Stop voting for fucking Tories

[Yeeb]

My wife is of Goan ancestry (first generation of her family to be born in the UK, but third generation to be born on a different Continent to the parents - India - Africa - UK).

I also shagged a ginger lass in my youth.

A ginj ?
Yuk

She was amazing in bed but a total headcase.

Well the Venn diagram of being good in bed, mental , and willing to shag you , must be almost a completely overlapping intersect

[Yeeb]

Wonder what the actual % of gen x that has shagged other races is for the Uk, I reckon it’s surprisingly small. Was just the one guy in my peer circle in Berkshire who had a black girlfriend for a while, and he got the nickname SR71 from it as was uncommon.

There are large swathes of the country that are overwhelmingly white (even more so when Gen X was in its prime, all those years ago) so it probably is quite small. I managed to find myself a Muslim immigrant spouse in Scotland, but I think that is relatively unusual as it is not a diverse place.

I think Brits are relatively open to relationships outside the ethnic group, even going back generations to when the immigrants were Jewish, Italian etc. Some of our resident communities (for example, Pakistani) are notably less into exogamy.

A Sri Lankan friend I met at uni had been dating his then girlfriend (now wife) since college, but had to keep her a secret from his family for two reasons. 1. They didn't want him to date until he'd finished his studies and 2. They wanted him to find a Sri Lankan girl.

The Pakistani group at my college were eye-opening and interesting. Partly because I'd essentially been in overwhelmingly white environments prior to that, so a fairly large number of Pakistanis was a big change, but also because of some behaviours. The girls seemed to socialise with anyone but their own male folk and it was always slightly sad to see that they clearly enjoyed going uncovered during the day, but all rushed to put on headscarves by home time when parents came to pick them up . The boys were very, very insular; never saw them hang out with anyone else. I didn't see anyone from either gender show any sign of dating anyone at all, within or without their group.

Perhaps you were too old for them

[inactionman]

Wonder what the actual % of gen x that has shagged other races is for the Uk, I reckon it’s surprisingly small. Was just the one guy in my peer circle in Berkshire who had a black girlfriend for a while, and he got the nickname SR71 from it as was uncommon.

There are large swathes of the country that are overwhelmingly white (even more so when Gen X was in its prime, all those years ago) so it probably is quite small. I managed to find myself a Muslim immigrant spouse in Scotland, but I think that is relatively unusual as it is not a diverse place.

I think Brits are relatively open to relationships outside the ethnic group, even going back generations to when the immigrants were Jewish, Italian etc. Some of our resident communities (for example, Pakistani) are notably less into exogamy.

A Sri Lankan friend I met at uni had been dating his then girlfriend (now wife) since college, but had to keep her a secret from his family for two reasons. 1. They didn't want him to date until he'd finished his studies and 2. They wanted him to find a Sri Lankan girl.

The Pakistani group at my college were eye-opening and interesting. Partly because I'd essentially been in overwhelmingly white environments prior to that, so a fairly large number of Pakistanis was a big change, but also because of some behaviours. The girls seemed to socialise with anyone but their own male folk and it was always slightly sad to see that they clearly enjoyed going uncovered during the day, but all rushed to put on headscarves by home time when parents came to pick them up . The boys were very, very insular; never saw them hang out with anyone else. I didn't see anyone from either gender show any sign of dating anyone at all, within or without their group.

My wife worked with an Indian woman who was going through the oddest divorce.

Her husband was a Sri Lankan NHS consultant , and - much like your mate - his family had pressured him to marry someone from Sri Lanka they knew and approved of. So he did.

She found out his bigamy a few years in and not unsurprisingly petitioned for divorce. She ended up with the house - which must be worth well into 7 figures now - as he couldn't afford for his second marriage to be raised at any divorce hearing.

I met his brother - who was the most rancid anti-semite and heavy drinker I've ever met - and apparently his family didn't know about his marriage to my wife's colleague. They were furious with him and actually quite supportive of the wife

Just such an odd situation and such an odd set of characters.

Anyway.

[Slick]

Wonder what the actual % of gen x that has shagged other races is for the Uk, I reckon it’s surprisingly small. Was just the one guy in my peer circle in Berkshire who had a black girlfriend for a while, and he got the nickname SR71 from it as was uncommon.

There are large swathes of the country that are overwhelmingly white (even more so when Gen X was in its prime, all those years ago) so it probably is quite small. I managed to find myself a Muslim immigrant spouse in Scotland, but I think that is relatively unusual as it is not a diverse place.

I think Brits are relatively open to relationships outside the ethnic group, even going back generations to when the immigrants were Jewish, Italian etc. Some of our resident communities (for example, Pakistani) are notably less into exogamy.

A Sri Lankan friend I met at uni had been dating his then girlfriend (now wife) since college, but had to keep her a secret from his family for two reasons. 1. They didn't want him to date until he'd finished his studies and 2. They wanted him to find a Sri Lankan girl.

The Pakistani group at my college were eye-opening and interesting. Partly because I'd essentially been in overwhelmingly white environments prior to that, so a fairly large number of Pakistanis was a big change, but also because of some behaviours. The girls seemed to socialise with anyone but their own male folk and it was always slightly sad to see that they clearly enjoyed going uncovered during the day, but all rushed to put on headscarves by home time when parents came to pick them up . The boys were very, very insular; never saw them hang out with anyone else. I didn't see anyone from either gender show any sign of dating anyone at all, within or without their group.

