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at 23:37 16 Sep 2025

i apologise for not replying. in truth i'm not 100% clear on what the dispute is.

gb initially posted:

"Lowhouse was honest enough to post that he knew little to nothing about Charlie Kirk and asked for justification as to why Kirk was branded a fascist."

you replied:

"Personally I'd imagine people calling him (kirk) fascist probably did know a fair bit about him, else why would they be calling him that?" and: "If you can't see what Lowhouse is doing then that's on you. Lot's of other people can see it"

i had been receiving lots of abuse for questioning the basis on which a large number of posters were labelling kirk a fascist. your final line was also in the spirit of that abuse - and at that point i don't think you and i had had any exchange on the thread. i thought your explanation for why kirk was being labelled a fascist - "I'd imagine people calling him (kirk) fascist probably did know a fair bit about him, else why would they be calling him that?" was a bit weak.

i don't really understand the issue beyond that.

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at 22:55 16 Sep 2025

i started by saying we have had a housing crisis for the past decade plus. housing an additional 3 million people over 4 years has made that crisis worse. or how do you think those addition people have been housed?

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at 22:52 16 Sep 2025

jeez. why are you trying to distort this. from the ons population estimates for england and wales published 30th july 2025:

change in population (ie annual increases) of england and wales:

2021 230,080
2022 618,067
2023 821,210
2024 706,881

that's a cumulative increase of some 2.37 million over the four years. obviously it excludes scotland which is why the 2.5 million i quoted earlier is higher. in that period total net migration was some 3 million.

so were it not for net immigration total population would have fallen slightly (births and deaths and i guess covid), but instead it rose by 2.5 million if scotland is included. that's a substantial rise in population entirely accounted for by net migration.

quoting ons statistics is not pandering to anyone - trying to misrepresent the picture and pretending that a country can have net migration of 3 million without total population rising is frankly bizarre.

the article you have linked also includes the ons population projection for the next 10 years. it is:

0.5 million more births than deaths (approx 50,000 a year)
6.1 million net immigration (approx 600,000 a year)
6.6 million increase in total population (approx 650,000 a year).

this is the exact same pattern that the statistics show for the past 4 years. so even the article you've linked shows substantial total population growth which is almost entirely explained by net immigration.

what a strange thing to try to dispute.

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at 19:58 16 Sep 2025

3 million is net immigration over the most recent 4 year period.

in addition, total uk population:

66.7 million in 2020
69.2 million in 2024

so after net migration of 3 million, the total population rose by 2.5 million

i don't know why you'd be relying on projections from the 2021 census for data after that date when real data is published annually.

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at 19:20 16 Sep 2025

yes, the arrival of immigrants isn't spread evenly across the country. but, if, say, 100,000 additional people had arrived in suffolk coastal over a short period don't you think it would have made those problems worse?

aren't you supposed to be on holiday. shouldn't you be drinking guiness rather than wasting time on here?

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at 18:15 16 Sep 2025

so has an additional 3 million people in a short period not made those things worse? i was explaining what lots of people experience and what they observe to explain why they consider immigration to be a major issue.

claiming that the agenda is being driven by scum like robinson completely ignores why many people, without any external manipulation, think immigration is a big issue.

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at 17:58 16 Sep 2025

something i have posted several times but i have never received an answer is, given that we have had a housing crisis for the past decade plus, how over the most recent four year period have we accommodated an additional (NET) 3 million people through immigration? how has that been possible without making the housing crisis worse? and if that is possible and we can magically house an additional 3 million people without any negatives, then in what sense is there a housing crisis? really?

in addition, in a great many local authority areas a majority of social housing tenants are now foreign nationals. in many areas it's as much as two thirds.

do you not see that not being able to, or their children not being able to, get access to local social housing, and being priced out of other options, while seeing a high proportion of social housing occupied by foreign nationals, genuinely concerns a great many people. they haven't fallen for rhetoric, they aren't relying on daily mail headlines - it's what they can see.

[Post edited 16 Sep 18:00]

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Andy Burnham watch ....
at 15:53 16 Sep 2025

you need to put tax changes in the context of other taxes. income from equities is taxed at a lower rate for individuals because company profits have already been taxed through corporation tax. otherwise you would be double taxing - and that would deter investment.

the swiss wealth tax is an alternative to capital gains tax which they do not have. many cantons don't have inheritance tax. total tax in switzerland as a percent of gdp is much lower there than in the uk. if you had both a capital gains tax and a swiss wealth tax you would again be double taxing. the uk can't copy switzerland without abolishing capital gains so as to match their tax structure on captial more generally. we need to compare like with like.

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Andy Burnham watch ....
at 13:37 16 Sep 2025

he supported remain because his leadership wouldn't have survived him being openly hostile to it. he went on holiday in the middle of the referendum campaign.

