The Politics Thread

[Sharpe's Fox]

Damn as soon as Alf gets his figures out I am done. Never seen a man so informed so fair play, you da real MVP. If I were you Webs I'd go bed because you about to get Alf'd.

[leicsmac]

6 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

Damn as soon as Alf gets his figures out I am done. Never seen a man so informed so fair play, you da real MVP. If I were you Webs I'd go bed because you about to get Alf'd.

Yeah. What I apply to space science and doomsday scenarios, Alf seems to bring out for the entire economic and political spectrum.

[Strokes]

1 hour ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Here's a map showing immigration by constituency: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11251624/Where-are-the-immigrants-This-map-will-tell-you.html

 

Areas with particularly high immigration include: London, Manchester, Leeds, Leicester. Oxford, Cambridge and Milton Keynes.

Areas with particularly low immigration include: Sunderland, Hartlepool, Nuneaton, Coalville. Clacton and S. Wales 

 

According to your theory of simple supply & demand and mass immigration, high-immigration places like London, Cambridge & Milton Keynes should have very low pay.

Meanwhile low-immigration places like Hartlepool, Coalville and Clacton should be high-wage boom towns. Is that the case? 

You could equally point to Liverpool, Bradford, Peterborough and Birmingham as areas of high immigration and low wages, high welfare bills. Also do we know what the wage growth figures are in the areas you are pointing too? I can't seem to find information on that.

[Webbo]

2 hours ago, Barky said:

The eurozone has better wage growth than us and most European countries have reasonable unemployment. Personally I couldn't care less about GDP or whatever you're referring to when you describe the eurozone as dire. It makes no difference to me, what matters to me is jobs and wage growth and our record on the latter is diabolical, and on the former debatable at best. We're not in poverty no, but not being in poverty is hardly something to celebrate in what is supppsed to be a rich developed country.

Greece has 26% unemployment, France's unemployment is twice ours. I don't know if wage growth includes the unemployed but I'd rather have a static wage and a job than be on the dole and be celebrating what others are earning. 

 

Btw I'm on a tablet atm so I can't link but googling the figures most eurozone countries have seen a dip in wages up to 2014.

[Webbo]

1 hour ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Here's a map showing immigration by constituency: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11251624/Where-are-the-immigrants-This-map-will-tell-you.html

 

Areas with particularly high immigration include: London, Manchester, Leeds, Leicester. Oxford, Cambridge and Milton Keynes.

Areas with particularly low immigration include: Sunderland, Hartlepool, Nuneaton, Coalville. Clacton and S. Wales 

£30k

According to your theory of simple supply & demand and mass immigration, high-immigration places like London, Cambridge & Milton Keynes should have very low pay.

Meanwhile low-immigration places like Hartlepool, Coalville and Clacton should be high-wage boom towns. Is that the case? 

I thought the wage figures were an average from around the country?

 

Ps it's low pay growth, not low pay.

[Alf Bentley]

9 hours ago, Strokes said:

You could equally point to Liverpool, Bradford, Peterborough and Birmingham as areas of high immigration and low wages, high welfare bills. Also do we know what the wage growth figures are in the areas you are pointing too? I can't seem to find information on that.

 

9 hours ago, Webbo said:

I thought the wage figures were an average from around the country?

 

Ps it's low pay growth, not low pay.

 

It's difficult to reach any accurate conclusions as I've only presented partial info (no figures for pay growth by area) and you haven't presented any data.

 

That's an odd mixture of places to quote, Strokes. As my Telegraph graphic shows, immigration to Liverpool is low compared to other big cities. Immigration to Liverpool was high 100 years ago, but then it was more prosperous then. In contrast, Peterborough does have high immigration, but is reasonably prosperous as I understand it (unless you have some low pay growth data?) - it's a Tory-voting city that has grown greatly over recent decades, partly from middle/high-earners commuting to London. You have a better point with Bradford and (parts of) Birmingham. But, in a way, they prove my point, too...

