The Big Opportunity
The juxtaposition between Labour’s bid to ‘crack down’ on benefit cheats and the new revelations that Sir Keir Starmer accepted accommodation worth £20,000 to help his 16-year-old son study for his GCSE exams, is brutal.
The whole narrative about ‘handouts’ while being on the receiving end of, er, handouts, is remarkable, as is the sense of entitlement in defending them (Wes Streeting called the donations “a noble pursuit”).
Dr Jay Watts commented: “The idea that we should be suspicious of benefits claimants for ‘fleecing the system’ has been erroneously sold as fact for the past decades, with devastating effects on hearts, bodies, and minds. Ideas of moral worth get inside us. Starmer’s words are violent and dangerous.”
She’s absolutely right. Starmer has commandeered the narrative of the tabloid right.
Watts continues: “Starmer is to announce a new fraud, error and debt bill to ‘modernise the DWP’. This ie already covered by existing legislation. It will terrify people and perpetuate the public’s misperception benefits fraud is a huge problem in this country. Reminder: PIP fraud rate is 0%.”
The reaction to the Labour conference and keynote speeches is instructive. The gap between the centrist commentariat’s wishes for the new Labour government and the actual reality is huge. At some point this will become untenable.
Writing in The New Statesman Andrew Marr notes: “Labour’s Liverpool conference isn’t a Westminster politics pit stop. It’s not an interruption or a roadside caff for leftish passers-by. This is the ultimate audience. This is the big opportunity.”
“Take, for instance, the revival of racism. In 1964 Wilson devoted a big chunk of his speech to electoral extremism: “On the doorstep there were Conservatives, to say nothing of their near-fascist allies, who were prepared to exploit primitive and ignorant passions for the squalid purpose of winning unworthy votes.” Blair, in the same place, talked about the kind of people who had voted Labour: “Theirs were the smiles of tolerant, broad-minded, outward-looking, compassionate people and suddenly they learned that they were in the majority after all.”
But Starmer said nothing about the (white) race riots that engulfed England only a few weeks ago. Nothing at all. His Chancellor did though. In her conference speech Yvette Cooper said net migration was too high: “A serious government sees that net migration has trebled because overseas recruitment has soared while training has been cut right back, and says net migration must come down as we properly train young people here in the UK.”
Diane Abbott called it a “shocking speech”.
There’s a yawning gulf between the Labour party that the liberal columnists and editors have willed into existence, and the actual one that is revealing itself to us. Andrew Marr tells us “Voters have lost their sense of what Starmer’s Labour is for. He must use his conference speech to tell them.”
Well he has – Starmer has said he believes that people claiming long-term sickness benefits should be expected to look for work – and he has made a big play of saying he will ‘crack down’ on benefit cheats – while his Home Secretary makes a speech competing with the far-right on anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Britain has become a country with such a narrow bandwidth of politics that the main political parties are virtually indistinguishable in policy terms and the public discourse of social policy is simply grotesque, shaped as it has been for decades by the right-wing press to the extent that this has been inculcated and normalised for millions of people.
The silence from Labour on the rise of fascism in the summer and the misdirection about the way to make real savings and strengthen the economy is a giveaway about a party hollowed-out, purged and totally captivated by their wealthy corporate supporters. Labour is as far away from its roots and origins as its ever been.
sounds like an episode ae black adder tae be honest, nob & nobility
My posting of this article on facebook is being reported as spam!
Yeah – META have taken down my links. I have appealed.
The useful idiots will just concentrate on protesting “for Palestine”, rather than this
Starmer & Os-Reeves (Osborne-Reeves – she ain’t no diff from Gidiot) go for easy, headline catching stuff – The Scum/Daily Heil etc lap up the “benefit cheats” nonesense. Obvs, going after rich tax dodgers is difficult & will involve investing in HMRC – but this point is that Starmer/OSReeves are funded by the rich so why go after funders? It all makes sense in the warped reality that LINO inhabits. Couple this to Starmers inherent authoritariansim/borderline fascism and you have an increasingly nasty UK – where the serfs are supressed through various measures & its free everything for LINO apparatchiks – & the exaple of Starmer/son/£20k was highly pertinent.
The cut in WFP was a policy that the Treasury has been pushing for for some time. Rachel Reeves is on record in Hansard as supporting this cut in 2014.
It was not in manifesto so either it was planned which is deception or it was dreamed up at short notice.
I tend to think it was pushed by Reeves and some advisers who thought it would make government look financially tough to city, appeal to younger voters by targeting the old and less pensioners vote Labour.
