8 minutes ago, geordief said:

With Britain's history of confronting fascism you would think it it would be burned into its DNA to not give racists an inch but that fight was forced upon us and there were Nazi sympathisers in the population before the Rubicon was crossed.

You're absolutely right, it is always there simmering below the surface in a certain percentage of the British population (and most, if not all other populations). I think that in general the psychological root cause is a sense of weakness, insecurity, inferiority even, that makes them relatively easy to face down when they stick their heads above the parapet. They're basisically cowards, and when called out, they go scurrying back under their safety stone at the bottom of the pond.

However, if society stops facing them down while they're isolated, they'll gain confidence, club together, and find strength in numbers, especially when powerful interest groups begin encouraging them and facilitating their activities with finance and infrastructure. Then they're difficult to stop. There is no reasoning with them, since they're driven by negative emotion, not reason. Ultimately, there's only one language they truly understand, and that comes from the pointy end of a bayonet. Not recommending that as a course of action at all, you understand. It's just what the history books tell me. And an afternoon in my youth spent deep in thought at Bergen-Belsen.

Edited Tuesday at 04:19 PM3 days by sethoflagos

6 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Only option available (2014-ish). I did research at the time and knew it was BS. Demanded to speak to the departmental consultant, mentioned my aunt after whom the hospital's flagship renal unit was named, and asked politely for my wife to be referred to an alternative specialist. Didn't see the old one for dust.

It is astonishing how weird and controlling some MDs can be when it comes to reproductive bits. Also the difference when the woman in question is white or not...

45 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

However, if society stops facing them down while they're isolated, they'll gain confidence, club together, and find strength in numbers, especially when powerful interest groups begin encouraging them and facilitating their activities with finance and infrastructure. Then they're difficult to stop. There is no reasoning with them, since they're driven by negative emotion, not reason. Ultimately, there's only one language they truly understand, and that comes from the pointy end of a bayonet. Not recommending that as a course of action at all, you understand. It's just what the history books tell me. And an afternoon in my youth spent deep in thought at Bergen-Belsen.

The saddest thing about that is that in Germany classes when to Auschwitz (Osvienčim) and other concentration camps to learn and reflect about the past. Now the racist AfD (also heavily supported by Musk, Vance and their ilk) are the strongest party according to polls. And I think the paths to radicalization are easier now, you do not even need Gleichschaltung (i.e. taking over media and means of information). Social media does the job for you. We can see that in this thread, where OP is happily playing to that tune.

16 hours ago, swansont said:

In the US we’ve actively been taking it to an even worse level - cutting aid for countries, making their living conditions even worse, while shutting down immigration.

Moreover, this is seen as a virtue, even if it costs the US economy (especially in farming).

22 hours ago, studiot said:

I don't recall any pertinent threads about feeding people, but the cost of food is bothering many folks here in the UK.

You want some evidence ?

Go to food bank and ask yourself why a society that is allegedly so rich need to feed much of its population that way ?

The thread I was thinking of was this one here https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/140534-taking-care-of-people/

There are some discussions regarding altruism and capitalism there. But bottom line is that fundamentally it is not necessarily a resource constraint issue by itself. And with regard to food banks, there are many answer to that, but I doubt that migration is one of them. Or at least I have not seen compelling evidence to that effect. In many countries cost of living has been rising, regardless of level of immigration, for example. Housing is one area where sudden shocks can increase prices to some degree, but on the macroscale the effects appear to be small. A report in the UK suggests that immigration accounts for roughly 4-6% of house price increases over the last three decades https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-and-housing-costs-what-does-international-evidence-imply-for-the-uk/migration-and-housing-costs-what-does-international-evidence-imply-for-the-uk-accessible

IOW, it is not a major driver, even as some rhetoric suggests otherwise.

The other side that needs to be explored are the benefits for the economy as @sethoflagos pointed out.

22 hours ago, studiot said:

And where will they find work ?
There are certainly not tens of thousands of jobs listed at the job centre nor tens of thousands of extra school places etc etc.