 

I'm not trying to suggest that high immigration correlates to high pay growth, just contesting Webbo's view that it is high immigration that has caused low pay growth. We have no statistical confirmation, but my guess is that pay growth in London, Milton Keynes and Cambridge is probably reasonable despite high immigration - and that pay growth in Hartlepool, Clacton and Coalville may not be particularly good despite low immigration. Prosperity and pay growth correlate to economic success/failure, investment and education, not to immigration.

 

I imagine that high-immigration Bradford and parts of Birmingham have low pay growth because the immigrants concerned are from poorer, less educated backgrounds than the immigrants in, say, Cambridge, and because those are deindustralised areas, not high-tech like Cambridge or big on finance like London. Likewise, Hartlepool and Coalville aren't struggling because of the racial make-up of the population (low immigration), but because they've lost their economic role with deindustrialisation, have struggled to replace it - and successive governments have largely left them to rot and live or die by the free market, rather than engaging in an active, modern industrial policy (as the Germans & Scandinavians do) and promoting vocational learning (apprenticeships etc).

 

Another interesting correlation: some of the places with the greatest antipathy to immigration, judging from support for UKIP/Brexit, have very low immigration but are struggling economically: Hartlepool, Clacton, Coalville. Some of the places with highest immigration are prospering (not all, as you correctly point out, Strokes) - and are much less bothered about immigration: London, Cambridge etc. It is also true that prosperous places with low immigration are less bothered about immigration (most of the very white Surrey/W.Kent/Bucks/Berks commuter belt voted Remain in the referendum and have low support for UKIP.

 

p.s. I only quoted local immigration figures, Webbo, because you claimed that mass immigration was the cause of low pay growth. If you were right, you'd expect high-immigration areas to have low pay growth. Any evidence of this? Proper research has shown some limited impact on pay for the unskilled, but not at any other level - and I do still wonder how many locals would be prepared to pick spuds outside Boston/Skegness, even if the pay was slightly higher.

[davieG]

I used to grow some spud but not anymore as I couldn't be arsed to dig them up when I could pick them up with my other shopping. 

[Alf Bentley]

23 minutes ago, davieG said:

I used to grow some spud but not anymore as I couldn't be arsed to dig them up when I could pick them up with my other shopping. 

 

That's the trouble with the older generation - no work ethic! 

 

Spud-picker was one of my occupations during my misspent youth - one of the tougher ones, too. It's hell on your back, all the bending up, down & sideways while pulling/carrying a heavy sack.

Shan't be resurrecting my career!

[davieG]

10 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

That's the trouble with the older generation - no work ethic! 

 

Spud-picker was one of my occupations during my misspent youth - one of the tougher ones, too. It's hell on your back, all the bending up, down & sideways while pulling/carrying a heavy sack.

Shan't be resurrecting my career!

I did my share of that sort of stuff between the ages of 6-16, my childhood certainly wasn't misspent according to many, I gained the know how but lost the incentive.

[Alf Bentley]

2 minutes ago, davieG said:

I did my share of that sort of stuff between the ages of 6-16, my childhood certainly wasn't misspent according to many, I gained the know how but lost the incentive.

 

From age 6? I know you mentioned a children's home, but that sounds Dickensian.

 

All downhill from age 16, eh? A sad and early decline. 

[davieG]

8 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

From age 6? I know you mentioned a children's home, but that sounds Dickensian.

 

All downhill from age 16, eh? A sad and early decline. 

It was, up at 6 in work clothes do allocated jobs, get washed and ready for school, porridge made with water sprinkled with salt, ( every monday morning a glass of epsom salts), then a march to school in pairs in line so we all arrived together and people could see where we were from.

After school, homework, work clothes more jobs, ready for bed,queue up to have underpants reviewed to check for skid marks, oh they were happy days under the CofE's care.

 

Oh I can look back on it and smile now with no real bitterness other than much less regard for religion and it's hypocrisy.

[Alf Bentley]

2 minutes ago, davieG said:

It was, up at 6 in work clothes do allocated jobs, get washed and ready for school, porridge made with water sprinkled with salt, ( every monday morning a glass of epsom salts), then a march to school in pairs in line so we all arrived together and people could see where we were from.

