Could you please explain how people who voted to remain in the EU are equally at fault as people who voted to leave for the mess that leaving the EU has caused?
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I havenât heard anything about 480 people arriving earlier, but I understand that two sites did turn them down, on the basis that they didnât have the capacity to land the craft they were in, but I think this highlights the fact that so much of the narrative around issue like this is fuelled by rumour and gossip. There is no official statement on these landings, and if there was it would be instantly disbelieved.
People are now at the point where we not only do they use social media and other unreliable sources as primary news sources, we actually prefer it that way. We want our news to agree with us more than we want it to tell us the truth.
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I donât think this is a new thing. Hotels had been used for emergency accommodation for quite a while for homeless people, particularly homeless families. As an emergency thing that is a legitimate thing to do as you donât want people on the streets. But it was intended to house people for a few days until suitable accommodation was found. There were families who ended up stuck in them for months.
When they ran short of places at asylum centres they chose to do the same thing: house them long term in hotels.
I suspect that a lot of people, when hearing âhotelâ think of the Hilton with room service and a bell-boy. But these âhotelsâ are usually run down, sub-labourer accommodation. Many of them appear to have been previously condemned. Once those were used, they started targeting cheap hotels, usually in poorer neighbourhoods. Often these were actually used by the community: weddings and receptions, often a bar or other facilities that local people could use. Suddenly, these facilities were turned into an internment camp. I can really understand why people were pissed off with that. Particularly, as they were not consulted or even warned about it.
What I think it comes back to is an age old policy of using âsink estatesâ: putting all the âproblemâ families and other undesirables into the same deprived areas and failing to spend on any facilities. It doesnât help anyone: partly because they become poverty traps with high unemployment, and party because having to live in such a shithole will cause peopleâs mental health to go down the drain.
As for the perception that asylum seekers getting more attention, I think itâs worse than that. Neither the AS or the local people get any help at all.
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Yes, itâs a real mess however over here we donât use the UK situation to excuse it.
Thereâs a lot of kicking the can down the road here quite often the initial reporting and analysis is quite fair then as time goes by excuses and different factors are allowed to creep in to align with certain political positions.
Itâs difficult in the present political landscape here to do much. Agreeing a budget is nigh on impossible for example.
Macronâs financial management with his over optimistic growth forecasts are a major factor however itâs been an on going increasing problem for a long time.
Pointing to other countries isnât going to make this go away. You have to face up to it. Deflecting to France, particularly without understanding the political decisions that compounded it isnât going to help the UK.
The UKs problem is down to previous political decisions made in the UK. They are very different to those made in France imo. So analyse why it happened in the UK and find solutions to for the UK.
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I really donât see how Remain voters or âthe other sideâ are somehow partly responsible - was there a better deal that was voted down by Remain sentiment? The mainstream political parties have generally adhered to the idea that the vote decided something. I am not sure that any embittered sentiment on the part of a Remain voter assigns them any responsibility, any more than being embittered by the resulting deal removes responsibility from a Leave voter. Did someone fail to âget on with itâ in some way other than expressing anger at an outcome they did not choose?
As for the media, racists, and old people - well, we know that the press skewed Leave, largely due to ownership. We know that organized racists did in fact overwhelmingly support Leave (not to say all Leave was racist), and we also know that demographically, older people skewed to Leave - the cohorts 45-54 and older were majority Leave, all of the younger ones were majority Remain, with the 65+ being the strongest majority for Leave. Is that why all Leave voters voted that way? Unlikely? Could Leave have won without them? Absolutely not.
Why did so many people choose to enter the unknown? I suspect you would be better placed to explain your own vote than I am.
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Local tourist tax. More tax. How very Labour. Letâs wait until tourism is down and say I told you so.
How is it levied?
What is it applied to?
âAndy Burnham handed local leaders the power to levy unlimited tourist taxes.
The Government announced on Wednesday that English mayors will be able to impose uncapped âovernight visitor leviesâ on hotels, holiday lets and bed and breakfasts. â
Tourist taxes are pretty common. It just depends on what they are used for. Generally speaking, anyone that is put off by âŹ3 per night isnât going to be splashing their cash in the city.
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Similar is in operation in France. It doesnât have an influence on tourist affluence.
Itâs very lucrative for touristic regions. The more and better the accommodation the greater the benefits for the local authority.
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I have no idea why a local levy would be best decided by a national government. Doesnât this allow local authorities to compete?
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Itâs part of a shift towards decentralising power to the local/ regional level which the central government is trying to deliver. The idea with this and another plan to allow local areas to recieve a % of the income tax revenue raised within their area is to provide areas with some visibility over their income streams and allow them to plan and properly invest in local services (I think the majority of local authority funding is delivered peacemeal from central government and tied to specific work).
However, a few months back Ben Houchen (conservative), Mayor for Tyne Tees said that he would be using such funding to give tax cuts rather than invest in local services.
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This is genuinely the most shocking thing Iâve ever read on here. Dehumanising others is the first step on the road to authoritarianism. Being a migrant does not rob someone of their status as a human being, and the moment that you suggest it does, you open the door for ideas like letting them drown at sea, torpedoing their boats and other forms of extra judicial murder.
Our democracies are built on habeas corpus, the right to a fair trial and everyone being innocent until proved guilty. These ideas arose from centuries of struggle against tyrannical kings and lords who could kill and enslave peasants with impunity. They are vital safeguards for all of us, and once you lose them, we are all potential victims.
Apart from that, itâs simply repugnant to describe any other person as less than human.
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It looks like Farage has been receiving money from dubious sources again:
This Delo character is a piece of work. He was convicted in the US for failing to prevent money laundering (pardoned later by Trump, naturally) and has donated towards various âanti-wokeâ causes.
Supposedly, he is a free speech absolutist, but he uses lawfare against those who criticise neo-Nazis:
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i just see Nigel the now,
counting the cash,
tenner to Reform,
twenty to my ahem âsecurity costsââŚ
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All these foreign based Billionaires wanting nothing more than to ensure that to help the people of Britain. It warms the heart.
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Are our mob wearing them today, back to front?
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