The UK unemployment rate seems to fairly low as a whole, with UK-born individuals having an unemployment rate of around 4.6%, which is comparable to 2005 numbers and down from the high of 8% in 2011. Among non-UK born, the rate is higher, at 7%, which is still lower than about 20 years ago with 8 and 9 % in 2004 and 2005. So at least with increasing immigration over the last two decades, in those terms the needle has not moved a lot. To me the real question is less about potential extrapolations or finding segments where there are issues. I would rather see a deeper analyses regarding the net cost (or benefit) of immigration to ground the discussion in tangibles, rather than perception.

In housing, for example there are pro and cons, pressure on housing was mentioned, though data shows only a modest effect on the high level. And there are discussions regarding whether immigration can actually help with supply by providing builders (though that discussion is also very simplistic). I think it overall goes back to my earlier argument that this discussion is heavily rooted in assumptions with usually very little comprehensive and holistic analyses. And I would argue that political movements trying to exploit those feelings really don't want these analyses to be done in the first place, as it is easier to just play narratives, rather than root them on facts and analyses.

3 hours ago, geordief said:

He could teach us a bit about slipping out of hostlile territories disguised as a container.

It's more widely known now that Trump is a container, and of what.

3 hours ago, geordief said:

We are still stuck with woman's clothing in a boat to France.

Is that referring to the old movie "Sea Devils"?

6 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Is that referring to the old movie "Sea Devils"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_MacDonald

(Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth -sure you won't get that!)

Edited Tuesday at 07:27 PM2 days by geordief

5 hours ago, geordief said:

(Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth -sure you won't get that!)

Well I do get that some of her claims as to why she helped BP Charlie might have been viewed as rather insincere or even duplicitous. And the unmelted butter expression is familiar to me, despite my geographic limitations. If there is some other layer of meaning or double entendre there, then I will simply wave the white flag.

53 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Well I do get that some of her claims as to why she helped BP Charlie might have been viewed as rather insincere or even duplicitous. And the unmelted butter expression is familiar to me, despite my geographic limitations. If there is some other layer of meaning or double entendre there, then I will simply wave the white flag.

"

54 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Well I do get that some of her claims as to why she helped BP Charlie might have been viewed as rather insincere or even duplicitous. And the unmelted butter expression is familiar to me, despite my geographic limitations. If there is some other layer of meaning or double entendre there, then I will simply wave the white flag.

I didn't expect the brand name "Flora" would be known in America.Apparently it is branded as"I can't believe it is not butter" over there.

I think its marketing of its supposed indistiguishability from butter goes back a long way over here-way before the internet ,so I can't find any of the old ads to post.

50 minutes ago, geordief said:

I didn't expect the brand name "Flora" would be known in America.Apparently it is branded as"I can't believe it is not butter" over there.

I think this clears up the confusion.

On 8/9/2026 at 1:29 PM, toucana said:

The population weren’t “replaced” by Normans in 1066, they were simply added to by a relatively small number of French speaking Normans who were fairly quickly assimilated into the population in exactly the same way that surviving Romans and Latin speakers were after the collapse of Roman dominion in Britain around 410 AD.

Well, what about the population of Egypt before the Arab conquest in 642 AD? Do you agree that these Egyptians were replaced by Arabs to significan extent, and now they are the minority called Copts? Would they appreciate this before 642 AD?

3 hours ago, Linkey said:

Well, what about the population of Egypt before the Arab conquest in 642 AD? Do you agree that these Egyptians were replaced by Arabs to significan extent, and now they are the minority called Copts? Would they appreciate this before 642 AD?

No more than the people of Ukraine appreciate invasion by the Russians, I imagine.

4 hours ago, Linkey said:

Do you agree that these Egyptians were replaced by Arabs to significan extent, and now they are the minority called Copts?

It's generally well recognized that one reason for the survival of the Coptic churches over the millenia is that their followers are both physically and genetically indistinguishable from the broader Egyptian population - both being descended from the same ancient Egyptians.

So you're lying again.

