EU Referendum

[signature]

oh yes, be my guest... if only there were away to sort them from the convicted criminals, zealots and scroungers??....mmm..oh we can't because anyone can come in.

One question for you, do you have immigrants as friends or neighbours and if you do, how many are criminals, zealots and scroungers??

 

[websaway]

Watched it on +1 interesting debate especially when it finally moved away from immigration. I wish leave would focus more sovereignty than scaremongering about all the woes of the country being down to migrants. It would certainly make it easier for me to get behind the argument

I wonder which bit of a population the size of Newcastle every year do some people not seem to comprehend.

 

[martin-s]

Lets take the NHS as its an area I have a little experience having been training in it for the last 8 months. Biggest strains on the NHS Are 1 greater life expectancy, 2 the savage cutbacks to social care on a local level

Here are some NHS statistics for you:

• The NHS deals with over 1 million patients every 36 hours.
• In 2014/15 there were 45 per cent more operations ('procedures and interventions' as defined by Hospital Episode Statistics, excluding diagnostic testing) completed by the NHS compared to 2004/05, with an increase from 6.848m to 9.920m.
• The total annual attendances at Accident & Emergency departments was 22.923m in 2015/16, 22 per cent higher than a decade earlier (18.759m).
• There were 15.892m total hospital admissions in 2014/15, 31 per cent more than a decade earlier (12.102m).
• The total number of outpatient attendances in 2014/15 was 85.632m, an increase of 4.4 per cent on the previous year (82.060m).
• There was an 18.5 per cent increase in emergency incidents between 2007/08 and 2012/13, reaching 6.89m in the latter year.

If you aren't willing to tie any of the increased workload to population increases, you are being delusional.

Source: http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/key-statistics-on-the-nhs

And here's a graph of the NHS budget. I couldn't find one without the forecast years, but I certainly doubt that there has been any funding decreases.

The thing is, I love the NHS. When my twins spent a month in SCBU, they were utterly superb. Every single person we met was the same. Yes there is room for improvement, we can still reduce waste at a management level for example.

But one of the big pressures is population increase. Fact.

 

[websaway]

And just for clarity do I think it would be a good thing to take back control of the borders YES.
It just pisses me of that some on the leave side are happy to malign and blame society's ills on people who for the most part hard working decent foke just looking to get on in life

The problem can actually be that they are too hard working. This for me is about the fact that an unknown amount and unknown people can simply walk into our country any time they like, that defies all logic for numerous reasons. I worry that intelligent politicians who will not openly recognise this problem for fear they will damage their remain argument. At least Eddy Izzard last night made his position quite clear, he isn't sitting on the fence. He wants a world where everyone becomes free to travel wherever they like. So, if a country does well ,all the needy in the world can simply descend on it, overwhelm it, and so destroy it with unsustainable pressure on schools, housing, jobs, and free health service. Not sure what Eddie does, I think he's a comedian. He should go to Syria he would make them laugh his head off.

 

[Edwin]

The problem can actually be that they are too hard working. This for me is about the fact that an unknown amount and unknown people can simply walk into our country any time they like, that defies all logic for numerous reasons. I worry that intelligent politicians who will not openly recognise this problem for fear they will damage their remain argument. At least Eddy Izzard last night made his position quite clear, he isn't sitting on the fence. He wants a world where everyone becomes free to travel wherever they like. So, if a country does well ,all the needy in the world can simply descend on it, overwhelm it, and so destroy it with unsustainable pressure on schools, housing, jobs, and free health service. Not sure what Eddie does, I think he's a comedian. He should go to Syria he would make them laugh his head off.

How? You will have to be a working "needy" person (your language, not mine - I don't like it particularly) in order to claim benefits. And if you're working, well statistically you're paying more in than you're taking back out of the system so you're part of the solution not the problem (every surplus £ is a £ that can be spent on schools or the NHS or any one of a thousand other things)

As for the notion that somebody should be kept out of the UK "because they're too hard working", well how daft does that really sound? It's a very modern disease to seek to "level down" to the lowest common denominator, rather than get the very best out of people.

 

[BREWSTERS]

Not sure what Eddie does, I think he's a comedian.

He used to be...stopped being funny seemingly overnight several years ago.

 

[Edwin]

Australia and Canada keep being mentioned quite a lot in the debates (more than you might expect given how far away they are).

