UK Politics Thread X: Immigration, Housing, Strikes oh my

[Ostroeuropa]

1:1 could be a temporary measure which reduces pressure on the housing market while the ratio is evaluated, but that it be capped relative to housing construction seems fine to me, the ratio can be debated.

As for your link, it points out that it doesn't actually 3D a house. Just the walls. Googling it, the price is 99k per house. Cheaper, but still substantial.

That's actually not much for a house relatively speaking.

In the numbers we're discussing it's fairly substantial. I fully agree with you we should adopt the method but it doesn't remove the empirical nature of the question which is "How many houses do you want to build, and how are you going to find the money?".

[Celritannia]

How many houses do you think should be built every year Celrit? Let's use Gallo's link at 99k per house.

99000 X 1.2 million?

Tell you what let's just go for the all time high of 450k.

44,550,000,000 pounds? You alright with that? Forty-four billion, five hundred fifty million?

Where do you imagine this being costed from.

Could we not, say, use that forty-four billion, five hundred fifty million pounds to... I don't know. Subsidize fruit pickets wages?

Taxes?

That's about half what the UK spends on education, roughly. Not to mention we can collect rents from those houses or sell them after the fact, so budget wise it would move things around, but might not actually be al oss.

This could be achieved with a land tax as well, which would force owners of run-down buildings and those with multiple homes to actually have their buildings in use or sell them.

[Ostroeuropa]

How many houses do you think should be built every year Celrit? Let's use Gallo's link at 99k per house.

99000 X 1.2 million?

Tell you what let's just go for the all time high of 450k.

44,550,000,000 pounds? You alright with that? Forty-four billion, five hundred fifty million?

Where do you imagine this being costed from.

Could we not, say, use that forty-four billion, five hundred fifty million pounds to... I don't know. Subsidize fruit pickets wages?

Taxes?

That's about half what the UK spends on education, roughly. Not to mention we can collect rents from those houses or sell them after the fact, so budget wise it would move things around, but might not actually be al oss.

Typically the affordability of the home is the issue there and the government will subsidize the price by not making much of a profit of it. If we want to break even or make it a profit venture, the homes will be unaffordable. If we instead go in for rent, I could see that working maybe, and at that point immigration doesn't cause as much of a problem. But right now, this system doesn't exist, and the immigration shouldn't either as a consequence.

It also underlies how the sheer cost of immigration to the treasury is not actually worth it. "About a third we spend on education.".

Okay so why spend it. What good do immigrants do for society exactly if they cost us so much tax money. The liberal project tends to adamantly suggest that they contribute more in tax returns than they cost, but that's only really the case because we're not paying for any of the things necessary to make immigration sustainable and functional. Once we start paying for them, the figures begin to rapidly shift and it becomes abundantly clear they are an economic burden and the proponents of it are supporting it as an end in itself despite it making everybody worse off.

As for "Taxes".

Gallo.

How many of the institutions currently insisting we definitely need immigration do you think would continue to insist that, if they had to actually pay more in taxes to make it functional?

There is no reality where immigration at this scale exists and isn't destructive to a society, because to make it non-destructive the same forces which are pushing the immigration would begin to adamantly oppose it. The closest is your suggestion of a rentier class but I rather doubt a perpetual underclass paying rent to the native population would last very long.

How many houses do you think should be built every year Celrit? Let's use Gallo's link at 99k per house.

99000 X 1.2 million?

Tell you what let's just go for the all time high of 450k.

44,550,000,000 pounds? You alright with that?

How many buildings or houses are unused? It's not just about building them, and many millennials and Gen Zers have resorted to moving back in with family members.
Better social housing needs to be made, to the same levels as Vienna.
But again, let's keep blaming immigration for people not wanting to build adequate housing/accommodation.

There's 650k unused buildings. Congratulations Celrit you've handled half this current years figures if we immediately purchase or seize all of them. Now what. vienna builds 5000 houses annual, so 5000 immigrants a year after that is it mate? There we are then, in 120 years we'll have finished off this years figures.

Ahh i'm being unfair. Let's compare the population sizes and adjust the rate.

1.9 million for vienna, 67 million for the UK.

The astute among you might already see where this is going.

35.

5000 x 35.

175,000.

We built more houses than that this year Celrit. the reason you think Vienna is an exemplar of housing policy is not that they're building more houses.