17 hours ago, CharonY said:

But bottom line is that fundamentally it is not necessarily a resource constraint issue by itself.

I do wish folks would consider the points I make, rather than ones I didn't make.

Nowhere have I said that migration is the answer to foodbanks.

Nor have I suggested that immigration causes house price increases.

But I definitely points to resource constraints in housing, food, jobs and other places.

I also said, several times that these problems are not caused by immigration, they are exacerbated by it, the underlying causes being a 'broken system'.

17 hours ago, CharonY said:

The UK unemployment rate seems to fairly low as a whole, with UK-born individuals having an unemployment rate of around 4.6%,

So what is the employment rate for say the under 25s in the UK ?

These are the future.

5 hours ago, Linkey said:

Well, what about the population of Egypt before the Arab conquest in 642 AD? Do you agree that these Egyptians were replaced by Arabs to significan extent, and now they are the minority called Copts? Would they appreciate this before 642 AD?

It is very difficult to take you seriously and provide a balanced response if you insist on introducing off topic material.

What does seventh century Egyptian history to do with present day British problems at home ?

8 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I think this clears up the confusion.

Ghee wiz.

2 hours ago, geordief said:

Ghee wiz.

Thanks to both you and @sethoflagos for... clarifying.

I hadn't heard of Flora plant butter - it sounds fairly awful. Though a marketing slogan just popped into my head, "All Flora, no Fauna."

The only plant butters I've liked usually involve a lot of coconut oil.

3 hours ago, studiot said:

But I definitely points to resource constraints in housing, food, jobs and other places.

From what I've followed of the issues in the US, immigrants seem to bring the solutions to some of their problems. For example, there is a labor shortage in construction and renovation, which immigrants help fix, so they actually help to bring housing supplies closer to parity. (Zoning laws and local politics and builder incentives remain problems) And immigrants provide cheap labor in agricultural industries, doing the hard work native born don't want to do, helping an affordable food supply.

Also, UK and USA fertility rates are both well below replacement (2.1), which means immigration prevents the extremes of the inverted population pyramid problem.

Edited Wednesday at 02:56 PM2 days by TheVat
Tag function didn't activate on first posting, site generally sluggish for a bit

5 hours ago, studiot said:

But I definitely points to resource constraints in housing, food, jobs and other places.

I also said, several times that these problems are not caused by immigration, they are exacerbated by it, the underlying causes being a 'broken system'.

And my point is that we need to quantify that. I mentioned the 4-6% from the housing report. My question then is (given the topic of the thread) does it warrant the seemingly outsized focus on immigration over other housing-related policies, for example?

Interesting perspective given by Phil Moorhouse today on the "A Different Bias" channel that links our discussion here with other recent topics on rapd technological change. Rather than just repost the video, I've filched the transcript so you can have a careful read (if you're so inclined.

So, Trump and Farage are always bellyachching about immigration along the "they took our jobs" line of populism. Why do people believe these frauds when they complain about immigration being the source of all our woes? Because people have been persuaded that immigration takes away jobs and resources. But there really is something taking jobs and resources. It's been likened to a sort of super immigration problem. Yet Farage and Trump don't raise the alarm on this threat. In fact, they both support it as well as the people behind it.

There's a job killer that neither Trump nor Farage want to attackas part of their populist agenda. You'll hear Nigel Farage call immigration an invasion and a scourge. You'll hear Donald Trump talk of mass deportations using the same rhetoric as each other, the same pictures, the same panicked tone. It's the classic populist playbook. Invent an enemy you can see. Whip up a panic, then sell yourself as the only one tough enough to fix it.