The population of the UK grew 6.85% between 2004 and 2013, from 59.99 million to 64.1 million.
The population of Canada grew 9.88% between 2004 and 2013, from 32 million to 35.16 million.
The population of Australia grew 14.90% between 2004 and 2013, from 20.13 million to 23.13 million.

Population growth isn't something magic that's been invented for the UK. It's happening all over the place. And actually it's happening significantly less in the UK than in places that are held up as examples of how the UK might be if we Leave.

 

[websaway]

How? You will have to be a working "needy" person (your language, not mine - I don't like it particularly) in order to claim benefits. And if you're working, well statistically you're paying more in than you're taking back out of the system so you're part of the solution not the problem (every surplus £ is a £ that can be spent on schools or the NHS or any one of a thousand other things)

As for the notion that somebody should be kept out of the UK "because they're too hard working", well how daft does that really sound? It's a very modern disease to seek to "level down" to the lowest common denominator, rather than get the very best out of people.

How? You will have to be a working "needy" person (your language, not mine - I don't like it particularly) in order to claim benefits. And if you're working, well statistically you're paying more in than you're taking back out of the system so you're part of the solution not the problem (every surplus £ is a £ that can be spent on schools or the NHS or any one of a thousand other things)

As for the notion that somebody should be kept out of the UK "because they're too hard working", well how daft does that really sound? It's a very modern disease to seek to "level down" to the lowest common denominator, rather than get the very best out of people.

So your logic is that if 4,000,000 unskilled workers arrived in Engand tomorrow and worked for less than 4,000,000 of our unskilled workers get paid at the moment, and so put our 4,000,000 unskilled workers on the dole, the fact that the immigrants work and pay into the system negates concerns about uncontrolled immigration.

 

[websaway]

Australia and Canada keep being mentioned quite a lot in the debates (more than you might expect given how far away they are).

The population of the UK grew 6.85% between 2004 and 2013, from 59.99 million to 64.1 million.
The population of Canada grew 9.88% between 2004 and 2013, from 32 million to 35.16 million.
The population of Australia grew 14.90% between 2004 and 2013, from 20.13 million to 23.13 million.

Population growth isn't something magic that's been invented for the UK. It's happening all over the place. And actually it's happening significantly less in the UK than in places that are held up as examples of how the UK might be if we Leave.

Are you completely losing it. These countries control their immigration. The numbers are higher because they want them and they are who they want. Which bit of 300,000 people per year and maybe a million next year that have to be housed and schooled do you not understand. It's not about immigration it's about controlled immigration.

 

[Edwin]

One of the biggest factors putting a greater strain on the NHS is the aging population. For example, "bed blocking" by elderly patients (that hospitals are unable to discharge) has reached record levels.

This gets mentioned, but it gets mentioned a lot less than it should given the magnitude of the problem. And why's that? Because historically old people vote more than young people, so politicians of all stripes chase their vote.

Another massive factor is that successive governments have removed beds from hospitals at a quite astonishing rate (significantly more under the Tories than under Labour, but it happened under both parties) at a time when the population has continuously grown.

From https://fullfact.org/health/bed-blocking-what-it-and-it-paralysing-nhs/

But since a large part of the current fighting over the referendum is Tory-on-Tory, they're hardly going to highlight their own cutbacks as the source of the problem. And the other parties are holding back, because they're all on the Remain platform alongside(ish) Cameron.

 

[Edwin]

So your logic is that if 4,000,000 unskilled workers arrived in Engand tomorrow and worked for less than 4,000,000 of our unskilled workers get paid at the moment, and so put our 4,000,000 unskilled workers on the dole, the fact that the immigrants work and pay into the system negates concerns about uncontrolled immigration.

Over 2,000,000 more people were born during the timeframe I quoted than died during that time. I think they're still too young to take jobs away.

 

[Edwin]

Are you completely losing it. These countries control their immigration. The numbers are higher because they want them and they are who they want. Which bit of 300,000 people per year and maybe a million next year that have to be housed and schooled do you not understand. It's not about immigration it's about controlled immigration.

What makes you think that you speak for everyone in the UK when you say that immigration is out of control?

 

[Edwin]

That's the danger of simplifying the argument by blaming everything on immigration. Which is a point that people tried to make again and again in the debates as well.

Can some of the UK's ills be blamed on immigration some of the time? Yes.