It's that we've got too many fucking immigrants. We build more houses than Vienna, proportionally. You don't see this and think Vienna is absolutely poggers and doing something right because you aren't willing to actually look into any of the figures. You just note they seem to be doing something right and assume it must be they are building houses to some higher exemplary degree than we are.

But no. They aren't.

So if we followed your suggestion, we'd be even worse off.

Now. How about we follow mine instead. Let's see how ridiculous the pro-migrant faction are.

I assume we all understand that it takes manpower to build a house, even with Galloisms 3D printer method.

Do you accept that there is a theoretical hard cap in which 100% of the population of the United Kingdom is employed building houses? Or is that racism too? If that sounds like a ridiculous question, I can assure you, it is only X% more ridiculous than the two of you are actually behaving, and I want to know what that % is.

How many people do we employ? What percentage of the population? How much do we pay them to do it? Why the fuck are we bothering?

[Galloism]

Taxes?

That's about half what the UK spends on education, roughly. Not to mention we can collect rents from those houses or sell them after the fact, so budget wise it would move things around, but might not actually be al oss.

Typically the affordability of the home is the issue there and the government will subsidize the price by not making much of a profit of it. If we want to break even or make it a profit venture, the homes will be unaffordable. If we instead go in for rent, I could see that working maybe, and at that point immigration doesn't cause as much of a problem. But right now, this system doesn't exist, and the immigration shouldn't either as a consequence.

It also underlies how the sheer cost of immigration to the treasury is not actually worth it. "About a third we spend on education.".

Okay so why spend it. What good do immigrants do for society exactly if they cost us so much tax money. The liberal project tends to adamantly suggest that they contribute more in tax returns than they cost, but that's only really the case because we're not paying for any of the things necessary to make immigration sustainable and functional. Once we start paying for them, the figures begin to rapidly shift and it becomes abundantly clear they are an economic burden and the proponents of it are supporting it as an end in itself despite it making everybody worse off.

As for "Taxes".

Gallo.

How many of the institutions currently insisting we definitely need immigration do you think would continue to insist that, if they had to actually pay more in taxes to make it functional?

There is no reality where immigration at this scale exists and isn't destructive to a society, because to make it non-destructive the same forces which are pushing the immigration would begin to adamantly oppose it. The closest is your suggestion of a rentier class but I rather doubt a perpetual underclass paying rent to the native population would last very long.

We could train immigrants to build houses, so they'd have good paying jobs very quickly to build houses for more immigrants.

[Ostroeuropa]

Typically the affordability of the home is the issue there and the government will subsidize the price by not making much of a profit of it. If we want to break even or make it a profit venture, the homes will be unaffordable. If we instead go in for rent, I could see that working maybe, and at that point immigration doesn't cause as much of a problem. But right now, this system doesn't exist, and the immigration shouldn't either as a consequence.

It also underlies how the sheer cost of immigration to the treasury is not actually worth it. "About a third we spend on education.".

Okay so why spend it. What good do immigrants do for society exactly if they cost us so much tax money. The liberal project tends to adamantly suggest that they contribute more in tax returns than they cost, but that's only really the case because we're not paying for any of the things necessary to make immigration sustainable and functional. Once we start paying for them, the figures begin to rapidly shift and it becomes abundantly clear they are an economic burden and the proponents of it are supporting it as an end in itself despite it making everybody worse off.

As for "Taxes".

Gallo.

How many of the institutions currently insisting we definitely need immigration do you think would continue to insist that, if they had to actually pay more in taxes to make it functional?

There is no reality where immigration at this scale exists and isn't destructive to a society, because to make it non-destructive the same forces which are pushing the immigration would begin to adamantly oppose it. The closest is your suggestion of a rentier class but I rather doubt a perpetual underclass paying rent to the native population would last very long.

We could train immigrants to build houses, so they'd have good paying jobs very quickly to build houses for more immigrants.

I can't tell if you're serious.

[Galloism]

We could train immigrants to build houses, so they'd have good paying jobs very quickly to build houses for more immigrants.

I can't tell if you're serious.

Admittedly, I'm being a little flippant. This feels like a sky is falling thing that's probably more of a "how do we make lemonade out of lemons" thing.

[Ostroeuropa]

I can't tell if you're serious.

Admittedly, I'm being a little flippant. This feels like a sky is falling thing that's probably more of a "how do we make lemonade out of lemons" thing.