They paint this picture of an existential threat pouring over our borders, a threat to our jobs, our culture, our whole way of life. They need you to be scared. They need you to be angry. And most of all, they need you to be looking over there so you don't see what's happening somewhere else. But while they've got you staring at the horizon, the real job killer isn't crossing a border. And it's not so easy to produce scary looking images of it either. This is what they don't want you to talk about. A silent threat that's rewiring our economy and risks pushing our society to breaking point. A revolution powered by artificial intelligence. And it's happening inside massive windowless buildings that are popping up in quiet fields and suburbs all over the United States, appearing all over the UK. These data centers are the new factories of the 21st century. But their hunger for resources isn't like anything we've ever seen before. And whereas the factories in every technological revolution of the past needed workers to power it, giving rise to unions and grassroots political power, these news factories need hardly any human labor. And for the past couple of years, whenever a big company announces large layoffs, we've often heard the line "restructuring for the age of AI".

They sell it as this inevitable futuristic step. There hasn't yet been a catastrophic loss of jobs to AI yet, but we are seeing the beginnings. I'll link an interesting discussion in the description below, but at one point, the guest is explaining how legal firms are no longer hiring graduate lawyers. This is because AI can already do the job of an entry-level lawyer better than the graduate. And of course, it's cheaper and they can do it 24/7.

So they don't hire the junior lawyers, but they still need the senior lawyers, the experienced ones. AI can't do their jobs. Now some people think maybe it will be able to later, maybe not. We don't know. But this creates multiple problems. The first obviously is for the graduates, the first hit. They spent years training for a career in law and are now unable to get a job. That means they accumulated graduate debt for no reason and are now competing for jobs needing less qualifications. So it's not just the lawyers hit. It's everyone doing a job or wanting a job that those lawyers could also do. That creates a huge problem for unemployment in general, but particularly hits youth unemployment, which we have seen become a problem in the UK that the Labour government are now getting cold feet on their manifesto promise to equalize minimum wage levels across all age groups because right now that would just make the problem way worse. But that's just problem number one. If these law firms do not hire junior lawyers, their supply of senior lawyers gets cut off in the future as the current ones retire. If AI is never able to replace them, and there's no guarantee it will, the law industry is storing itself up a major problem for the future. It is going to eventually lose all of its advanced knowledge as senior lawyers are no longer mentoring junior lawyers into the senior lawyers of the future.

The point being made was that AI represents a form of immigration way beyond the immigration of people. The immigration of people, despite the rhetoric you'll see in the far right press, is controlled. How it's controlled depends on the government at the time, but it is controlled. Whereas the use of AI for jobs, isn't.

Law is just one industry where we're seeing this. Imagine this problem across multiple sectors of our economy. Young people suffering first, which remains a largely hidden problem because most of the news media don't really spend much time reporting on youth issues. But then it becomes a much bigger issue for everyone else. And it's an issue that is genuinely causing the same problems that people blame immigration for. It's actually taking jobs. It is putting more pressure on the sort of jobs AI can't do. You now have graduates competing for lower skill jobs, creating an extra pressure on getting jobs that people will doubtless blame on immigration because it's the usual cycle, isn't it? I can't get a job. Yeah, it's because of immigrants.

No, it's not. It's not immigration causing it. And it's certainly not going to be over the next few years. And AI data centers, they require huge amounts of power, which needn't be a problem if they're made to build their own renewable power sources on site. But while trillion dollar tech giants get massive tax breaks to build their facilities, the crazy cost of upgrading the nation's power grid to support them that gets passed on to everyone else because they're not being made to source their own power. Some have done so anyway, but a lot have not because we're not making them fund their own energy needs. So it all ends up on your monthly utility bill. You are literally subsidizing the electricity for the very AI that might take your job. But they're also consuming enough water to make some places in America run dry. May not be long before we're seeing the same in Britain where we already have many drought areas just due to the climate change which Trump and Farage also support. And who's paying for it all?

Well, we are. We all are. During previous industrial revolutions, there is upheaval. There are winners and losers, but the economy more generally won as human labour was always needed. It just sometimes needed to adapt. But this is an industrial revolution which doesn't make human labour more productive. It dispenses with it altogether. Or at least that's the plan.

How do we as both a domestic and an international community adapt?

For all the talk of the tech giant saying, "Oh, this is going to bring an era of abundance." Who for? It's hard to imagine the profits made by this boost in productivity being shared across the population via some form of UBI, but that is at least possible. In order to maintain a working social contract, major governments may well mandate a more equitable distribution of wealth.