I remember visiting a mate at Manchester Uni and ended up in a Pakistani girls room fumbling about. Every 5 minutes there would be bang on the door with one or other of her female or male mates shouting that she shouldn't be with a white boy.

[Yeeb]

There are large swathes of the country that are overwhelmingly white (even more so when Gen X was in its prime, all those years ago) so it probably is quite small. I managed to find myself a Muslim immigrant spouse in Scotland, but I think that is relatively unusual as it is not a diverse place.

I think Brits are relatively open to relationships outside the ethnic group, even going back generations to when the immigrants were Jewish, Italian etc. Some of our resident communities (for example, Pakistani) are notably less into exogamy.

A Sri Lankan friend I met at uni had been dating his then girlfriend (now wife) since college, but had to keep her a secret from his family for two reasons. 1. They didn't want him to date until he'd finished his studies and 2. They wanted him to find a Sri Lankan girl.

The Pakistani group at my college were eye-opening and interesting. Partly because I'd essentially been in overwhelmingly white environments prior to that, so a fairly large number of Pakistanis was a big change, but also because of some behaviours. The girls seemed to socialise with anyone but their own male folk and it was always slightly sad to see that they clearly enjoyed going uncovered during the day, but all rushed to put on headscarves by home time when parents came to pick them up . The boys were very, very insular; never saw them hang out with anyone else. I didn't see anyone from either gender show any sign of dating anyone at all, within or without their group.

I remember visiting a mate at Manchester Uni and ended up in a Pakistani girls room fumbling about. Every 5 minutes there would be bang on the door with one or other of her female or male mates shouting that she shouldn't be with a white boy.

Easy to remedy , just chow down for a few mins and shout at the door/banger that your name is Minjita

[Deepsouth]

Or Saleem. Never underestimate how far a good Saleem can take you...

[Yeeb]

Or if they don’t smell, Asif

[mat the expat]

Speaking as a member of GenX, we’ve failed. The things we like about our generation, the not giving a fuck in particular, means we’ve produced no serious politicians, no leaders, no statesmen. There hasn’t been a GenX President of the US, and there probably won’t be. The UK has had three GenX PMs - Cameron, Truss and Sunak. France, Macron.

We’ve shat the bed as a generation and let the fucking loonies in.

Boomers still had the balance of power for Cameron, etc. Same in Oz for Conservative voters

Luckily, the demographics have tipped over here

Yeah, let's blame other generations again

Facts aren't blame. Whether it was done on purpose, or just bad planning, it still happened and had a massive detrimental impact on later generations

[Slick]

Or if they don’t smell, Asif

Come on FFS

[Achahoish]

Or if they don’t smell, Asif

Come on FFS

That's what she said!









I'll get ma coat

[Yeeb]

Or if they don’t smell, Asif

Come on FFS

Tbf I could have updated the playground classic to a more contemporary ‘or if they don’t groom underage children’ but I decided to stick with the original.

[TedMaul]

Tommy Robinson somehow got himself 2 logins?

[Enzedder]

Is this for real? Uk has caught the MAGA bug?

Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform UK party is now the most popular political party in Britain, beating the governing Labour Party to take the lead for the first time in an opinion poll published.

The poll, conducted by YouGov for the Times newspaper, showed that if a general election were held tomorrow 25 percent of British voters would choose Reform, 24 percent would pick Labour, and 21 percent would vote for the Conservatives.

Reform's one-point lead over Labour in the poll - which surveyed 2465 people over 2-3 February - is within the margin of error, YouGov said.

Labour, which won the national election in July last year by a landslide, dropped three points when compared to the last survey conducted on 26-27 January, while Reform gained two points.

[sockwithaticket]

Is this for real? Uk has caught the MAGA bug?

Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform UK party is now the most popular political party in Britain, beating the governing Labour Party to take the lead for the first time in an opinion poll published.

The poll, conducted by YouGov for the Times newspaper, showed that if a general election were held tomorrow 25 percent of British voters would choose Reform, 24 percent would pick Labour, and 21 percent would vote for the Conservatives.

Reform's one-point lead over Labour in the poll - which surveyed 2465 people over 2-3 February - is within the margin of error, YouGov said.

Labour, which won the national election in July last year by a landslide, dropped three points when compared to the last survey conducted on 26-27 January, while Reform gained two points.

The UK electorate continued to vote for the Tories even after a decade of crippling austerity that drove down living standards and delivering an economically suicidal Brexit plan. We have a lot of deeply unserious and ignorant people who can cast a ballot. Of course they're seduced by the vague promises of sunlit uplands that reform have the freedom to offer while they're nowhere near government. A party with 5 MPs can say things those with serious ambitions of power and accountability cannot.

Also material conditions have yet to particularly improve for people, that's fertile ground for the hard right wherever you go.

Even some lefties like me are pretty frustrated with an immigration policy that seems designed to undercut workers in favour of business and takes no account of a housing shortfall that will only worsen if we continue to have net immigration in the hundreds of thousands per year. Not to the extent of ever voting Reform, but I can see how people get there. It's the only party that's willing to entertain the issue beyond the small boats problem, which is a convenient side show to the masses being allowed in by other means.

