UK Politics: Rwanda Rehash

[BigFatCoward]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-67842890

He is doubling down. At least some of them admit what they are really about. 

[BigFatCoward]

Truss names a truly shameful list of honours. Basically, I fucked up big time, but here's a list of my mates. 

And Tim Martin gets one in the new years list. Gross. 

[Which Tyler]

Did anyone expect anything else from Truss?

[BigFatCoward]

18 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Did anyone expect anything else from Truss?

No, but I assumed she would be too incompetent to complete the paperwork correctly. 

[mormont]

I realise some folks are genuinely pleased to get an honour, but the honours system is at best meaningless rubbish and at worst a corrupted remnant of privilege anyway. I genuinely feel a bit disappointed when someone I like accepts an honour. I don't respect people because they have one. It's not a sign of any actual worth or merit.

[kissdbyfire]

Someone please say this isn't true

 

[Heartofice]

4 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Someone please say this isn't true

 

Did you try looking into whether it was true or not? 

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Did you try looking into whether it was true or not? 

Did you? 

Probably not. So here you go.

Spoiler Alert: of course it's fucking true. 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Spockydog

[kissdbyfire]

49 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Spoiler Alert: of course it's fucking true

Indeed. I really thought what I meant was pretty obvious...

 

 

 

[BigFatCoward]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Did you try looking into whether it was true or not? 

Honestly, you don't help yourself sometimes. I have backed you up when you talk sense and thought sometimes/many times you were attacked for who you are, not what you said. But you are becoming absurdly contrarian recently.

 

[Heartofice]

21 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Honestly, you don't help yourself sometimes. I have backed you up when you talk sense and thought sometimes/many times you were attacked for who you are, not what you said. But you are becoming absurdly contrarian recently.

 

Woah hang on... MATE. Someone posts up some random post off Twitter, and doesn't bother to even check whether it's true or not.

In fact I did look into whether it was true or not. The chart is the second one on here:
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget

There was additional Covid spending in 2020/21 (£47.4bn) and the standard budget was £157bn, and was £158bn the year before. So there is some truth in the Steve Taylor tweet. 

However, then NHS spending went up to £162bn the next year, and then £181bn the year after that and that is without any covid spending, and its higher than ever before. So his point is pretty disingenuous.

On top of that... there is some bizarre notion that Covid spending didn't go to the NHS? What a weird thing to say. Yes too much was spent of Track and Trace and PPE (although you lot were screaming about the lack of test and trace and PPE at the time so maybe look in a fucking mirror if you want to wonder why governments panic).
But who gets PPE? Its the fucking NHS. This is all NHS spending. If the government spends money on medicine and equipment for the NHS.. is that not NHS spending?! What is this bollocks idea that somehow this doesn't count at all. 


 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Heartofice

[BigFatCoward]

12 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Woah hang on... MATE. Someone posts up some random post off Twitter, and doesn't bother to even check whether it's true or not.

In fact I did look into whether it was true or not. The chart is the second one on here:
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget

There was additional Covid spending in 2020/21 (£47.4bn) and the standard budget was £157bn, and was £158bn the year before. So there is some truth in the Steve Taylor tweet. 

However, then NHS spending went up to £162bn the next year, and then £181bn the year after that and that is without any covid spending, and its higher than ever before. So his point is pretty disingenuous.

On top of that... there is some bizarre notion that Covid spending didn't go to the NHS? What a weird thing to say. Yes too much was spent of Track and Trace and PPE (although you lot were screaming about the lack of test and trace and PPE at the time so maybe look in a fucking mirror if you want to wonder why governments panic).
But who gets PPE? Its the fucking NHS. This is all NHS spending. If the government spends money on medicine and equipment for the NHS.. is that not NHS spending?! What is this bollocks idea that somehow this doesn't count at all. 


 

It's not whether you are wrong or right, it's how you interact with people. 

[Heartofice]

51 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

It's not whether you are wrong or right, it's how you interact with people. 

It’s not a popularity contest, and I’d lose it if it was! But I am well past being worried about that. 
 