No risk assessment was performed and implementation was arbitrarily placed at a level which will leave 1.6 – 2 million pensioners in UK in potential in fuel poverty. The policy implementation has been condemned by all organisations involved with welfare of elderly and is being implemented at the same time as energy prices are rising. It now looks like a mean and vindictive policy to many people and as it is being pushed by ministers who are being seen to have enjoyed a large number of freebie’s.
The defence of policy is risible being:
a)from economic standpoint that there would have been a run on the pound if they hadn’t done this b)while the DWP simultaneously claims it will encourage the uptake on Pension Credits which will they claim will benefit pensioners but will in all probability wipe out any savings. They are now just digging themselves into a deeper hole defending the policy.
Meanwhile in Scotland where temperatures are colder, there are less ‘millionaire pensioners and energy prices are higher (why?). The policy has been announced without consultation with Holyrood government who are being told to find the additional finances but balance the books by Labour’s Scottish representatives. Representatives who criticised such a policy and denied it would be implemented before General Election.
Is that tax evasion within the UK or within the British Empire? I mean, London isn’t the only tax haven.
What are the costs of living (energy etc) throughout the British Empire? The gov.uk site frustratingly makes comparisons between the UK and mostly with EU and other European countries. The first non-self-governing territory whose webite I checked had nothing under ‘Statistics’:
https://www.gov.ai/statistics
nor ‘Ethics’, hmmm.
a wee readie ae fit passes for news would indicate that carmichael is being lined up tae represent the honest toiler as essentially repugnant in his renewed capacity as back by demand defacto secretary of state fur scotia
In her conference speech Yvette Cooper said net migration was too high: “A serious government sees that net migration has trebled because overseas recruitment has soared while training has been cut right back, and says net migration must come down as we properly train young people here in the UK.”
Diane Abbott said this was a shocking speech and you seem to agree with her, stating “while his (Starmer’s) Home Secretary makes a speech competing with the far-right on anti-immigrant rhetoric” Come on, that’s ridiculous. You can make a case, if you have to, that immigration of an excess of over 600,000 people is not an issue, but to suggest that someone else thinks who this number is too high means they are courting the extreme right – sorry, that’s not acceptable, there is a debate about immigration to be had, and shutting this debate down by using common fallacious argument such as ad hominems or false equivalence is disappointing and just helps fuel the flames. . .
Surely in an overcrowded island like Great Britain, though parts of Scotland can admittedly seem less so, such that England is the most densely populated country in Europe, large numbers of people joining that population and increasing it further could be considered a problem. And should it be a problem for anyone stating this obvious fact to have a problem with others who just don’t seem to understand this issue and label you racist for so doing? Great Britain is an island not self-sufficient in energy and not self-sufficient in food, there is a serious strategic and sovereign deficit. I left the UK for NZ in 1986 (I married a New Zealander who wished to return home) and the UK’s population then was 56.7 million, it is now 67.9 million. When I left I was not aware that the UK seemed in any way underpopulated – one manoeuvred one’s way along crowded motorways, visited overrun beaches, jammed in tube trains or jostled crowds in shopping streets and tolerated more and more poorly planned boring housing estates on the periphery of every community . So I have to ask, how has an extra 11 million people benefitted the UK in any way? I cannot think of a single problem facing any community with a 56.7 million people that can be solved by making that community even larger. Officially, 60% of this increase is directly due to immigration, in the last 5 years that would be nearer 90% These figures actually underestimate the way immigration causes population growth, because children born to immigrants already in the UK are counted as a natural increase. The fertility rate of the UK has been below replacement levels since 1973, so immigration is the only cause of population increase, the UK population would be declining otherwise. What we have to decide is this – is a declining population actually a problem? .
In this matter I’d just like to mention two arguments, which usually come to the fore – first we need workers in unpopular jobs, such as care workers, and where there are serious shortages, medicine, engineering etc. There’s some sense to that, but isn’t Yvette likely have a point, that the UK should be training their own youngsters for such jobs and careers ? Isn’t there a serious education deficit in the UK which would be more useful to solve rather than importing the educationally advantage from overseas, whilst at the same time disadvantaging the countries where they come from?