The cost of living crisis is absolutely a sky is falling moment for the most vulnerable in society. This is just the housing issue incidentally. Shall we discuss power generation too? The thing is, I don't think like i need to. I think housing is catastrophic enough of an issue that it alone can make the pro-immigration side seem ludicrous and divorced from reality. But just to frame the context this is just one of the problems immigration causes, and there are many, many, many more of them, each one costing millions or billions to fix

[Galloism]

Admittedly, I'm being a little flippant. This feels like a sky is falling thing that's probably more of a "how do we make lemonade out of lemons" thing.

The cost of living crisis is absolutely a sky is falling moment for the most vulnerable in society.

Sure, but it's not really clear that this is caused by immigration or that immigration is even the most important factor to focus on.

I read your argument with Celrit - I accept it's a "factor" when it comes to cost of housing. It's also a factor in my real estate taxes how well my neighbor keeps his lawn up, as that can impact the housing values in the whole neighborhood. But it's not something I would make a federal case over.

[Ostroeuropa]

The cost of living crisis is absolutely a sky is falling moment for the most vulnerable in society.

Sure, but it's not really clear that this is caused by immigration or that immigration is even the most important factor to focus on.

I read your argument with Celrit - I accept it's a "factor" when it comes to cost of housing. It's also a factor in my real estate taxes how well my neighbor keeps his lawn up, as that can impact the housing values in the whole neighborhood. But it's not something I would make a federal case over.

Immigration is a factor the government can immediately impact and control by diktat. Given the impact of immigration on a wide range of other issues in society I think it's sensible to limit it severely until those problems are addressed, or at least the most pressing ones.

Housing prices, food prices, energy prices. We can then begin to use government investment in these things to relieve pressure. Set up those tens of billions of pounds of investment into those sectors that we "Could spend" to make immigration function, and then allow immigrants back in when you've accomplished that.

or, as I suspect, suddenly the companies insistent that we benefit from immigrants will decide that we don't after all and they're actually a net drag on society if you make them actually pay for them and they'll say "We'd rather keep the money than have the immigrants". At which point we're left with "We're doing it for its own sake, despite the fact it makes everything worse.", which requires explanation.

[Saor Alba]

For my sins, I was in Birmingham

No one deserves that fate.

It actually got me thinking: Birmingham is such an irrelevant city. At least, I think so - no disrespect intended to any brummies here.

It is the second largest city (and the core of the second largest metropolitan area) in the UK but it does not have the clout that other cities do. Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Edinburgh, Newcastle, and Liverpool are all more prominent in the popular conscience than Birmingham. At first I thought this was just my personal bias. Most of my social circle are Scots or people from northern England. So I asked some southern friends what cities they considered the most important in the UK to be and Birmingham always came behind at least one northern city. Very curious as to whether this is just a me thing or if Birmingham actually is "irrelevant" (relatively!) and if so, why?

All are things caused by a low quality diet.

Sooo, British food? Seems like a pro-immigration argument.

Rarely will anyone find me defending "British culture" but the slandering of British cuisine is not something I will tolerate. Britain has some of the finest meats and green produce in the world, we have great dishes like Sunday roast, bangers & mash, black pudding, haggis, countless pies, and lancashire hotpot.

[Galloism]

No one deserves that fate.

It actually got me thinking: Birmingham is such an irrelevant city. At least, I think so - no disrespect intended to any brummies here.

It is the second largest city (and the core of the second largest metropolitan area) in the UK but it does not have the clout that other cities do. Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Edinburgh, Newcastle, and Liverpool are all more prominent in the popular conscience than Birmingham. At first I thought this was just my personal bias. Most of my social circle are Scots or people from northern England. So I asked some southern friends what cities they considered the most important in the UK to be and Birmingham always came behind at least one northern city. Very curious as to whether this is just a me thing or if Birmingham actually is "irrelevant" (relatively!) and if so, why?

Sooo, British food? Seems like a pro-immigration argument.

Rarely will anyone find me defending "British culture" but the slandering of British cuisine is not something I will tolerate. Britain has some of the finest meats and green produce in the world, we have great dishes like Sunday roast, bangers & mash, black pudding, haggis, countless pies, and lancashire hotpot.

I haven’t swallowed anything toxic, so there’s no reason to attempt to induce vomiting.