After school, homework, work clothes more jobs, ready for bed,queue up to have underpants reviewed to check for skid marks, oh they were happy days under the CofE's care.

 

Sounds tough. I often reckon that kids these days could do with a bit more discipline and work ethic (an opinion that I share with my daughter...much to her appreciation!). Your experience sounds like the other extreme.

I'm hearing the Sex Pistols: "No fun! No fun! No-o-o-o fun!"

 

You ought to write your memoirs, if you haven't already done so - I'm sure you have a more interesting tale to tell than most people.

[Webbo]

If you're an immigrant to country you're going to go to the places with the best chance of getting a job so it's not surprising that they would go to the more prosperous areas.

 

It's obvious, especially in low skilled jobs, that employers wouldn't pay more than necessary when there's no shortage of Labour. Why would you? It puts you at a disadvantage to your competitors and lowers profit. 

[Alf Bentley]

9 minutes ago, Webbo said:

If you're an immigrant to country you're going to go to the places with the best chance of getting a job so it's not surprising that they would go to the more prosperous areas.

 

It's obvious, especially in low skilled jobs, that employers wouldn't pay more than necessary when there's no shortage of Labour. Why would you? It puts you at a disadvantage to your competitors and lowers profit. 

 

Your first point's obviously true to some extent - though some immigrants go to join their families or ethnic communities in areas that may not be the most prosperous.

 

But you claimed that mass immigration caused low pay growth, so presumably pay growth in these prosperous, high-immigration areas is now particularly low, is it?

Pay growth in high-immigration London, Manchester, Cambridge, Oxford and Milton Keynes is presumably lower than it is in low-immigration Hartlepool, Clacton, Sunderland or Coalville?

Care to present any evidence for that theory?

 

Your second point is also true for many employers, particularly with unskilled labour. Cheap immigrant labour can be a factor in this race to the bottom.....but so can high unemployment, job insecurity, weak trade unions and Thatcherite deregulation of employment rights. Unemployment might not be a massive issue just now, but under-employment and job insecurity are, likewise deregulation and weak unions. I bet you don't mind so much about those factors, eh?  

[Webbo]

3 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Your first point's obviously true to some extent - though some immigrants go to join their families or ethnic communities in areas that may not be the most prosperous.

 

But you claimed that mass immigration caused low pay growth, so presumably pay growth in these prosperous, high-immigration areas is now particularly low, is it?

Pay growth in high-immigration London, Manchester, Cambridge, Oxford and Milton Keynes is presumably lower than it is in low-immigration Hartlepool, Clacton, Sunderland or Coalville?

Care to present any evidence for that theory?

 

Your second point is also true for many employers, particularly with unskilled labour. Cheap immigrant labour can be a factor in this race to the bottom.....but so can high unemployment, job insecurity, weak trade unions and Thatcherite deregulation of employment rights. Unemployment might not be a massive issue just now, but under-employment and job insecurity are, likewise deregulation and weak unions. I bet you don't mind so much about those factors, eh?  

I don't know about regional differences but I don't see why pay growth would be faster in places like London or Manchester, there are plenty of deprived areas in these big cities.

 

Second point,low wage growth ,I believe is a consequence of high immigration, that's not the immigrant's fault they want to better themselves and who can blame them? And it's not business's fault, they exist to make money. The market sets the rates. It has been good for the wider economy but on an individual level, if your wages have barely increased in 10 years it hasn't benefited you.

 

I think globalisation is a good thing but it's too soon for freedom of movement to work. Mass immigration to wealthy countries stagnates wages and causes resentment, the countries that donate these people lose their best and brightest young people leaving behind the elderly and the not so motivated.

 

When incomes and welfare standards are more aligned  in the future, when it's in the tens of thousands a year, when it's just as attractive for someone from here to move to Eastern Europe for instance. Then we can have open borders. Until then it needs to be controlled.

[The Guvnor]

5 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

That's the trouble with the older generation - no work ethic! 