After all, every revolution in history has been driven when the ruling classes abandoned the middle classes. Just as the rise of factories created unions and workers rights, maybe the rise of AI will lead to the concept of a basic income in some form. But I bet it won't be quick and there will be a lot of suffering on the road to it, just as there was in the establishment of labour movements before.

But the question was raised, what about poorer countries?

Their economies depend upon providing human labour for richer countries. What happens when they don't need it? Those countries can't just tax the corporations more because the corporations aren't on their doorstep. Are we going to have a global distribution of wealth? We can't even at the moment see the signs of a national distribution of wealth. And that brings us to the final question.

Why?

Why this whole magic trick?

Why do Farage and Trump attack the immigration of people which has brought huge economic benefits to both the USA and UK but they don't attack the rise of a technology which just to be clear, I'm not opposed to, can do many great things but nonetheless poses a threat in its current form where it is the tech giants the people who profit from it who decide what its rules are you know like all powerful technologies it can be used for good or evil and we kind of need governments to make sure we get the good without the harm. So why don't they lead this conversation? Well, the answer is simple. It's way easier to build a political movement on an us versus them story than it is to have an honest talk about the massive technological and economic shift that we are living through. It's easy to stand on a stage and promise to build a wall. It's hard to explain how to retrain millions of workers whose skills are becoming obsolete and create entirely new jobs to sit alongside this revolution.

It's easy to blame someone who looks a bit different. It's hard to confront a trillion dollar corporate donor who's getting rich off a system that genuinely strains your community's resources. The populist strategy isn't about solving problems. It's about redirecting anger. The fear of change is real. The economic insecurity is real. But the target they give you for that fear is a calculated diversion. I mean, what do you think?

Why are the CEOs of these tech giants selling us this utopian future of abundance whilst building doomsday bunkers for themselves? Should we not be concerned about the threat populists don't want to talk about?

Video:    • Ex-Google Insider WARNS: "You Are Not Prep...  

57 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Interesting perspective given by Phil Moorhouse today on the "A Different Bias" channel that links our discussion here with other recent topics on rapd technological change. Rather than just repost the video, I've filched the transcript so you can have a careful read (if you're so inclined.

Having read through the overhyped blathe

4 hours ago, TheVat said:

For example, there is a labor shortage in construction and renovation, which immigrants help fix, so they actually help to bring housing supplies closer to parity.

r from your Luddite friend, which is every bit the equal to that of Farage employing many of the same rhetorical tricks, I accept that over use of AI may well lead to the loss of some traditional jobs. Of course Trump and the American legal system have nothing to do with the topic, being non British. Only someone without knowledge of the British legal system would make the claims he has.

4 hours ago, TheVat said:

Also, UK and USA fertility rates are both well below replacement (2.1), which means immigration prevents the extremes of the inverted population pyramid problem.

Did you not read my comment about the lower birth rate being due to to later, fewer or even no babies by choice as a direct result of economic circumstance ?

4 hours ago, TheVat said:

From what I've followed of the issues in the US, immigrants seem to bring the solutions to some of their problems. For example, there is a labor shortage in construction and renovation, which immigrants help fix, so they actually help to bring housing supplies closer to parity.

This thread is about Britain. We do not have a construction crisis, although it would be far better if we stopped building rubbish structures that have to be pulled down prematurely.
Most of the great names in UK construction have gone to the wall or left the sector. What's left are a few foreign owned firms cutting corners left, right and centre and clamping down on workers so no one works for them unless they have to.

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

And my point is that we need to quantify that. I mentioned the 4-6% from the housing report. My question then is (given the topic of the thread) does it warrant the seemingly outsized focus on immigration over other housing-related policies, for example?

I keep saying that the UK is different from America and those differences are significant. @Phi for All keeps pointing out the practice of greed that allows a few to benefit at the expense of the many.

Sadly I have to observe that the British are the world's greatest experts in this practice.

