UK general election May 2015

dandelion

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. This 1m+ comes after years of migration well above target, and with the expectation that it will continue for years...No nation can magic up extra houses and school places and jobs and roads in this sort of time frame...
I dont know where you got that number, because it is double the ones I was looking at. However, you just admitted immigration has ben happening for years. the timefram in question is decades. The fact that we have not built suficient houses is government policy dating back to the Thatcher regime, which halted government housebuilding. Mass housing in the Uk has never been staisfied by the private sector and has always relied on government action.

However there's also a debate around the most need - and genuine refugees surely have a claim above East European migrants.
And there is the nub of the problem. Doubling the Uk population by taking migrants would inevitably drop our standard of living. We could house them, feed them, built new towns, and everyone could still have countryside to visit and admire. The effect on jobs would be to drive down wages, because I see no way demand would keep up with the new supply of labour. The building program would be very costly, which is why Thatcher got rid of it. In return you get a capital asset, but no one here now wants that asset or the people living in it. Its a perfectly simple choice, taking in these people would be at our personal cost, and that is why we do not like it. We cannot meet need around the world, even if we reduce our own wealth to the new average level that would be created by sharing it. People want to come here because we are rich, have a widely known language and are relatively welcoming. The first and last of these are significantly because we exclude others. The middle one is a consequence of our elite position in the past as well as now. Taking in those refugees means losing this position, which is what the refugees are aspiring to.

I think the UK has to look at all aspects of migration policy and that must include migration from within the EU.
Maybe it does. But firstly EU migrants are not a problem on grounds of quantity, and are essential to the economy because they include many with key skills which are essential to us. It is the ransom refugees which are the problem, and they do not come from EU countries.


Middle Eastern and North African migrants have to be part of a global response.
Haha, yes. The US has half the population density of europe, so maybe they should take the first 300,000,000 refugees, ubtil such time as their population density matches ours? Any one think thats going to happen?

We in the UK cannot accept a situation where the people smugglers are running our migration policy, where people we would reject if they applied are somehow accepted if they turn up. We are deporting economic migrants from Ukraine and Moldova (quite a lot) so it does happen.
One of the founding principles of the EU has been that it will make the poorer member countries wealthier. Which in the end means that migrants will return home. History has shown that this works. It is an excellent system for the safe supply of needed workers.


We should be deporting Iraqi migrants (the south and centre has a functioning government)
So the north and periphery do not?

and Libyans (the west has a functioning government).
not north, south, east? i dont think theres a point countinuing through your list. It is self-evident the situation there is unstable and has a good chance of getting worse. Descending into utter chaos, even, with complete failure of oil production, preserving which was a main aim of intervention.
 

Jason

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@dandelion, The UK is at the stage where population density is beyond the capacity of our environmental resources.

For example, while we don't yet have water shortages leading to water cuts we're going to get them within a decade. There is very little we can do to increase water supply as there are few obvious candidates for new reservoirs, certainly no big ones. Ground water levels are already very low because of extraction (and we're risking subsidence if we try any more).There's no "national grid" for water (and it is not practical to build one) so London, SE, SW, East Anglia and Midlands are all going to run out. Direct water import is not practical, and neighbouring nations don't have an excess anyway. Desalination is scarcely practical because of cost though we might actually come to do it. We already meter water (in most homes) and we're set to see huge price increases to try to reduce usage. The environmental damage is huge - for example the River Darenth in the SE ran dry a few summers ago because of water extraction.

Curiously we are in a world where the problem has to happen before people react to it. Probably we have to see actual water cuts before the majority of people wake up to the problem. Politicians are supposed to plan ahead. Forward planning means we cannot accommodate a rising population. Even natural population increase is a problem - we need people to emigrate. While we do need some house building for the existing population this isn't really an answer.
 

dandelion

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@dandelion, The UK is at the stage where population density is beyond the capacity of our environmental resources.
The UK has been beyond the capacity to feed itself for 100 years, but we still survived two world wars with the enemy sinking ships bringing in the necessary supplies.

For example, while we don't yet have water shortages leading to water cuts we're going to get them within a decade.
We do not have inadequate water for the population to drink. We just dont use it efficiently. Ironically, our household was compulsorily moved to a water meter recently, and I reckon we shall save because of it. That means we use less water than average. If we do, others could too. The sysytem of introducing water meters has pretty much failed in what was supposedly one of the reasons to do it, to save water. Its cheap, most people dont care how much they waste.

Apart from that, we personally waste a massive amount of water in the form of rainfall, which could have been saved from the gutters for garden use. We have the odd barrell, but thousands of gallons could be recycled that way. Its important, because it relieves peak summer use. Urbanisation has meant that water runs off fast into the sea instead of soaking into the ground. Thats a matter of design.

There's no "national grid" for water (and it is not practical to build one)
Yes it is. Its just expensive. If we get to the stage those rich people really are faced with water restrictions then it will be done.

We already meter water (in most homes) and we're set to see huge price increases to try to reduce usage.
so what will happen to the huge profits this generates? (not that the water companies are efficient now, since they work on a system of profit as a defined percentage of turnover. Its an incentive designed to make them waste money.

Curiously we are in a world where the problem has to happen before people react to it.
yes I agree with that. That national water grid, for example.

Politicians are supposed to plan ahead.
And instead of that they sold off the water system to private companies who are incentivised not to improve it.
 

Drifterwood

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@Drifterwood, a striking quote.

Does socialism share misery equally? Surely it is the poor who are kicked the hardest by the socialist bullies.

Well, modern socialists insist that a truly socialist state has never existed but that in a true socialist state the majority would be blessed.

If all the world were holidays, then to sport would be as tedious as to work.