Second reason so often espoused – we need immigrants to boost the youth of the country to provide for the burgeoning numbers of old people – ie to reduce the proportion of elderly non-working people in the population. Mike, have you actually investigated the demographics of this? Earlier this century expert academic demographers examined the situation in Australia, basically they calculated that to reduced the elderly (i.e over 65 yrs of age) population, calculated to be by the end of this century about 33% of the population, and you had an excess of immigration per annum of around 50,000 per year over this time, that proportion of elderly would decline from 32.5% to 29.5% or a fall of 3.0% – now that is a fall, but really, in the scheme of things, is that high enough to make any substantial difference to the demographics of Australia and pension entitlements, workplace, taxpaying, health care costs etc etc? To bring down the elderly proportion to a more significant 25% would require immigration of 250,000 p.a. Over this time, the population increase from 50,000 pa is 3.75 million, from 250,000 is 18 million. . Extrapolate these figures for the UK, and the immigration needed to reduce the numbers of elderly to 29.5% would be 150,000 annually, or over 11 million by 2100, or to reach the more significant 25% the numbers would be 750,000 annually, and a population increase of 56 million. . But why then stop at the year 2100? In a mature non increasing population there’ll always be around a 33% elderly population and trying to stop this with immigration is plainly non-sensical. If anyone ever tells you that immigration is any sort of solution to an ageing population, please, provide them with the information you have just learned here. The original reference to the article is here, but it doesn’t take you now to the original article, but the organisation that sponsored it. http://demography.anu.edu.au/Publications/popfutures/01.pdf – you can explore further yourself.
Now, I’ve mentioned here just a couple of issues in regard to immigration. The argument though isn’t actually about immigration at all, is it, but the actual numbers of people these crowded islands should have to accommodate. Every immigrant may bring some benefits, but they also bring responsibilities on the community already here, they need feeding, water, somewhere their sewage can go, education, policing, justice, transport, energy, space, housing, health care, benefits etc etc. How well is the UK doing with any of these issues?
I would also note that GDP per capita in the UK is exactly the same today as it was in 2006. Poor productivity growth, poor economic planning, neoliberal laissez faire, allied to persistent population increase due to immigration, and we (well, you, but actually it’s exactly the same here) are running faster to stay in exactly the same place. An examination of the true place of high rates of immigration and the reason for it is long overdue and it is not racist or extreme right wing to say so. Successfully stifling debate and insulting sections of the population or patronising them on the matter is not helpful and is one of the causes of the riots a few months ago. . So we say we have an immigration policy? Do we really, if we do, it’s obviously failing. What about having a population policy? What is wrong saying, actually the UK is full, we don’t need more people and we need to manage with the number we’ve already got?
John
The already stretched NHS and social care services would be overwhelmed if there had been no immigration/increase in population since 1986 for a start.
Yes I agree we need to train up many more people in this country to undertake these roles. The blame for why this has not happened is primarily on the authors of austerity with lack of investment in training and low wages.
This is primarily a site for Scottish politics/culture and as you have alluded to the situation with regard to population density and needs are markedly different in Scotland yet immigration policy is retained by Westminster.
I don’t disagree with Yvette Cooper’s speech as much as author but the framing of this argument and beyond by politicians is important when you consider the far right bad faith actors hoping to exploit this issue for their own advantage.
Most academic studies in this country show that economically immigration is beneficial to the the UK. The problem in housing, schools etc tends to arise where there are localised high concentrations of immigrants which is primarily an issue of planning. How many asylum seekers are relocated to the leafy suburbs of Surrey?
Lastly, having lived in Queensland, (and been an immigrant) when I was there immigration was being touted as a requirement both statewide and nationally if economy was to grow. I always found the Aussies who complained about immigrants were also the ones who despised Aboriginal people – their lack of self awareness was staggering!
First, I explained that having immigrants for health care etc, might well be needed – I admitted this. But this is a short term fix that’s instead become a permanent way of thinking. Every medical, care, nursing immigrant is a sign of a failure in our own society that we are no longer capable of providing for our own needs by planning for the education and training of a sufficient work force. It wasn’t so many years ago the that Scotland had a good export industry in medical practitioners. I am 77 years old, the first of the grey tsunami that is apparently going to overwhelm the British and other populations with their needs in old age. The cohort I belong to, the so-called baby boomer, finished being conceived in the mid 60s. In other words, the UK has had fifty years notice of this cohort moving to old age, and having in place the policies and actions needed to manage it. That the UK along with most other western countries finds fifty years notice still insufficient to cope is a massive failure of politics, our system and our society. And as I added, don’t these qualified people come from societies that might equally value their expertise and need to make use of them?
I also briefly acknowledged Scotland’s slightly different perspective, still, it seems strange that a country of five million people with five large medical schools, three of them of great historical importance, should still be short of qualified practitioners. Equally nursing, I believe there are 15 institutions offering nurse training in your country, with fifty years notice as to need, why should there be any issue with nursing numbers? As to carers, perhaps more Scots would take on such work if their skills were noted and adequately rewarded. The lack of people needed to keep the Scottish social system going or its industry manned is an indictment of politics and the laissez fair economic system we’ve (you’ve) had with neoliberalism and Thatcher’s dismantling of productive industry, as you yourself have also noted.