Given the quality of posts on this thread sometimes it’s a miracle I’m as civil as I am quite honestly. 

[mormont]

[mod] That’s quite enough of that, thanks, from both. If you have a personal message for someone there is a personal message system. Stick to the topic, and the topic is not what we think of each other. Thanks. [mod]

[Spockydog]

 

 

[Heartofice]

Glad they are closing these dodgy immigration loopholes. 

[Heartofice]

It’s worth reading Neil O’Briens substack which discusses some of the unintended (or maybe intended) consequences of student immigration in the UK which makes up a surprisingly large proportion of immigrant numbers.

https://www.neilobrien.co.uk/p/the-deliveroo-visa-scandal?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
 

Point being that far from the UKs intended policy of bringing in the best and brightest to study in this country, it’s led to much more students from poorer countries, going to less prestigious universities, who don’t go on to get high wage jobs, who bring many more dependents with them, who stay for longer or don’t go home, and use it as a convenient method of permanent staying.

There is lots taken from the Migration Advisory Committees published report:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65782933095987000d95de4b/MAC+Annual+Report+2023.pdf
 

The MAC were scathing of the idea of bringing in the two year post grad work visa that Boris introduced:

Quote

In our 2018 report, we recommended against the introduction of a separate graduate visa, due to concerns that it would lead to an increase in low-wage migration and universities marketing themselves on post-study employment potential rather than educational quality

And 

Quote

“If the objective is to attract talented students who will subsequently work in high-skilled graduate jobs, then we are sceptical that it adds much to the Skilled Worker route which was already available to switch into after graduation, and we expect that at least a significant fraction of the graduate route will comprise low-wage workers. For these migrants, it is in many ways a bespoke youth mobility scheme”

And in regards to dependents they said:

Quote

“the number of dependants coming to the UK under student visas has increased significantly, and at a much faster pace than the rise in total student numbers, as illustrated in Figure 3.12. Dependants accounted for 148,000 visas in 2022, 24% of all student visas. The majority of dependants are adults”

 

[mormont]

My goodness. I barely know where to start ripping that piece to shreds.

First of all, assuming this is the same Neil O'Brien who is a current MP and has served in Tory governments, it's literally beyond belief that he didn't already know all the stuff he starts with about what data is available on immigration. All of those opening paragraphs are the time-honoured tactic of a person stating what he and everyone else in government has known for years as if he found it out yesterday, purely for effect.

The reason we have such poor data on this is because gathering that data would be expensive but also quite intrusive - not just to immigrants but to everyone. Employers, tourists and business travelers (both entering and leaving the UK), landlords, service providers, the government itself, and indeed just ordinary people (since to get truly accurate data on immigrants you need data on everyone in the country). The benefit of having that data is outweighed by the impact and cost, which is why it isn't collected, which Mr O'Brien already knows.

The same is true of much of the rest of the article.

Calling graduate visas 'a disaster we were warned about' is a classic example of begging the question, and belies his earlier attempt to rise above "the terrible “is immigration good or bad” framing we too often seem trapped in". His own framing here is literally 'immigration is bad'.

As Mr O'Brien knows, and I'm going to be saying that often, the two year graduate visa is intended to allow graduates to look for graduate work in the UK. And they're allowed to take work to live while they do! Getting a 'Deliveroo job' is and always was part of that.

As for 'universities marketing themselves on post-study employment potential rather than educational quality', every single HE minister since the Tories came to power 13 years ago - and there have been many - has failed to distinguish between these two things in policy terms, whether for overseas or domestic students. Every incentive universities have been given has focused on post-study employment potential. It's the key metric as far as the government are concerned of whether a course is worthwhile, whether an HE provider is succeeding or failing, and (outside of research funding) whether it gets any money. We can't complain about HE providers marketing themselves on this when they have to do so to survive: and again, it's not an immigration issue.