[Saor Alba]

As far as the housing topic goes, NIMBYism and pro-immigration politics are linked. We are not building enough houses and the UK taking in so many immigrants is exacerbating the issue. Both a decrease in net immigration or an increase in housing stock would be good for the housing market, so in the short term the optimal solution is both. Decrease immigration, build more houses. Specifically, we need to start building upwards. I would support short-term bans on the construction of single-family homes, with exceptions, and scaling subsidies by how many units are in each building. Duplexes are a good compromise. Cheaper to build than single family homes but they still provide the same atmosphere.

[Kerwa]

How many houses do you think should be built every year Celrit? Let's use Gallo's link at 99k per house.

99000 X 1.2 million?

Tell you what let's just go for the all time high of 450k.

44,550,000,000 pounds? You alright with that?

How many buildings or houses are unused? It's not just about building them, and many millennials and Gen Zers have resorted to moving back in with family members.
Better social housing needs to be made, to the same levels as Vienna.
But again, let's keep blaming immigration for people not wanting to build adequate housing/accommodation.

The unused houses are generally where housing isn’t needed. This is the same issue as the Lumen thread. More social housing/middle class housing is needed in places like central London or north Oxford in order to meet the extra demand created from immigration - the central belt not so much. But in order to create that housing, densification is required which will involve demolishing existing neighborhoods and replacing them with large stalinskas (or equivalent). While I am perfectly fine with leveling parts of Chelsea and building towering council blocks I doubt the prawn sandwich wing of the Labour Party is, so it’s a non-starter.

And remember, whatever happens it will all be done under a move towards net zero. Given the upgrades needed to infrastructure continuing immigration at the current rate is insane. (Infrastructure doesn’t generally collapse gradually from overburden, it just become non functional effectively).

Too many people too quickly basically.

[Celritannia]

As far as the housing topic goes, NIMBYism and pro-immigration politics are linked. We are not building enough houses and the UK taking in so many immigrants is exacerbating the issue. Both a decrease in net immigration or an increase in housing stock would be good for the housing market, so in the short term the optimal solution is both. Decrease immigration, build more houses. Specifically, we need to start building upwards. I would support short-term bans on the construction of single-family homes, with exceptions, and scaling subsidies by how many units are in each building. Duplexes are a good compromise. Cheaper to build than single family homes but they still provide the same atmosphere.

While I disagree that immigration is a major burden on the housing crisis (along with every other point Ostro is trying to make to blame immigration), I heavily support a social housing programme much in the same way they have been implemented in Vienna. Those flat complexes with their own gyms and swimming pools are astounding.

[Celritannia]

Sure, but it's not really clear that this is caused by immigration or that immigration is even the most important factor to focus on.

I read your argument with Celrit - I accept it's a "factor" when it comes to cost of housing. It's also a factor in my real estate taxes how well my neighbor keeps his lawn up, as that can impact the housing values in the whole neighborhood. But it's not something I would make a federal case over.

Immigration is a factor the government can immediately impact and control by diktat. Given the impact of immigration on a wide range of other issues in society I think it's sensible to limit it severely until those problems are addressed, or at least the most pressing ones.

Housing prices, food prices, energy prices. We can then begin to use government investment in these things to relieve pressure. Set up those tens of billions of pounds of investment into those sectors that we "Could spend" to make immigration function, and then allow immigrants back in when you've accomplished that.

or, as I suspect, suddenly the companies insistent that we benefit from immigrants will decide that we don't after all and they're actually a net drag on society if you make them actually pay for them and they'll say "We'd rather keep the money than have the immigrants". At which point we're left with "We're doing it for its own sake, despite the fact it makes everything worse.", which requires explanation.

And how much money would be spent on this new immigration programme? How many funds that could be used to improve society will be diverted to border security? How will businesses that rely on immigrant labour deal with the reduced number of workers when British-born individuals refuse to take those jobs? How do you compensate for the need of increasing wages to make jobs like farm picking lucrative to British Born workers when these food products will have an increased price at supermarkets?

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

I have to wonder what process of incompetence/lobbying/bribery led to us having a loophole allowing retailers give free vaping samples to children.

[Hirota]

I have to wonder what process of incompetence/lobbying/bribery led to us having a loophole allowing retailers give free vaping samples to children.

None of the above are responsible for the creation of a loophole.

The loophole exists because the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002 has a prohibition of free distribution section of tobacco products. But vapes are not tobacco products.

