Angela Raynor still doesnt get it.

[ThisDandyWriter]

I’ve just read Angela’s Raynor’s statement about why Labour did so badly and what they need to do to change….aibu to think SHE STILL DOESNT GET IT!! Nothing mentioned about welfare, nothing mentioned about immigration-these are 2 subjects most talked about as the reasons why people didn’t vote for Labour.
she might not like it-but id they want to stay in power, they MUST tackle these subjects and not just ignore them because they dint fit her narrative.

TIL £20bn is "not worth bothering about"...

The government spend 5.5bn on asylum seekers. Total government spending is 1368bn. This is less than a half of a percent.

Even if it was 20bn, that is still only one and a half percent of total spending.

Let's assume your 20bn number is correct, and I agree that it is not a small number, the government are actually investing money in the short term in order to reduce the number in the longer term by processing more quickly. This will not stop the ingress of people but will reduce the overall number as the length of time they are here will reduce. So, this problem is already dealt with apart from the time to catch up with the backlog.

The focus ought to be, and appears to be, on the larger spending issues.

If you've ever run a business you'll know that this is a totally usual process. Hit the big items first, then move on to the smaller ones. It is not sensible to direct 100% of the effort onto less than 1% of the benefit.

This. The labour party must stop listening to the noisy minority who scream every time welfare reform is raised, and just get it done.

The 4 point minimum per category was a solid start and they back tracked.

They aren't realising most voters want this we are just quieter about it.

I agree completely.

I often think that MN is an excellent reflection of this. Whenever a thread starts about welfare reform then it will inevitably be inundated by often a group of posters throwing around insults and berating anyone that wants reforms. If you read the posts alone you would be forgiven for assuming that almost everyone views welfare cut backs as abhorrent and inhumane.

The polls always show the majority support cuts. There are obviously a hell of a lot of people that think we need to make cuts that can't be bothered engaging with the militant posters that insist otherwise.

A political party operating in a democracy would be wise to take more notice of the polls than the posts.

What nonsense. If that figure is correct then in the opinion of many, if not the majority, it is still too much. Genuine asylum seekers excepted, those billions should not be spent on supporting unknown and often criminal young men who force their way illegally into the country. We all know there are much better and more important domestic issues that would benefit from that not insignificant amount of money.

Yes. You don’t win voters by calling them racist and ignorant for not voting labour or wanting rights for biological women

The new Labour government had a perfectly good plan to stop the boats handed to them on a plate immediately they took office. It had taken months to work out but was just beginning to bear fruit. It involved sending potential immigrants with dodgy credentials to Rwanda for processing and settlement.
Labour’s ideology and their racism wouldn’t let it continue so they scrapped the scheme at enormous cost.
Is it any wonder people are sceptical about Labour’s commitment to stopping illegal immigration?

It isn't nonsense. Those are the actual figures. I agree that the money could be put to better use, however there is no magic wand that can be waved to solve it immediately. Admittedly, the government could throw more money to reduce the queues faster, but that would cause more complaints I would think.

Well there is. You withdraw out of the ECHR and simply say for the next 2 years at we will not take any asylum claims at all. Anyone who turns up in that period with never have their claim processed ever. Anyone arriving will be deported wherever that they have come from or put in a processing centre until they can be repatriated. It is the nuclear option but it would make the number drop off a cliff. No one will do that but when people say there is no way to deal with the problem, there is, however unpalatable.

There is proof... recent BBC investigation - undercover recordings of these people out to cheat and lie.

They don't need to withdraw from the ECHR to do that. Even before Brexshit, there was more the UK could have done to increase the stringency of criteria, however it chose not to.

Also, it would require other changes of law to enable applications for asylum to be made before landing on UK soil. The boats will continue to arrive all the time that they have to be on UK soil to apply, and while the gangs are peddling a dream that is already not true. And you still have the problem of it not quite being as simple as 'deporting them to where they come from' otherwise the problem would have already been solved. They are essentially already put in processing centres, however those processing centres are full as the rate of processing needs to increase. This is what the government has already started to rectify to clear the backlog and enable arrivals to be processed more rapidly.

This is the thing with being in government though, you have to get on top of the detail as well as the bigger picture.

The danger with only prioritising the ‘big items’ you are proposing is that the smaller amounts rapidly add up.

What percentage of the public finances do the ‘big items’ you mention represent and what are the savings/gains you predict that would make it sensible to ignore lots of smaller areas with high waste/fraud/potential for higher gains?

Well quite.

The fact that a BBC journalist managed to identify the kingpin responsible for almost all of the people trafficking in small boats from France with a few phone calls and some good investigation skills shows that Starmer, with all the security resources of the country at his disposal, is either utterly useless or lying about his intentions to ‘smash the gangs’.

My only question is - why doesn’t he want to control immigration? Even today, as he fights for his political career, he is more worried about not upsetting the Muslim community by banning so called ‘far right’ speakers from entering the country. One if them is apparently an MEP which will be awkward come his next EU meetings (if he still has a job by then).

Why does he care so little for the priorities of large swathes of the British public?