[Paddington Bear]

I cannot fathom why the British political establishment appears to have chosen large scale low skilled migration as the hill on which they will die, but having done so I don’t think they can claim any shock at Reform being a major political force

[SaintK]

With usually close friends like these.....................................etc!!!

While not the first time Kemi Badenoch has had a poor showing at Prime Minister’s Questions, yesterday’s performance was nothing short of dismal.

https://unherd.com/newsroom/dismal-pmq ... badenoch/

Is it possible they are sparing themselves the embarrassment of their leader’s weekly appearance? That’s the charitable interpretation.

https://order-order.com/2025/02/05/oh ... t-looks/

[Raggs]

Is this for real? Uk has caught the MAGA bug?

Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform UK party is now the most popular political party in Britain, beating the governing Labour Party to take the lead for the first time in an opinion poll published.

The poll, conducted by YouGov for the Times newspaper, showed that if a general election were held tomorrow 25 percent of British voters would choose Reform, 24 percent would pick Labour, and 21 percent would vote for the Conservatives.

Reform's one-point lead over Labour in the poll - which surveyed 2465 people over 2-3 February - is within the margin of error, YouGov said.

Labour, which won the national election in July last year by a landslide, dropped three points when compared to the last survey conducted on 26-27 January, while Reform gained two points.

The UK electorate continued to vote for the Tories even after a decade of crippling austerity that drove down living standards and delivering an economically suicidal Brexit plan. We have a lot of deeply unserious and ignorant people who can cast a ballot. Of course they're seduced by the vague promises of sunlit uplands that reform have the freedom to offer while they're nowhere near government. A party with 5 MPs can say things those with serious ambitions of power and accountability cannot.

Also material conditions have yet to particularly improve for people, that's fertile ground for the hard right wherever you go.

Even some lefties like me are pretty frustrated with an immigration policy that seems designed to undercut workers in favour of business and takes no account of a housing shortfall that will only worsen if we continue to have net immigration in the hundreds of thousands per year. Not to the extent of ever voting Reform, but I can see how people get there. It's the only party that's willing to entertain the issue beyond the small boats problem, which is a convenient side show to the masses being allowed in by other means.

I mean without net immigration we're going to need to kick out all our elderly, otherwise there's going to be no-one to look after them, or to earn the taxes to pay their pensions.

Labour do seem to be trying to move forward with getting more houses.

They're also actually processing aslyum claims, so instead of sitting in hotels (of whatever quality) costing the country, these people are either removed, or are now able to pay taxes themselves.

[Yeeb]

With usually close friends like these.....................................etc!!!

While not the first time Kemi Badenoch has had a poor showing at Prime Minister’s Questions, yesterday’s performance was nothing short of dismal.

https://unherd.com/newsroom/dismal-pmq ... badenoch/

Is it possible they are sparing themselves the embarrassment of their leader’s weekly appearance? That’s the charitable interpretation.

https://order-order.com/2025/02/05/oh ... t-looks/

Lolz, she is shit

The most realistic explanation I can think of is that the right wing power mongers behind the scenes are deliberately making a black woman immigrant fucking up (following a string of previous useless ethnic and women leader types) just so as they make the Tories so hopeless, the reform can merge into them or take over as effective opposition and put Farage in to attack a GE (which could well
Happen sooner rather than later judging my labours initial success at being in power).

If there was a GE tomorrow , the results would be very interesting as Tories are nearly 100% unelectable right now

[Paddington Bear]

Is this for real? Uk has caught the MAGA bug?

The UK electorate continued to vote for the Tories even after a decade of crippling austerity that drove down living standards and delivering an economically suicidal Brexit plan. We have a lot of deeply unserious and ignorant people who can cast a ballot. Of course they're seduced by the vague promises of sunlit uplands that reform have the freedom to offer while they're nowhere near government. A party with 5 MPs can say things those with serious ambitions of power and accountability cannot.

Also material conditions have yet to particularly improve for people, that's fertile ground for the hard right wherever you go.

Even some lefties like me are pretty frustrated with an immigration policy that seems designed to undercut workers in favour of business and takes no account of a housing shortfall that will only worsen if we continue to have net immigration in the hundreds of thousands per year. Not to the extent of ever voting Reform, but I can see how people get there. It's the only party that's willing to entertain the issue beyond the small boats problem, which is a convenient side show to the masses being allowed in by other means.

I mean without net immigration we're going to need to kick out all our elderly, otherwise there's going to be no-one to look after them, or to earn the taxes to pay their pensions.

Labour do seem to be trying to move forward with getting more houses.

They're also actually processing aslyum claims, so instead of sitting in hotels (of whatever quality) costing the country, these people are either removed, or are now able to pay taxes themselves.

The problem with this is we’ve managed to create a migration policy where hundreds of thousands of economically inactive people arrive in the country each year. So yes, theoretically migrants should boost tax receipts whilst not taking from the state, in reality that is not the system we have created because we encourage low skilled dependent-based migration whilst making it very hard to bring in highly skilled productive people.

It’s madness and whilst the net figures are crazy enough, the net figures don’t even begin to explain the fiscal gap created by a young British doctor throwing in the towel and going to Oz as one out, when compared to one person from the developing world arriving on a health and social care visa with three dependents.