Given e-cigarettes only started to come into the marketplace around 2006, you cannot legislate for something that you don't know exists. Cromwell couldn't legislate for cars.

It's still a scummy practice regardless.

[The Archregimancy]

you cannot legislate for something that you don't know exists. Cromwell couldn't legislate for cars

No; but while your basic point is sound in this specific case, you can apply old legislation to new technology.

I think there's at least one Cromwellian road rule in place; a law requiring a signpost at village crossroads dates to 1648 (though I'm struggling slightly to find a link definitively proving this).

More recently, and more easily provable, the original law requiring driving on the left is Section 78 of the 1835 Highway Act. "Drivers causing hurt or damage to others, or quitting the road, or driving carriage without owner’s name, or not keeping the left or near side, or interrupting free passage, if not the owner to forefeit 20s; if he be the owner, 40s." I think we can safely assume that wasn't written with the internal combustion engine or the M1 in mind.

I know, it's not quite the same situation. The 2002 Tobacco Advertising Act is narrowly and specifically about tobacco, whereas the cited clause of the 1835 Highway Act is about drivers and road use rather than the specific means of conveyance. It's easier to apply the latter to modern cars than it is to apply the former to vapes.

All the same, it's worth noting that there are situations where existing legislation that pre-dates a technology can be applied to the new technology. It's not so much a case of 'you cannot legislate for something that you don't know exists' as 'some legislation is more restrictive (or more flexible) than others in how it can be applied to a new technology'.

[Point Blob]

The worst part of all the immigration nonsense is that the more refugees and the like come flooding into south-east England, the more English people will in turn try to escape to Wales and Cornwall.
It is like the Danish invasions all over again. Bloody Anglo-Saxons should just go back to Denmark / Northern Germany where they belong.


[Note: I'm totally a hypocrite, being a Welsh cat yn Llundain.]

[Great Britain eke Northern Ireland]

The worst part of all the immigration nonsense is that the more refugees and the like come flooding into south-east England, the more English people will in turn try to escape to Wales and Cornwall.
It is like the Danish invasions all over again. Bloody Anglo-Saxons should just go back to Denmark / Northern Germany where they belong.


[Note: I'm totally a hypocrite, being a Welsh cat yn Llundain.]

The Southeast is already practically uninhabitable to young working class Englishfolk looking for homes. The red carpet being laid out to the invaders and their families only exacerbates the lack of availability and unaffordability of housing. Cornwall and Devon are expensive as arse as well. Young Englishmen are likelier to migrate northwards or to the Midlands at least. We’re being forced out of our own homeland by extortionate housing prices/costs + an inept government that can’t shut the bloody border to hundreds of thousands of criminally inclined dependents.

[Celritannia]

Home Office staff could strike if forced to implement ‘unlawful’ Rwanda asylum plan

Has there ever been a time when members of Civil Service department went on strike? Do Civil Servants have the right to strike?

[The Huskar Social Union]

Civil Servants went on strike a couple of times last year if i can remember correctly.

[Point Blob]

The Southeast is already practically uninhabitable to young working class Englishfolk looking for homes. The red carpet being laid out to the invaders and their families only exacerbates the lack of availability and unaffordability of housing. Cornwall and Devon are expensive as arse as well. Young Englishmen are likelier to migrate northwards or to the Midlands at least. We’re being forced out of our own homeland by extortionate housing prices/costs + an inept government that can’t shut the bloody border to hundreds of thousands of criminally inclined dependents.

Is this your homeland?

[Hirota]

Civil Servants went on strike a couple of times last year if i can remember correctly.

Yup. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63586107

And the act of civil servants rebelling against the government isn't new either - Tony Benn had the same problems during his tenure in government, and I remember reading about an anonymous civil servant who claimed they would stifle a hypothetical Corbyn government.

Edit: Found it just as I finished posting: https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/03/i-work ... government

Anyhoo, the point I'm making is I'm having a hard time having a strong opinion if the civil service decides to obstruct the more uncivil parts of government. I was inclined to say my main objection is it's technocratic, and this is supposed to be a nation ran by democratically elected government. If the civil service wants to have a role in formulating policy, it should be accountable to the electorate...but then the judiciary isn't either.

[Saor Alba]

I am of the opinion that civil servants should not be allowed to strike over policy, and if they do then they should just be fired. The alternative is allowing elected governments to appoint civil servants.