More to the point, if we want to cut overseas student numbers - even by a little - or remove the graduate visa, which amounts to the same thing we have two choices: fund universities properly with public money, or watch many of them go under. The reason the growth is highest in 'cheapest' universities¹ is because those are the universities with least research funding, so they are most dependent on teaching funding, which can only increase through overseas recruitment because 'tuition fees' for domestic students are no such thing. They are a graduate tax with an up front discount for the wealthy.

The reason most of these students are coming from poorer countries is that international competition for students from countries like China is increasing, while their domestic universities are improving. (This is also why spending on agents has increased.) Again, if he'd rather we were attracting students from China, his government needs to fund UK universities. Students being from poorer countries does not make them worse students academically anyway: the dog whistle here is that if they're poor, they must be frauds.

In short: this is a weak attempt to appear reasonable but amounts to the same old complaints with no acknowledgement that the implied solution (he hasn't the courage to propose one explicitly) would require a complete reversal of his government's entire HE policy, with significant investment in UK HE. If he means what he says and really believes in it, he has to come out and say whether he would rather close universities or fund them.

 

¹(not at all sure what this means: he does not explain. Overseas fees? The data he is quoting is about 'least selective' unis, not the same thing)

[Heartofice]

Hmm, not sure you are doing much shredding there as you seem to have missed the point. Probably because you can’t get your head around the framing: 

1 hour ago, mormont said:

. His own framing here is literally 'immigration is bad'

His framing is ‘low skilled immigration that isn’t an overall benefit to the country is bad’ and I would absolutely agree. The point of the article is that rather than the fulfil the objective of bringing in high skilled labour that will add to the UK workforce, new Visa routes are bringing in low skilled workers, and their dependents at record numbers. 

 

1 hour ago, mormont said:

More to the point, if we want to cut overseas student numbers - even by a little - or remove the graduate visa, which amounts to the same thing we have two choices: fund universities properly with public money, or watch many of them go under.

Well my answer to that would be that some universities should go under. “The growth in international student numbers has been concentrated in the cheapest universities with the lowest entry requirements”.

Maybe these are just shit unis who only exist because they hand out degrees to foreign students? Is there real value to the UK in that? Maybe with less universities, who could actually be properly funded, giving out real education instead of flimsy low value courses designed purely to make money, maybe that would be better.

You say these universities need more funding, but the ones bringing in the most international students are the ones charging the least. They could charge more surely and improve the quality of their education. Maybe they have just found their niche. 

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Students being from poorer countries does not make them worse students academically anyway: the dog whistle here is that if they're poor, they must be frauds.

Nice try. There is enough evidence to suggest students from poorer countries are more likely to stay after their degrees rather than go home:

“Only about 6% of students from the US were still here in with valid leave in 2022, but it was over a quarter for countries like Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.”

As well as suspiciously high drop out rates:

“Former Universities Minister Jo Johnson recently warned that “entirely unacceptable” dropout rates among Indian and Bangladeshi students of “approaching 25 per cent” was damaging the sector’s reputation”

Plus the overwhelming majority of increase in dependents from students has come from Indian and Nigerian students.

This all adds the main crux of the argument, that much of this student immigration is really just a back door to bringing in a lot more low wage immigration, and is far from the high skilled temporary immigration that it’s being touted as.  
 

I get that your main concern is around university funding, but that’s not really the main issue, as much as you wish it to be. We are going to talk past each other because the concept of bad immigration is an anathema to you. But oh well. 

 

Edited January 1 by Heartofice

[mormont]

I'm sorry, but these comments show you don't really have the understanding of the basic facts about the university sector to discuss this, and I'm not inclined to spend the time laying them out. I've spent nearly three decades in the sector as a student and a member of staff. I understand the topic. Take my word for it: universities across the UK, and not just the ones you think, are on the verge of going broke as it is. Take away the one source of funding this government has literally driven them toward, and the results will be disastrous.

You are correct, though, that philosophically I don't see migration as inherently bad. If capital can move freely, labour must be able to also. If our prosperity as a country is based on our current values and not our historic exploitation of others, we should not be afraid of others coming here. Migration is a litmus test of who we are as a country: are we selfish hypocrites or do we believe in ourselves?