[Raggs]

The problem with this is we’ve managed to create a migration policy where hundreds of thousands of economically inactive people arrive in the country each year. So yes, theoretically migrants should boost tax receipts whilst not taking from the state, in reality that is not the system we have created because we encourage low skilled dependent-based migration whilst making it very hard to bring in highly skilled productive people.

It’s madness and whilst the net figures are crazy enough, the net figures don’t even begin to explain the fiscal gap created by a young British doctor throwing in the towel and going to Oz as one out, when compared to one person from the developing world arriving on a health and social care visa with three dependents.

How many are actually economically inactive? And none of them have access to public funds, so it's not that they arrive and have everything paid for them.

And there's a reason we offer health and social care visa's so easily, we have too many old people, and not enough English people are willing to work those jobs.

The problem is not the immigrants, it's the aging population and their super triple locked iron clad pensions.

[Paddington Bear]

The problem with this is we’ve managed to create a migration policy where hundreds of thousands of economically inactive people arrive in the country each year. So yes, theoretically migrants should boost tax receipts whilst not taking from the state, in reality that is not the system we have created because we encourage low skilled dependent-based migration whilst making it very hard to bring in highly skilled productive people.

It’s madness and whilst the net figures are crazy enough, the net figures don’t even begin to explain the fiscal gap created by a young British doctor throwing in the towel and going to Oz as one out, when compared to one person from the developing world arriving on a health and social care visa with three dependents.

How many are actually economically inactive? And none of them have access to public funds, so it's not that they arrive and have everything paid for them.

And there's a reason we offer health and social care visa's so easily, we have too many old people, and not enough English people are willing to work those jobs.

The problem is not the immigrants, it's the aging population and their super triple locked iron clad pensions.

It is instructive to go on youtube and type in ‘no recourse to public funds’. You will be (quite genuinely) astonished at how many gateways there are to removing it.

[Raggs]

The problem with this is we’ve managed to create a migration policy where hundreds of thousands of economically inactive people arrive in the country each year. So yes, theoretically migrants should boost tax receipts whilst not taking from the state, in reality that is not the system we have created because we encourage low skilled dependent-based migration whilst making it very hard to bring in highly skilled productive people.

It’s madness and whilst the net figures are crazy enough, the net figures don’t even begin to explain the fiscal gap created by a young British doctor throwing in the towel and going to Oz as one out, when compared to one person from the developing world arriving on a health and social care visa with three dependents.

How many are actually economically inactive? And none of them have access to public funds, so it's not that they arrive and have everything paid for them.

And there's a reason we offer health and social care visa's so easily, we have too many old people, and not enough English people are willing to work those jobs.

The problem is not the immigrants, it's the aging population and their super triple locked iron clad pensions.

It is instructive to go on youtube and type in ‘no recourse to public funds’. You will be (quite genuinely) astonished at how many gateways there are to removing it.

I'll check it out later.

[Yeeb]

Is this for real? Uk has caught the MAGA bug?

The UK electorate continued to vote for the Tories even after a decade of crippling austerity that drove down living standards and delivering an economically suicidal Brexit plan. We have a lot of deeply unserious and ignorant people who can cast a ballot. Of course they're seduced by the vague promises of sunlit uplands that reform have the freedom to offer while they're nowhere near government. A party with 5 MPs can say things those with serious ambitions of power and accountability cannot.

Also material conditions have yet to particularly improve for people, that's fertile ground for the hard right wherever you go.

Even some lefties like me are pretty frustrated with an immigration policy that seems designed to undercut workers in favour of business and takes no account of a housing shortfall that will only worsen if we continue to have net immigration in the hundreds of thousands per year. Not to the extent of ever voting Reform, but I can see how people get there. It's the only party that's willing to entertain the issue beyond the small boats problem, which is a convenient side show to the masses being allowed in by other means.

I mean without net immigration we're going to need to kick out all our elderly, otherwise there's going to be no-one to look after them, or to earn the taxes to pay their pensions.

Labour do seem to be trying to move forward with getting more houses.

They're also actually processing aslyum claims, so instead of sitting in hotels (of whatever quality) costing the country, these people are either removed, or are now able to pay taxes themselves.

Wtaf ?! Zero chance the recent illegal entrants pay their taxes , or the ‘students’ whom a million per year seem to forget to attend their classes .

Absolutely agree re the looking after them bit though, those nhs and OAP home care nurses from Zimbabwe absolutely are vital and pay their share of tax

[Yeeb]

The problem with this is we’ve managed to create a migration policy where hundreds of thousands of economically inactive people arrive in the country each year. So yes, theoretically migrants should boost tax receipts whilst not taking from the state, in reality that is not the system we have created because we encourage low skilled dependent-based migration whilst making it very hard to bring in highly skilled productive people.

It’s madness and whilst the net figures are crazy enough, the net figures don’t even begin to explain the fiscal gap created by a young British doctor throwing in the towel and going to Oz as one out, when compared to one person from the developing world arriving on a health and social care visa with three dependents.

How many are actually economically inactive? And none of them have access to public funds, so it's not that they arrive and have everything paid for them.