25 minutes ago, studiot said:

Sadly I have to observe that the British are the world's greatest experts in this practice.

Is it any coincidence that the US is infected as well, being directly descended from the Brits?

29 minutes ago, studiot said:

Having read through the overhyped blather from your Luddite friend, which is every bit the equal to that of Farage employing many of the same rhetorical tricks

Ironic you should say that of another former mathematics teacher. I like Phil because his approach is methodical and scientific, he is NOT given to hyperbole, he fiercely defends the correct use of statistics, he researches quite thoroughly, and above all I find him honest and truthful. You probably won't agree with that last virtue, but another thread has clearly established that we have a very different understanding of what that word actually means.

38 minutes ago, studiot said:

Trump and the American legal system have nothing to do with the topic, being non British.

39 minutes ago, studiot said:

We do not have a construction crisis

We living on the same planet?

27 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

Is it any coincidence that the US is infected as well, being directly descended from the Brits?

Well spotted.

But we have been at the game centuries longer.

2 hours ago, studiot said:

I keep saying that the UK is different from America and those differences are significant.

Not sure I follow, the values provided are from the UK housing report. But perhaps there is a misunderstanding along the thread somewhere.

2 hours ago, studiot said:

This thread is about Britain. We do not have a construction crisis, although it would be far better if we stopped building rubbish structures that have to be pulled down prematurely.
Most of the great names in UK construction have gone to the wall or left the sector. What's left are a few foreign owned firms cutting corners left, right and centre and clamping down on workers so no one works for them unless they have to.

The general consensus seems to be that UK is not reaching its targets in home outputs. As you mentioned, many builders went bust. Some articles suggest that material and labor costs (inflation) and regulatory changes are some of the leading causes. I have not seen actual data on immigration in that regard beyond similar arguments made in sethoflagos' post that tighter immigration rules could increase labor cost, further impacting budgets. There was an old pre-Brexit CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building) report which, among other things, predicted what could happen as a consequence of immigration restriction https://www.ciob.org/media/64/download

These include among others:

• reduced labour mobility across EU leading to higher wage volatility

• restricted access to skilled staff (focus on EU)

• reduced housing deliver

A big issue is specifically loss of the EU worker pool, as they are highly mobile and provided a flexible pool of talent that were lost post-Brexit. Some of the immigration rules also made it harder to recruit builders, as they did not fall under the skilled labor segment. Whether the situation constitutes a building crisis or not remains debatable, but I think it is complicated, made worse post-Brexit.

On 8/8/2026 at 5:19 AM, Linkey said:

https://spectator.com/article/britain-is-facing-huge-demographic-change/

  https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1twt9zv/matt_goodwin_new_uk_school_data_out_today_of/

 https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1l5l9g1/white_british_children_are_now_minority_in_one_in/

 

 

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1u5s505/white_people_blocked_from_jobseeker_schemes/

 

 

Do the Britons have any possibility to vote for politicians who at least talk about this?

On 8/8/2026 at 5:19 AM, Linkey said:

https://spectator.com/article/britain-is-facing-huge-demographic-change/

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1twt9zv/matt_goodwin_new_uk_school_data_out_today_of/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1l5l9g1/white_british_children_are_now_minority_in_one_in/

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1u5s505/white_people_blocked_from_jobseeker_schemes/

 

Do the Britons have any possibility to vote for politicians who at least talk about this?

Perhaps with the "white_people_blocked_from_jobseeker_schemes"

We should perhaps look at the context, who are these jobs schemes aimed at, what location are they in, who are the employers, what are their client / customer bases.

What other schemes are available, that white people CAN attend.

Also, I find with these stats reporting there is a rather inconsistent use of percentages, and fractions so you may have 50 percent of x and in the same article cite 2/3s of y, within the same report, hardly easy to make a comparison. People reporting seem to pick and choose what they want.