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Andy Burnham watch ....
at 13:34 16 Sep 2025

but what you describe as 'passive assets' is where investment comes from. economics 101 is that if you introduce a new tax on previously untaxed activities you will cause a change in behaviour in order to manage that tax. those changes in behaviour have real (dead weight) costs. efficiency falls and things like investment suffer.

so to justify a wealth tax you need the benefits to outweigh those costs. to justify the effects of redeploying assets into a non-taxable form and avoiding activities that would create tax exposure you need to believe the tax revenue will contribute significantly to the government budget. in the current fiscal position it has to be tens of billions to make it significant. are there any examples world wide of wealth taxes raising tens of billions year after year?

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at 13:27 16 Sep 2025

i don't accept that labour pre-2010 failed them. yes it was hugely globalist and started many of the changes we have seen since. it saw the first big shift in immigration - though at a very modest level compared to the last few years. but it hugely improved public services and over saw a functioning state that greatly helped those communities. good schools, good hospitals, sure start, the minimum wage etc all benefited those communities. of course it was a model based entirely on sustained growth - which that government provided up to 2008. without growth the whole edifice collapsed - the government finances no longer added up and the level of state provision which supported those communities was unsustainable.

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at 13:21 16 Sep 2025

it wasn't credible. it wasn't realistic. it wouldn't have worked. it wasn't electable. but otherwise you are spot on as ever.

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Andy Burnham watch ....
at 11:06 16 Sep 2025

there is no evidence that such a tax would raise much and the effects on growth would make the employers' ni increase look positive.

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at 11:03 16 Sep 2025

that decent people would be prepared to march behind someone like robinson is very very worrying. musk pulling his strings is also very worrying.

but people parrot things they have read - you give the examples - when their real concerns run much deeper. the reason that they justify joining a march with those simplistic memes (sex offenders, north korea etc) is that its an easy way of saying that they are angry. the details don't really matter to them.

what underlies all this - just like america and just like brexit - is that a whole swathe of society feel that they have not had the benefits of the major changes affecting the country. since 2009 this has become more acute. globalisation since the 90s has brought little for those groups - good quality blue collar jobs have declined, incomes haven't risen, public services are poor, social housing is inaccessible. others in society have benefitted hugely - not just the wealthy but whole sections of the middle class who have seen admin / managerial roles expand and whole new 'professional' career paths emerge. the most direct expression of the way in which globalisation has impacted the left behind communities is immigration - it has had a huge effect on the availability of social housing and is perceived as unfair and to the disadvantage of those communities. it has led to a loss of trust in politics and state institutions and a sense that they have stopped listening and don't care. people believe that it has been imposed even though they have been promised by successive governments that it would stop.

so the lines that people quote to justify their anger - or why they march in london - are a read herring. there are much bigger forces explaining it and which are shaping politics at the moment.

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Andy Burnham watch ....
at 10:46 16 Sep 2025

the employers ni was a self-inflicted wound. the effect of the benefits debacle on borrowing costs has also been very damaging. but the other things holding growth back at the moment are pretty global. they have done lots of structural things that are pro-growth but they all take time.

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Andy Burnham watch ....
at 10:41 16 Sep 2025

i'm sure the rich will pay more after the budget - but it will be through changing pension rules, taxing bank profits, tightening up capital gains, and changing thresholds to their disadvantage. the top 1% already pay almost 30% of income tax - it isn't a limitless pot without real costs.

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at 10:34 16 Sep 2025

if we could get the french to agree to do it on a sufficient scale initially then it does seem a potential answer. if everyone was returned initially - with the uk receiving an equal number through formal schemes across the eu - the numbers crossing would fall very quickly and the numbers going forward would then be manageable for france.

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Andy Burnham watch ....
at 10:28 16 Sep 2025

but it's not such a show that started in the last 12 months. the last election was a very bad one to win given where we are economically - and there zero chance of turning public services and growth around in the first 12 months. and in terms of wealth taxes there is no such tax anywhere which has risen the sort of sums that are needed to sort out the current public finances. the only thing capable of doing that is growth.

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at 10:20 16 Sep 2025

they might go elsewhere in europe (but lots of channel crossers have already had an asylum claim turned down in the eu so the uk may be the final throw of the dice). or some people may not travel at all if getting to the uk is their sole purpose.

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Andy Burnham watch ....
at 10:18 16 Sep 2025

trouble is people often complain about politicians and wish for someone who is above politics. well that is sort of starmer. he doesn't see himself as a politician, he sees hime self as a lawyer / administrator / public servant. what you then get is someone who isn't necessarily terribly good at the game of politics and has limited ability to sense political risk or to manage hundreds of back benchers. if people disparage politicians and the machiavelllian skills they bring then politically inept seems to be the alternative.

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