And there's a reason we offer health and social care visa's so easily, we have too many old people, and not enough English people are willing to work those jobs.

The problem is not the immigrants, it's the aging population and their super triple locked iron clad pensions.

Triple lock needs to go, despite it being political suicide. It’s by far the single biggest drain on govt spending pot, and it’s never been properly funded.

A £1 cut to state pension per week to save X billion , and put all that X billion straight into the NHS, 80% of which funds go to geriatric care. I’d be very happy to vote for that rehypothication of funds

[Raggs]

So how much do you think an illegal entrants to the country actually costs the country? Even if they aren't paying taxes on their work, they're paying taxes through purchasing food etc, and I suspect most wouldn't even be earning enough to pay income tax anyway. How many even are there? Over the whole country, it's going to be a drop in the ocean. It's the same waving a red flag, as people trying to get you to focus on benefits fraud (which should be stopped) instead of corporate tax evasion/loopholes.

Student visas, a large portion of them are going to be paying uni fees etc, and really putting into the economy. Those who don't go to courses, and instead are working, are again, still paying into the system. Less than 500k visas are given out per year.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/r ... in-the-uk/

If people are coming to the country as an adult, they're generally going to be paying in more than they've cost the country. Certainly compared to the average Brit!

We need immigration. Children cost more money to the state than getting a 20 year old immigrant. Immigrants often come with the bonus of potentially leaving when they're old too (obviously not all), dumping that problem on someone else.

The problem is the elderly. I have no idea what a reasonable solution would be though.

[Yeeb]

So how much do you think an illegal entrants to the country actually costs the country? Even if they aren't paying taxes on their work, they're paying taxes through purchasing food etc, and I suspect most wouldn't even be earning enough to pay income tax anyway. How many even are there? Over the whole country, it's going to be a drop in the ocean. It's the same waving a red flag, as people trying to get you to focus on benefits fraud (which should be stopped) instead of corporate tax evasion/loopholes.

Student visas, a large portion of them are going to be paying uni fees etc, and really putting into the economy. Those who don't go to courses, and instead are working, are again, still paying into the system. Less than 500k visas are given out per year.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/r ... in-the-uk/

If people are coming to the country as an adult, they're generally going to be paying in more than they've cost the country. Certainly compared to the average Brit!

We need immigration. Children cost more money to the state than getting a 20 year old immigrant. Immigrants often come with the bonus of potentially leaving when they're old too (obviously not all), dumping that problem on someone else.

The problem is the elderly. I have no idea what a reasonable solution would be though.

Disagree with nearly everything you have written there tbf, c&p for clarity :

‘So how much do you think an illegal entrants to the country actually costs the country’ - nobody knows how many people have come through the turnstiles , that’s the point

‘purchasing food etc’ - you do know most food has no vat yep ?

‘Over the whole country, it's going to be a drop in the ocean’ - and if you happen to be in one of those rare places where it’s not a drop ? Again, with no knowledge of actual numbers you can’t say this for sure without contradicting yourself again

Students - you say 500k, I said a million - semantics really , give or take a city the size Liverpool per year is surely merely a “drop in the ocean” yep ?

Like every ‘immigration is fine and it’s needed’ type, you casually ignore such things as:
Translation services
Pressure on housing , schooling, roads etc
Crime that these poor immigrants seem to be unfairly blamed for , even when it’s pretty documented like the Rotherham rapey types
Prison costs where these poor immigrants seem unfairly over represented with
Utterly shit standard of driving and the crashes they cause whilst they deliver pizzas
Chlorine costs for leisure centres


In fact the only thing you’ve written that isn’t utterly delusion , is about the corp tax loopholes which I agree 100%

[robmatic]

The problem with this is we’ve managed to create a migration policy where hundreds of thousands of economically inactive people arrive in the country each year. So yes, theoretically migrants should boost tax receipts whilst not taking from the state, in reality that is not the system we have created because we encourage low skilled dependent-based migration whilst making it very hard to bring in highly skilled productive people.

It’s madness and whilst the net figures are crazy enough, the net figures don’t even begin to explain the fiscal gap created by a young British doctor throwing in the towel and going to Oz as one out, when compared to one person from the developing world arriving on a health and social care visa with three dependents.

How many are actually economically inactive? And none of them have access to public funds, so it's not that they arrive and have everything paid for them.

And there's a reason we offer health and social care visa's so easily, we have too many old people, and not enough English people are willing to work those jobs.

The problem is not the immigrants, it's the aging population and their super triple locked iron clad pensions.

It is instructive to go on youtube and type in ‘no recourse to public funds’. You will be (quite genuinely) astonished at how many gateways there are to removing it.

Also, no recourse to public funds only applies until people get indefinite leave to remain. That takes 5 years, then 12 months later you get your citizenship.

It is no surprise the working visa routes are so popular when you basically hit the jackpot for you and whole family after 6 years of grafting.

[dpedin]

So how much do you think an illegal entrants to the country actually costs the country? Even if they aren't paying taxes on their work, they're paying taxes through purchasing food etc, and I suspect most wouldn't even be earning enough to pay income tax anyway. How many even are there? Over the whole country, it's going to be a drop in the ocean. It's the same waving a red flag, as people trying to get you to focus on benefits fraud (which should be stopped) instead of corporate tax evasion/loopholes.