Paul

On 8/8/2026 at 5:19 AM, Linkey said:

https://spectator.com/article/britain-is-facing-huge-demographic-change/

 

 

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1twt9zv/matt_goodwin_new_uk_school_data_out_today_of/

 

 

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1l5l9g1/white_british_children_are_now_minority_in_one_in/

 

 

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1u5s505/white_people_blocked_from_jobseeker_schemes/

 

 

Do the Britons have any possibility to vote for politicians who at least talk about this?

If they are a minority in 1 in 4 schools, then surely they are not a minority in 3 in 4 schools.

Paul

1 hour ago, paulsutton said:

If they are a minority in 1 in 4 schools, then surely they are not a minority in 3 in 4 schools.

I particularly like that catch. +1

13 hours ago, CharonY said:

Not sure I follow, the values provided are from the UK housing report. But perhaps there is a misunderstanding along the thread somewhere.

The general consensus seems to be that UK is not reaching its targets in home outputs. As you mentioned, many builders went bust. Some articles suggest that material and labor costs (inflation) and regulatory changes are some of the leading causes. I have not seen actual data on immigration in that regard beyond similar arguments made in sethoflagos' post that tighter immigration rules could increase labor cost, further impacting budgets. There was an old pre-Brexit CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building) report which, among other things, predicted what could happen as a consequence of immigration restriction https://www.ciob.org/media/64/download

These include among others:

• reduced labour mobility across EU leading to higher wage volatility

• restricted access to skilled staff (focus on EU)

• reduced housing deliver

A big issue is specifically loss of the EU worker pool, as they are highly mobile and provided a flexible pool of talent that were lost post-Brexit. Some of the immigration rules also made it harder to recruit builders, as they did not fall under the skilled labor segment. Whether the situation constitutes a building crisis or not remains debatable, but I think it is complicated, made worse post-Brexit.

Here's a prime example of the sort of shenanigans I am referring to.

£3.4 billion rise quoted.

BBC News

Water bills set to rise for many after firms permitted ex...

Ofwat has given provisional approval for 13 water companies to charge customers more to pay for investments.

Edited yesterday at 12:42 PM1 day by studiot

2 hours ago, studiot said:

Here's a prime example of the sort of shenanigans I am referring to.

£3.4 billion rise quoted.

BBC News

Water bills set to rise for many after firms permitted ex...

Ofwat has given provisional approval for 13 water companies to charge customers more to pay for investments.

Glad to see that, at least, we can both agree that privatisation of the water industry (another US inspired move) was an unmitigated disaster for the nation. Though I don't quite see how this connects to our discussion of UK immigration.

However, since we appear to be allowing the topic to slide into alternative areas, perhaps I can take this opportunity to reassure you that in addition to following Phil Moorhouses centre left oriented channel, I like to balance this with a daily look at the centre-right perspective of Professor Tim Wilson. Hidden amongst the deluge of coverage of today's Clacton election is this hilarious little gem.

Haha. A propos of the housing sidebar here, I do want to voice my support for the Clacton candidate who has promised to build one affordable house, Count Binface. I am not informed enough to weigh in on the nationalization (Brit. nationalisation) of Adele, but I trust Binface has given his positions careful thought, unlike some of his competitors.

39 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Glad to see that, at least, we can both agree that privatisation of the water industry (another US inspired move) was an unmitigated disaster for the nation. Though I don't quite see how this connects to our discussion of UK immigration.

However, since we appear to be allowing the topic to slide into alternative areas, perhaps I can take this opportunity to reassure you that in addition to following Phil Moorhouses centre left oriented channel, I like to balance this with a daily look at the centre-right perspective of Professor Tim Wilson. Hidden amongst the deluge of coverage of today's Clacton election is this hilarious little gem.

If you read the article you might have noticed that the money is going on - Data Centres - amongst other thins.

So we, the public are funding yet another soak the public scheme and we have a Prime Minister wringing his hands and crying crocodile tears, but doing nothing.

I have no interest in Reform, or any party as I do not support the party system. Underneath it is part of the overall problem. They are all "say-one-thing-whilst-doing-another" outfits. And everybody these days seems to have "sloping shoulders".

Edited yesterday at 04:01 PM1 day by studiot