You do to stop endless appeals. Sad but true.

If a country simply stopped participating the numbers would stop. No one would have the balls to do it even if it the only real solution. The asylum system was originally designed to cater for a very small amount of people. If it was being set up now it would never benefit set up in a way to facilitate thousands and thousands of claims, regardless of their merit. That is what frustrates me the most about all things government. You can never reset the clock becuase things become untouchable. Bit like with the NHS- it has it immense good bits but it isn’t working 100% in the year 2026. It needs fundamental reform - somethings should be free, some things should require a contribution but as soon as anyone suggests it then they get slated. Everything should be on the table for discussion.

I simply showed all your numbers for the US were better in all cases than the UK equivalents. The numbers do not lie but you and proudcat are doing so by suggesting otherwise.Whether you look at GDP growth, unemployment or all the other numbers I proved you wrong on the USA is doing better than the UK.

If they don't make some effort to reduce immigration, maybe by making it less attractive with benefits etc, then they will continue, sadly, to be Reform's best recruiting sergeant.

Then all those little boats are legal in your opinion?

For the ordinary people living under either extreme ideology there isn't much difference, they have little freedom in their lives.

I agree. This is why I believe they have already dealt with the small item by adding more resource. If they need to revisit they will circle back. Bigger ticket items in my view are waste in the NHS, benefits, payments to people who don't require them, inefficient contracts such as HS2 (this doesn't mean they are not necessary, just that the contracts are inefficiently written), and a hundred other things.

I agree that the smaller items add up, but running a country / business is like a game of whack a mole. You can't do everything all the time, not unless you increase the cost of governing massively, and doing that didn't go so well for Blair.

My question was not about whether the USA was doing better than the U.K. it was whether living standards in the USA have gone down under Trump. And yes, they have.

I couldn't agree more. As I said, there were things that were possible before we left the EU, but the government of the time didn't do them. And the task just gets bigger. Not just immigration.

So, we end up playing catch up for so many different verticals. There is no perfect solution, and each item is important to a different section of the electorate as has been proved on this thread. To me, immigration is small beer. Not insignificant, but small beer. To others, it is the most important thing despite it being such a small expense in the great scheme of things.

Add to that that everyone wants everything solved immediately, and you can see why we are in a mess.

What could be done in terms of stringency etc?

There are many options available. Personally, I think the levels are fine where they are in terms of helping people seeking asylum from persecution. It has been proven by economists over and over again that immigration is good for the economy, and that is backed up by the experience since Brexshit, however if the criteria were to be tightened, one could argue that the definition of what constitutes being persecuted / bombed / victimised / etc can be changed.

I get that it is a difficult balance, and the resources of the UK are finite, however I also believe in helping those less fortunate than we are. We just need to make sure they really are less fortunate and not just saying they are. The current government are doing this. And, the cases are reviewed every five years anyway, so it isn't like they suddenly have indefinite leave to remain here, nor are they given tons of money to live on.

As I have said, in the great scheme of expenses, this is not, and should not be, the sole area of focus. There are bigger fish to fry.

So estimates are that waste in the NHS costs up to £10bn per year. In such a vast organisation, despite many years of trying and different government approaches, this is an extremely complex challenge.

So complex that if the government could halve the wastage to £5bn per year, they would be shouting it from the rooftops.

So focusing much of their time on dealing with this ‘big item’ as a priority will make about the same financial difference as if they sorted the asylum/immigration system.

The NHS wastes roughly £300 million to over £1 billion annually on specific areas like unused medicines and avoidable errors, with some estimates of broader inefficiencies and procurement waste reaching up to £10 billion a year.

What do you estimate the possible savings on inefficient HS2 contracts would be, seeing as they’ve already spent £43bn? I’m guessing not huge compared with overall government spending. Or £5bn per year.

When you say ‘and a hundred other things’ are you also referring to the large number of things even smaller then NHS waste and HS2 waste but the fact that there are hundreds of them mean they add up? Like I said?

A bit like the cost of failing to make serious reductions in dealing with asylum seekers, the majority of whom (approx 58%) are refused asylum and after costing us vast amounts to house while their applications are assessed, then cost us more vast amounts to house and contest legal appeals while we try to deport them.

They cost so much that it is worth it to offer them £40,000 per family to leave.

The impact on many British people of not dealing with the enormous cost and waste in the immigration and asylum system is more than just money. It is also the social impact of increased crime and anti social behaviour - some people’s lives have either been ruined or ended by this lack of control.

That makes it something the government should absolutely prioritise and not dismiss it as ‘only being a small percentage of government spending’.

I think that inefficient contracts such as HS2 amount to >200bn.

NHS wastage similar (I don't believe for a moment it is as little as 10bn)

Benefits / winter fuel etc to people who don't need them (they got the cut off wrong, but the principal was correct) etc.

That would save way more than a few billion on immigrants which will already reduce based on the action already taken. The (up to) 40k to leave is to accelerate through the backlog. It is not on offer to new arrivals, just those in the system already. Again an example of trying to clear the backlog.