 

Spud-picker was one of my occupations during my misspent youth - one of the tougher ones, too. It's hell on your back, all the bending up, down & sideways while pulling/carrying a heavy sack.

Shan't be resurrecting my career!

 

Did you Spud pick near Market Harborough? were you the fecker that kept moving the wooden marker post so your area to pick was smaller and mine bigger?

[Barky]

6 hours ago, Webbo said:

I don't know about regional differences but I don't see why pay growth would be faster in places like London or Manchester, there are plenty of deprived areas in these big cities.

 

Second point,low wage growth ,I believe is a consequence of high immigration, that's not the immigrant's fault they want to better themselves and who can blame them? And it's not business's fault, they exist to make money. The market sets the rates. It has been good for the wider economy but on an individual level, if your wages have barely increased in 10 years it hasn't benefited you.

 

I think globalisation is a good thing but it's too soon for freedom of movement to work. Mass immigration to wealthy countries stagnates wages and causes resentment, the countries that donate these people lose their best and brightest young people leaving behind the elderly and the not so motivated.

 

When incomes and welfare standards are more aligned  in the future, when it's in the tens of thousands a year, when it's just as attractive for someone from here to move to Eastern Europe for instance. Then we can have open borders. Until then it needs to be controlled.

If the number of jobs available was static and the working population increased then it makes sense that wages would stagnate or decrease, but there's plenty of logical reason to believe that immigrants and the additional demand they create for goods and services will also increase the number of jobs, and evidence to back that up as well: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-immigration-immigrants-jobs-brexit-remain-what-happens-unemployment-a7091566.html

 

The extent to which immigrants affect supply and demand of workers is a difficult thing to establish and I don't have the answers, but clearly it's not as simple as just saying that immigration always lowers wages. Very high skilled/high wage immigrants for example surely create more than the one job they take and in doing so have a net positive impact on demand and therefore wages.

 

I think what we've seen in this country is a high amount - probably too much - immigration of people in a particular skill/wage bracket, and that has negatively affected wages in that bracket, but it doesn't account for general stagnation across all but the very highest wage brackets. If anything, high unskilled immigration should raise the demand for skilled jobs without affecting supply and therefore raise the wages of skilled jobs, but that hasn't happened as wages for all but the highest paid jobs have been stagnant or lowered.

[Alf Bentley]

4 hours ago, The Guvnor said:

 

Did you Spud pick near Market Harborough? were you the fecker that kept moving the wooden marker post so your area to pick was smaller and mine bigger?

 

Not guilty! My spud-picking days were in Norfolk and Kent.

 

I had the opposite mystery to you. In Norfolk, we were paid piece-rate and some blokes near us always earned twice as much as us despite each being allocated the same number of rows at random.

They were pulling some sort of scam but I never worked out what it was. Foreman (their mate) giving them rows with more spuds in? Putting stones in their sacks to weigh them down? Mystery...

[lgfualol]

Did Theresa May put BoJo the clown as foreign secretary to ruin his career or something. Seems like he is making everyone think the UK is a joke.

[bovril]

3 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Not guilty! My spud-picking days were in Norfolk and Kent.

 

I had the opposite mystery to you. In Norfolk, we were paid piece-rate and some blokes near us always earned twice as much as us despite each being allocated the same number of rows at random.

Probably the husband / brother of the foreman's cousin's niece / sister.

[foxy boxing]

Corbyn's tribute to Castro didn't say anything about the thousands of people that he locked up and killed and that he was just a dictator to the Cuban people who refused to hold free and fair elections. just that he was a good communist like Corbyn is?

[Darkon84]

Ade Edmondson elected as UKIP leader with over 60% of the vote.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38125432

[foxy boxing]

52 minutes ago, Darkon84 said:

Ade Edmondson elected as UKIP leader with over 60% of the vote.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38125432

another nutjob then?

[bovril]

18 minutes ago, foxy boxing said:

another nutjob then?

Angry responses incoming.... 

[foxy boxing]

1 hour ago, Darkon84 said:

Ade Edmondson elected as UKIP leader with over 60% of the vote.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38125432

he literally has nut in his name