That would start by you citing the sources of the random quasi-statistics you refer to.
You don’t seem ever to do that.
As your hero Nigel Farage would say, “Listen, love, you’re trying ever so hard …”.
That would start by you citing the sources of the random quasi-statistics you refer to.
You don’t seem ever to do that.
As your hero Nigel Farage would say, “Listen, love, you’re trying ever so hard …”.
I tend to use what I see, and round where we are in London I see a stable multi-ethnic community many of whom have been in the UK since they were asked to come in the 60’s, and a very tiny number of what might well be more recent immigrants.
The most unpleasant people tend to be obese white British mouthing off in the supermarket and pushing people out of the way.
Health services are stretched worse than ever due to several problems, chiefly due to Brexit and poor wages.
‘I’ don’t think the ONS is incompetent - the ONS itself has admitted it’s made mistakes - not me !! Like the BoE and the OBR - they’re all admitting they’ve made mistakes in their figures and predictions. Uhmm - ‘lies, damned lies, - and government statistics’ - comes to mind !!
Given the shortage of housing, a struggling health service and creaking infrastructure can the UK cope with high levels of net migration? The UK’s population growth is one of the highest in Europe and shows no sign of slowing down whilst many other countries are seeing their population actually fall.
Comments about lack of housing and poor NHS are understandable in places with large numbers of immigrant settlers, but the same pattern seems to hold up in white, wealthy, rural areas like Oxfordshire, where ambulances (as an example) may take so long the patient dies before they arrive, and house prices have become outrageous due to scarcity.
Higher than France and Italy, but lower than Germany and Canada. So not out of the average for a developed nation then.
Population growth and net migration are not the same thing.
And Malta, Ireland and Luxembourg all had greater population growth in recent years, yet they are not screaming for a few migrants to be thrown back into the sea. ![]()
Net migration peaked in 2023 but is now coming down.
Emotive and pejorative terms are used to describe “migrants” and “asylum seekers” and “refugees”, which stoke fear and division.
Would any British SF members who currently reside in France like to be called “migrants”? I guess not. ![]()
@Concorde, you asked for
and I invited you to provide sources for your claims. And maybe statistical sources.
Perhaps you would like to contribute something useful to this debate?
It’s an incorrect use of the term.
My wife and I prefer to describe ourselves as ‘immigrants’ but only because it’s a more accurate description of our situation of being tax resident here, with no intention of returning to the UK. However, we occasionally ‘migrate’ to the Med coast.
Indeed. And it’s also incorrect to use it to describe many of the people who come to the UK and appear in the statistics - overseas students being one example.
But the UK gutter press often lumps them all together as “migrants”.
But they are linked when taking birth and death rates into account, the UK’s big population increase is purely down to net migration.
0.48% is “big”? If you saw a crowd of 1000 people, could you tell if five more had joined them?
@JohnBoy is very smart - I hope he won’t mind my saying that - I think.he’s had a good sense of timimg from bits he’s said from time to time and he’s returning to the UK.
I think it will start to improve going forward and potentially progress when Europe may not, if only people would stop moaning and doing the UK down.
Karen, if you worked in tertiary or secondary education you might have a different opinion - I’d suggest that education in the UK and US is in a big mess and is deteriorating far more rapidly than elsewhere.
What are the problems in education?
In secondary education, declining numbers of qualified teacher in subjects ranging from science and maths to art and languages, demotivated staff, imbalance of testing to learning in the name of so-called quality assurance.
In UK HE, declining student enrolment, massively reduced teaching contact hours, increased use of AI generated lecture content, demotivated non-tenured staff. Additionally in US universities increasing government interference in what can be taught and who can teach it.
There are root causes apart from the obvious economic ones:
i) Right wing governments trying to control access to free thinking and ii) Far more insidiously, AI increasingly reducing student levels of independent thinking/research and lecturers’ lecture content.
The latter problem is most severe in the anglophone education sphere because the material skimmed by AI is predominantly, possibly as much as 90% from anglophone sites. In other countries, this is less of a problem.
Glad I’ve retired!
Or next to Russia ![]()
I didn’t expect my name to crop up in a topic about voting Reform and hope it is just coincidental, the Reform agenda could not be further than my own.
Thankyou @KarenLot for your kind words and please excuse me for not liking your comment in the usual way, l am flattered.
Funny how your comments have morphed into education. Mark has certainly made his feelings clear.
The thing is education is continually changing and once out, the old adage of it aint what it used to be raises its head.
I am no stranger to education as before coming to France I sat on the governing body of an extremely forward thinking FE college for 15 years, 10 of which as chair.
Both my daughters are in education, they work hard and make a positive difference to the student’s they teach.
As for UK bashing, I think for those on SF that see it as a sport, most are probably retired and able to live here because they made their current life possible via the opportunities given them from a lfetime of working in the very country they now bash.
I have made many decisions in my life, some forced on me and others by choice, as Del Boy would say, Who Dares Wins!
In a little over 3 weeks we will be leaving France for our New Adventure and looking forward to it. France has been a big part of our lives having bought our first house here in 1992. We settled here in 2008 and after 17 years of residence we are returning to our homeland which gave us the opportunity to come here in the first place.
To my knowledge I have never bashed the UK or France, both of which have given me and my family a great life. I hope that continues for many years to come.
Will we be disappointed in what some say the UK has become and hot foot it back ro France?
No. We have never gone back on our life decisions and that isn’t about to change.
Exciting times ahead.
An opinion poll among what people’s main concerns were put immigration in 7th place so it’s not the main concern. Cost of living, NHS, Public Services etc. were all ahead of it.