Does it therefore follow that all of the UK's ills can be blamed on immigration all of the time? Absolutely NOT.

If the Leave camp were willing to acknowledge the reality of the above and nuance their argument, I think their other arguments might be more persuasive. But so long as they persist in the myth, the corrosive lie, that everything stems from (out of control) immigration they're not only impossible to take seriously, they're actively contributing to spreading their own brand of fear.

 

[BREWSTERS]

Blair and Major together - proof positive that virtually all politicians bow to the same master...especially the ones that get to lead parties. Look at Corbyn...been saying that Britain should leave the EU for decades...now wants to stay in. Might be the 30% reduction in Labour Party donations from certain donors that changed his mind perhaps?

 

[websaway]

We need immigration. Do we need immigration ? if we need immigration. Why do we need immigration ? when do we need immigration ? How many immigrants do we need ? why is the number that ? what kind of immigrants do we need, what kind of immigrants do we want ?
These are questions that need to be asked and agreed upon by the people who live in a country, it's called an immigration policy, if we don't like the policy we can vote our government out. The present Government was elected on it's promise that immigration would be below 100,000, It's sensible to project that immigration under the present system could be 10 times that . Where is the benefit of that to our country.

 

[denchomsky]

One question for you, do you have immigrants as friends or neighbours and if you do, how many are criminals, zealots and scroungers??

Actually my closest neighbours and a few other on the street are indian/Pakistani, and they are all very nice as far as I can tell.

I have absolutely no problem with controlled immigration from any part of the world, but I do have a problem with uncontrolled immigration.

 

[Edwin]

Blair and Major together - proof positive that virtually all politicians bow to the same master...especially the ones that get to lead parties. Look at Corbyn...been saying that Britain should leave the EU for decades...now wants to stay in. Might be the 30% reduction in Labour Party donations from certain donors that changed his mind perhaps?

It doesn't get mentioned often enough that MPs from across the political spectrum are in favour of staying by a ratio of over 3-to-1 (463 to 147), as are 17 out of 22 members of the cabinet.

But because the law requires the mainstream media (especially but not exclusively the BBC) to give equal amounts of coverage to both sides, it's easy to think that translates into an equal weight of support for both views.

 

[Edwin]

These are questions that need to be asked and agreed upon by the people who live in a country, it's called an immigration policy, if we don't like the policy we can vote our government out.

Bravo! You're spot on. But the way to do that is at the next General Election, not during the referendum which, no matter how emotive it may feel, is NOT simplistically a referendum on how the current lot in power are doing on one issue out of many, but far far more important and more long-term a decision than that, taking in a vast range of issues.

The correct solution is to Remain and then give the Tories a massive kicking at the next G.E. for failing to stick to their immigration manifesto promises. I would have thought that will be pretty easy (assuming Remain prevails) since there will be a lot of Leave-leaning voters ready to put the boot in, and UKIP won't have got their way and therefore won't have been rendered irrelevant.

Remember, regardless of how you vote in the referendum, it will either be Tories or other Tories in charge of the country for the next 4 years. The result of the vote on 23 June won't change that. Farage will go back to vote-dodging in the European parliament, the small handful of Leave politicians from non-Tory parties will slink quietly back to Westminster, and the Tories will continue to form the government.

 

[martin-s]

And if you're working, well statistically you're paying more in than you're taking back out of the system so you're part of the solution not the problem.

That's a bit naive Edwin - life isn't so simple. Apart from anything else, it is very difficult to maintain infrastructure in line with population growth when the rate of immigration is so high.

Building enough houses, having enough school places (even just temporary classrooms), employing enough doctors and having enough GP appointments, etc. We saw this first hand in the area we used to live in, where they were able to build the housing, but the population density increase wasn't supported by upscaling services.

What you're stating is the reason that managed immigration is a good thing, not uncontrolled immigration.

 

[martin-s]

Another massive factor is that successive governments have removed beds from hospitals at a quite astonishing rate.

The background story here is efficient use of resources. Many beds aren't needed for as long as they used to be. A keyhole operation today might not even require an overnight, whereas previous techniques would have meant a five day recovery period. Yes, talking from personal experience again - gallbladders

The NHS is also better at keeping fewer beds empty.

Not that I wouldn't advocate more beds, because it does become an issue at times.

There wouldn't be any point in increasing the numbers of staff as has happened, if there wasn't the capacity for them to do their jobs.