Please don’t misunderstand me in other aspects, anti-immigration and racism are too often two cheeks of the same backside, as George Galloway is wont to say. And in that I don’t know where Yvette stands, where of course we certainly know where her predecessors stood. I was in the UK and Scotland last year, in my three months here I marched in one of the Gazan protest marches along with 300,000 others in London, and also walked quite alone on the Island of Colonsay to enjoy Scotland’s beauty and uniqueness. I was not impressed to be told by Braverman that I was myself some sort of terrorist and took my frustration out by enjoying some solitude on Colonsay. .
Finally, it’s really important to separate people arriving in the UK illegally or legally as asylum seekers, and those vastly greater numbers coming to reside in the UK under usual immigration policies. This latter I believe is the main problem, and I don’t care where they come from, they are still ultimately a drain on the finite resources of the land in which they live. 80% of Scotland’s land area is supposedly agricultural, but 92% of that is classified as “Less Favoured Area”, in other words only suitable for extensive grazing by sheep and cattle. Much of this land is just waste land, badly managed for grouse shooting and deer shooting, a sort of temperate tundra denuded of all life, its trees, its shrubs, its flowers, its rivers, it birds, its animals, even its beauty. Much of this extensive poor grazing land is urgently in need of renewal, and land ownership issues have to be addressed. Just 8% of the land is rich enough for crops. Scotland has a great (wind) renewable energy resource, but even now wind supplies not fully a renewable capacity – this output will need to more than double to provide renewable energy for industrial and transport processes. Every extra person is an extra mouth to feed and an extra person to keep warm and house. The idea that economic growth and population growth are necessary for a functioning and healthy economy might have worked in Adam Smith’s time, but the population of this planet has already exceeded its carrying capacity several fold. Scotland might seem a bit underpopulated in contrast, but that’s an illusion. Scotland’s people will benefit from a wiser use of the resources, human and material, it already has, not by importing the same resources from elsewhere, and forgetting the wisdom. .
I pointed out the fact that the UK’s GDP per capita hasn’t budged in eighteen years, despite the population increase of 7 million. The mantra from economists, and whoever takes what an economist says at face value, this result for the UK seems to show the lie of this opinion. Immigration may or may not be a benefit, almost certainly it’s other factors that play a role, but to so confidently repeat the mantra “immigration has been shown to be a benefit” I’d strongly challenge.
I’d also point out that during the flowering of the Scottish enlightenment its population was around 1.5 million – a small population is not an inhibitor of change, sense, logic, literature, art, thinking, advancement, science etc. If a population of Scotland around 5.3 million can’t achieve these things, it is not the size of the population that’s the issue, it’s the sense and skill that runs it.
But thanks for your contribution, John
Further comment, here’s the URL of an article about the tidal power project in the Pentland Firth
https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/projects/meygen-tidal-power-project/?cf-view
Ultimately it may generate 350mW of electricity on an intermittent but predictable basis. It could power up to 180,000 home, we’re told, though I actually doubt it will power that many. At three occupants per household,, that’s 540,000 people. Twenty years immigration of a modest 25,000 people will use all that energy, and you’re back to square one, and that Pentland resource has been used up and you have to find another one. Actually of course, it’s more than that, as every person doesn’t just use power in the house, they use it in their transport, at their work and industry. So you could probably reliably state that very expensive extra power would be entirely used up within ten years with immigration just at 25,000 people. We are past the point where the planet can easily be plundered to provide for our needs and we have to accept this fact or suffer existential consequences. Cheers. John
John
Many thanks for your considered reply.
I agree that the continual chase for growth without equal consideration for the climate and natural world is ultimately self defeating. Growth that doesn’t reduce inequality, not only within this country, but across globe is IMO dangerous to all our longer term futures.
There is no doubt that western nations and Scotland, in particular, have a real demographic challenge. In Scotland’s case this has been exacerbated by generations of younger people leaving the country due to poverty and lack of opportunity. (This is one reason why I personally now support independence as I think it is the only long term way to redress this trend.)
Immigration can help redress this demographic imbalance in short term but is not a sustainable long term solution- not least because we are usually taking people from countries poorer than ourselves who then suffer from losing their own young people.
You are correct to highlight the difference between legal immigration and asylum seekers /illegal immigrants. The longer term solution to reducing legal immigration is a fairer world where people do not need to go and work out with their own country due to their diminished economic circumstances. The key to reducing asylum seekers is both to reduce global economic disparity and global conflict. Climate change will inevitably be an increasing driver to immigration in the future and I see no imminent solutions to this conundrum.
Lasting I would add that people have always been interested in working and living in other countries to experience different lifestyles and cultures. Immigration.