Student visas, a large portion of them are going to be paying uni fees etc, and really putting into the economy. Those who don't go to courses, and instead are working, are again, still paying into the system. Less than 500k visas are given out per year.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/r ... in-the-uk/

If people are coming to the country as an adult, they're generally going to be paying in more than they've cost the country. Certainly compared to the average Brit!

We need immigration. Children cost more money to the state than getting a 20 year old immigrant. Immigrants often come with the bonus of potentially leaving when they're old too (obviously not all), dumping that problem on someone else.

The problem is the elderly. I have no idea what a reasonable solution would be though.

Disagree with nearly everything you have written there tbf, c&p for clarity :

‘So how much do you think an illegal entrants to the country actually costs the country’ - nobody knows how many people have come through the turnstiles , that’s the point

‘purchasing food etc’ - you do know most food has no vat yep ?

‘Over the whole country, it's going to be a drop in the ocean’ - and if you happen to be in one of those rare places where it’s not a drop ? Again, with no knowledge of actual numbers you can’t say this for sure without contradicting yourself again

Students - you say 500k, I said a million - semantics really , give or take a city the size Liverpool per year is surely merely a “drop in the ocean” yep ?

Like every ‘immigration is fine and it’s needed’ type, you casually ignore such things as:
Translation services
Pressure on housing , schooling, roads etc
Crime that these poor immigrants seem to be unfairly blamed for , even when it’s pretty documented like the Rotherham rapey types
Prison costs where these poor immigrants seem unfairly over represented with
Utterly shit standard of driving and the crashes they cause whilst they deliver pizzas
Chlorine costs for leisure centres


In fact the only thing you’ve written that isn’t utterly delusion , is about the corp tax loopholes which I agree 100%

'While low-paid migrants are a drain on public finances, the OBR found that the average migrant worker pays more in tax than they receive in public services throughout their lives compared to British-born workers. This is mainly because they are not educated in the UK'

One of the 'benefits of Brexit' was that we were getting highly educated, single, young workers coming here under FoM. They have dropped off the cliff and mostly gone home. They tended to come here work for a few years and then go back home having contributed far more to the economy that they took out. My mate works in an European wide architect business designing big malls etc in Middle East and Far East, they closed their London office because of Brexit and now send all their work to the likes of Spain and Italy offices to be done. Now our 2 largest groups of legal immigrants come from India and Nigeria and they do tend to be older, married and with dependents.

The quandary we face is with a Fertility Rate of 1.3 to 1.5 then we have a shrinking and an ageing population, we need a fertility rate of 2.1 or more. Without immigration then we wouldn't be able to sustain the working population we need to drive the economy and end up with a stagnant or shrinking economy with all the problems that brings. It is also an immediate problem - our NHS and social care would collapse if it wasn't for immigration, about 1 in 4 NHS workers in the SE of England are immigrants, it is more in social care.

So the problem isnt how do we stop immigration, that is just shooting ourselves in both feet with a very large blunderbuss, but rather how we make the UK an attractive destination for the skilled and motivated migrant workers we need to sustain the economy. Unfortunately Brexit was basically just about telling the young, skilled and productive workers from the EU to feck off, hence the need to find alternative sources. Unfortunately the UK isn't seen as an attractive proposition for many skilled workers across the world now, gone are the days when we were one of the top destinations for bright young things! Unfortunately expensive housing, poor transport links, expensive supplementary payments to NHS, etc is stopping the UK becoming an attractive destination for man. Most of all the very anti immigrant noises and riots last summer are putting them off coming here as well, lots of more attractive places in the world who pay just as well. We operate and compete in a very competitive world market for skills and labour and at the moment we seem to be doing rather badly!

[Yeeb]

So how much do you think an illegal entrants to the country actually costs the country? Even if they aren't paying taxes on their work, they're paying taxes through purchasing food etc, and I suspect most wouldn't even be earning enough to pay income tax anyway. How many even are there? Over the whole country, it's going to be a drop in the ocean. It's the same waving a red flag, as people trying to get you to focus on benefits fraud (which should be stopped) instead of corporate tax evasion/loopholes.

Student visas, a large portion of them are going to be paying uni fees etc, and really putting into the economy. Those who don't go to courses, and instead are working, are again, still paying into the system. Less than 500k visas are given out per year.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/r ... in-the-uk/

If people are coming to the country as an adult, they're generally going to be paying in more than they've cost the country. Certainly compared to the average Brit!

We need immigration. Children cost more money to the state than getting a 20 year old immigrant. Immigrants often come with the bonus of potentially leaving when they're old too (obviously not all), dumping that problem on someone else.

The problem is the elderly. I have no idea what a reasonable solution would be though.

Disagree with nearly everything you have written there tbf, c&p for clarity :

‘So how much do you think an illegal entrants to the country actually costs the country’ - nobody knows how many people have come through the turnstiles , that’s the point

‘purchasing food etc’ - you do know most food has no vat yep ?

‘Over the whole country, it's going to be a drop in the ocean’ - and if you happen to be in one of those rare places where it’s not a drop ? Again, with no knowledge of actual numbers you can’t say this for sure without contradicting yourself again

Students - you say 500k, I said a million - semantics really , give or take a city the size Liverpool per year is surely merely a “drop in the ocean” yep ?

