its not as if the Channel suddenly got narrower.

The thing i can't understand is why the man almost solely responsible for all of this disaster - Farage - is seen as the answer.

“The thing i can't understand is why the man almost solely responsible for all of this disaster - Farage - is seen as the answer.”

Presumably voters in Reform camp think he will deal with it and send them back? Whereas Labour will just keep blaming the Tories and do nothing about it?
Personally, I think the whole thing is ridiculous. Either train these young men up to do useful work or send them back, but doing nothing and creating political division is the worst of both worlds.

People are fed up with Labour because of blaming Tories endlessly. Labour are used to getting in power just for a short time and have a history of simply blaming Tory and raising taxes. That is all people can see, yet again.

Yep people are fed up with Labour for gaslighting generally. The constant shifting blame on to others is part of it.

The labour party, instead of governing the country (and u-turning on all the monumental fuck ups they have already caused) are allowing Nige and his merry band to live rent free in their heads. I read an article from Lucy "dog whistler" Powell the other day which said very little about how she's going to fulfill the wishes of the electorate, and very much about telling us how Nige & co are going to ruin the country ( although there won't be much left to ruin by 2029)

It’s either ‘the tories’ for days or going on about reform. Nothing on what they’ll do about the job loss situation they’ve caused and all the bad policy decisions they’ve made and how they’ll fix that.

34% of the electorate voted Labour, now about 21% of voters would vote for them again, so they lost about 1/3rd of their support, despite being very poor.

Labour were never popular, its just our weird voting system that gives huge majorities to minority Govt's.

& it'll be even worse next time.

People are fed up because they have failed to even begin to deliver/u-turns/broken promises, people want instant fixes.

The last Labour Govt was in for 13 years, taxes didn't raise until the Global Financial Crash but even then it was a small increase on the higher rate and VAT was cut...

Anyone voting in the 1970s would now be mid to late 60s or older, most voters don't have a clue about 1 term Lab Govt's.

As a BoE former member said this morning, "Unemployment has been increasing steadily for over 2 years, helped along by large NMW increases, tax rises, global problems and AI uncertainty"

Only an idiot blames it ALL on ENI increases.

Just shows how little you know about the areas they are from I’m afraid. It’s not as simple as that.

Poor Labour not a good day with job figures. Good luck to them spinning that one.

Hilarious. Tories were still blaming Labour 14 years later.

Job losses aren’t that hilarious though, especially if someone needs work or has dc who want a job.

Non sequitur of the week award…
It wasn’t funny when it was 11% under Thatcher either. If we are doing comparisons.

Well your lot are in power now not Thatcher so best to be current. Look at youth unemployment figures in particular.

I take it there’ll be a lot of spinning and lying from Labour about why the job situation is deteriorating due to their policies.

If you’re retired you probably won’t care that much but many will. Look at the threads on here about stress and MH decline for young people not getting work.

I didn’t say it was good. I said it was nothing to do with Tories blaming Labour for 14 years.

I don’t think anyone can stay in long term merely by blaming the previous party. They wouldn’t have got those 14 years and been re elected if that’s all the narrative was. Rn it’s Labour’s go to, that and giving Reform excess headspace.

If they rely on those two things I doubt they’ll get back in. They’ll need to show they can do more than that.

I agree that they are giving Reform too much headspace. I think it’s pretty obvious that the problems they are dealing with, apart from those created by a world situation - Russia/Ukraine, Trump tariffs etc - are the legacy of the chaos at the end of the last Tory government (and the legacy of austerity from the start of it).

No they can’t hide behind this for the current job situation.

If they make tax decisions they’ll have to be accountable for the outcomes of those.

It was meant to be fully funded, fully costed. That lie got them in and people will rightly hold them accountable for the impact of their budgets.

Totally agree. Having almost a million young people not in work, education or training is a terrible situation for everyone, especially the young people. They are our future but we're allowing them to fall into mental ill health through unemployment and lack of hope.

He's an odious creep, that's perfectly clear.
BUT I really don't understand the British obsession with apologies, and then pulling apart and analysing in forensic detail the words of the apology. It's ridiculous, quite frankly!
And when Starmer stands up to say "I am sorry", he sounds like a primary school teacher explaining to the kids that playtime is cancelled as someone took a dump in the playground.
(*not an anti-Starmer post, I'm a Labour voter ✊)

@Alexandra2001 No they didn’t. 34% of those who voted, voted Labour. Only 59.7% voted. Labour have 63% of the seats so the electoral system was very imbalanced in favour of Labour. In fact they have the lowest vote resulting in the most seats since 1830. As a result, they don’t speak for anywhere near a majority of the population. Not even close.

I think you'll find that the numbers out of work is much higher than that.

Summary from the BBC and other sources: 'The unemployment rate in the UK has reached 5.2% as of the end of 2025, marking the highest level in nearly five years. This translates to approximately 1.88 million people out of work, with youth unemployment particularly high at 14% for those aged 18-24.'

Not all of the 9 million who are economically inactive are in a position to take up employment. But if even a third of them were able to get into work, it would solve so many problems.

Err read what i wrote?

LONG TERM UNEMPLOYED! (shouting for the hard of hearing) and then i said, the rest are "churn" are you familiar with that term?

Around 1/2 the numbers unemployed, claim benefits for less than 3 months

Youth unemployment is very worrying and equalising of NMW appears to be one culprit, which incidentally started in 2021/22 & the 2023 increase was 10% across all age groups, & another 10% increase in April 2024, these are large increases for firms to absorb, at least its slowed to 7% last year.

Lowering of NI threshold is another too, esp PT.