Like every ‘immigration is fine and it’s needed’ type, you casually ignore such things as:
Translation services
Pressure on housing , schooling, roads etc
Crime that these poor immigrants seem to be unfairly blamed for , even when it’s pretty documented like the Rotherham rapey types
Prison costs where these poor immigrants seem unfairly over represented with
Utterly shit standard of driving and the crashes they cause whilst they deliver pizzas
Chlorine costs for leisure centres


In fact the only thing you’ve written that isn’t utterly delusion , is about the corp tax loopholes which I agree 100%

'While low-paid migrants are a drain on public finances, the OBR found that the average migrant worker pays more in tax than they receive in public services throughout their lives compared to British-born workers. This is mainly because they are not educated in the UK'

One of the 'benefits of Brexit' was that we were getting highly educated, single, young workers coming here under FoM. They have dropped off the cliff and mostly gone home. They tended to come here work for a few years and then go back home having contributed far more to the economy that they took out. My mate works in an European wide architect business designing big malls etc in Middle East and Far East, they closed their London office because of Brexit and now send all their work to the likes of Spain and Italy offices to be done. Now our 2 largest groups of legal immigrants come from India and Nigeria and they do tend to be older, married and with dependents.

The quandary we face is with a Fertility Rate of 1.3 to 1.5 then we have a shrinking and an ageing population, we need a fertility rate of 2.1 or more. Without immigration then we wouldn't be able to sustain the working population we need to drive the economy and end up with a stagnant or shrinking economy with all the problems that brings. It is also an immediate problem - our NHS and social care would collapse if it wasn't for immigration, about 1 in 4 NHS workers in the SE of England are immigrants, it is more in social care.

So the problem isnt how do we stop immigration, that is just shooting ourselves in both feet with a very large blunderbuss, but rather how we make the UK an attractive destination for the skilled and motivated migrant workers we need to sustain the economy. Unfortunately Brexit was basically just about telling the young, skilled and productive workers from the EU to feck off, hence the need to find alternative sources. Unfortunately the UK isn't seen as an attractive proposition for many skilled workers across the world now, gone are the days when we were one of the top destinations for bright young things! Unfortunately expensive housing, poor transport links, expensive supplementary payments to NHS, etc is stopping the UK becoming an attractive destination for man. Most of all the very anti immigrant noises and riots last summer are putting them off coming here as well, lots of more attractive places in the world who pay just as well. We operate and compete in a very competitive world market for skills and labour and at the moment we seem to be doing rather badly!

Absolutely agree with this , pushed the nice ones away, whilst doing nothing to plug the gap of poolshitter stabby rapey types swimming in. It was a badly thought out knee jerk reaction to a badly thought out problem long time in coming , Enoch largely proved right but not in the way he intended.

Legal skilled immigrants the world over, have added positively to the countries they migrate to broadly , and have done over centuries.

[Yeeb]

Worth noting that official net benefit studies on migration do have the following acknowledged caveats:
Precise direct costs and benefits unknown bar what is officially declared , and as precise numbers and whereabouts of immigrants are unknown these will also be unknown
Indirect costs such as money nhs trusts spend on translation and chaperone services rather than medical aid, are often omitted
Indirect knock on costs such as housing pressures on these aforementioned translators and chaperones
And of course the big intangible cost of investigating all these rapey stabby isolated incidents , areas turning into spot the white face, downward pressure on wages and therefore tax harvest , effects on property prices….

All of which would naturally bias toward under reporting the costs and overstating the benefits.

On top of these could be personally held views (rather than OBNR facts above) such as the costs of thing like Brexit which I beleive are a result of consistent decades of failed immigration policy and control, or people like Farage and Trump becoming popular and elected

[robmatic]

Unfortunately the UK isn't seen as an attractive proposition for many skilled workers across the world now, gone are the days when we were one of the top destinations for bright young things! Unfortunately expensive housing, poor transport links, expensive supplementary payments to NHS, etc is stopping the UK becoming an attractive destination for man. Most of all the very anti immigrant noises and riots last summer are putting them off coming here as well, lots of more attractive places in the world who pay just as well. We operate and compete in a very competitive world market for skills and labour and at the moment we seem to be doing rather badly!

And yet net migration is at record levels?

Having high levels of immigration while not being an attractive destination for skilled workers seems like a bad situation tbh.

[dpedin]

Unfortunately the UK isn't seen as an attractive proposition for many skilled workers across the world now, gone are the days when we were one of the top destinations for bright young things! Unfortunately expensive housing, poor transport links, expensive supplementary payments to NHS, etc is stopping the UK becoming an attractive destination for man. Most of all the very anti immigrant noises and riots last summer are putting them off coming here as well, lots of more attractive places in the world who pay just as well. We operate and compete in a very competitive world market for skills and labour and at the moment we seem to be doing rather badly!

And yet net migration is at record levels?

Having high levels of immigration while not being an attractive destination for skilled workers seems like a bad situation tbh.

Absolutely! The FoM under the EU was an attractive proposition for many young, skilled europeans who saw the UK as a place to further their careers, learn English and enjoy our culture but most had the intention of going back to their home countries once they wanted to settle down. Some stayed in the UK in the same way many Brits went to live in Europe.

Once FoM disappeared post Brexit then companies, NHS, social services, farming, hotel and catering were all desperate for staffing permanent and seasonal so used whatever routes they could do bring folk into the country. Unlike EU FoM, those brought in to UK tended to come with families and dependents and from countries which had historical links to the UK ie Indian sub continent. For them it is seen more of a permanent move rather than a temporary few years. The last Tory Gov knew all this but did feck all because they knew immigration was needed to prop up the working age population and economy plus they knew it would open the Brexit weeping sore even further. They opened the doors whilst pretending to be strict on immigration and used the 'small boats invasion', which represents a small fraction of immigration, to distract everyone from the real immigration issues. Most folk fell for this hook, line and sinker despite the small boats being a minor issue in the wider immigration context, it fed the xenophobs and racists hunger!

[Biffer]

Badenoch claiming that fiscal weakness led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Jolly good.

[SaintK]

Badenoch claiming that fiscal weakness led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Jolly good.

She's coming out with all the guff that Frog Face uses in a bid to court Trump and Vance.
Though when the main Tory cheer leading website comes out with a leading article like this you have to wonder just how long she'''ll be around?

Does Kemi Badenoch actually want to lead the Conservative Party?

This seems a bizarre question to ask. After all, it’s not that easy to climb the greasy pole. Even with her lackadaisical approach to campaigning for the job, Badenoch still needed to win over enough MPs and party members to to the top. Then again, she was run far closer than two years as the frontrunner might have led one to expect her to be. The Movement is losing its touch.

https://conservativehome.com/2025/02/ ... e-party/

[Biffer]

Badenoch claiming that fiscal weakness led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Jolly good.

She's coming out with all the guff that Frog Face uses in a bid to court Trump and Vance.
Though when the main Tory cheer leading website comes out with a leading article like this you have to wonder just how long she'''ll be around?

Does Kemi Badenoch actually want to lead the Conservative Party?

This seems a bizarre question to ask. After all, it’s not that easy to climb the greasy pole. Even with her lackadaisical approach to campaigning for the job, Badenoch still needed to win over enough MPs and party members to to the top. Then again, she was run far closer than two years as the frontrunner might have led one to expect her to be. The Movement is losing its touch.

https://conservativehome.com/2025/02/ ... e-party/

Despite the fact they lost more votes to the LibDems. If it wasn't for the fact that they're fucking idiots, I'd almost believe they were trying to create huge divisions similar to the USA, to radicalise both sides and make most in the centre reluctant to vote at all.

[Hal Jordan]

Badenoch claiming that fiscal weakness led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Jolly good.

I suppose "Multiple Emperors failing to pay the Army/Praetorian Guard or being batshit crazy (or both) and getting murdered because of it" does tend to dent the stability of things.

[tabascoboy]

Badenoch claiming that fiscal weakness led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Jolly good.

Is that from this speech or another equally daft one?

Kemi Badenoch mocked after claiming Tory collapse could end Western civilisation
In a speech in London Kemi Badenoch claimed that failure to renew the Tory Party will lead to the loss of 'our country and all of Western civilisation' - leading to accusations of fawning to Donald Trump

Kemi Badenoch has been roundly mocked after claiming that failure to renew the Tory Party will lead to the loss of "our country and all of Western civilisation".

The under-fire Conservative leader was branded "sad" and accused of "fawning" over Donald Trump after the speech in central London. In a lengthy rant Ms Badenoch said: "If we get this right, we stand at the dawn of the new Conservative century with so much opportunity and possibility.

"If we throw this opportunity away because of anger or self-doubt or weakness, our country and all of Western civilisation will be lost, and that is why we, the next generation of Conservatives, must lead the world back from the precipice. It is time to speak the truth."

In between lashing out at the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), she told an audience at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) that the Tories are "starting the largest renewal of policy and ideas in a generation".

[fishfoodie]

She's in danger of making Truss look like a competent Leader

I mean Truss at least had ideas; they were invariably shit & disastrous for the Country & her Party, but all Badenough has is words, & very few of them make any sense, so she just spews bullshit & every time she opens her gob more hands smack more foreheads with disbelief.

[Paddington Bear]

She's in danger of making Truss look like a competent Leader

I mean Truss at least had ideas; they were invariably shit & disastrous for the Country & her Party, but all Badenough has is words, & very few of them make any sense, so she just spews bullshit & every time she opens her gob more hands smack more foreheads with disbelief.

She is astonishingly useless - the Tory party seems not to have learned anything from a historic crushing and is close to being consigned to history as a result

[fishfoodie]

She's in danger of making Truss look like a competent Leader

I mean Truss at least had ideas; they were invariably shit & disastrous for the Country & her Party, but all Badenough has is words, & very few of them make any sense, so she just spews bullshit & every time she opens her gob more hands smack more foreheads with disbelief.

She is astonishingly useless - the Tory party seems not to have learned anything from a historic crushing and is close to being consigned to history as a result

Well the bumblecunt systematically removed anyone with a functional brain from the PP, by demanding that anyone running as a candidate be Pro-Brexit. All the people that would have voted for these candidates went to the Lib Dems; while the Brexit nutters went to Reform, & many of disenchanted, "Red Wall" voters were spread around