Politics Thread!

[Portland]

Sneak peek of UKIP Manifesto:

[Wudzi]

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablo ... -year-high

Quite an interesting read, including the best graph you'll see today!

[Darkflame]

Website here is a pretty nice idea, lets you pick policies you like blinded by the party that promotes them:
http://voteforpolicies.org.uk

[merman]

The Tories fillybusting to stop a proper reading of the Private Member's Bill on stopping the bedroom tax - despicable.

[pogo]

Yes, gets to the heart of the problem with the Tories' proposals (though as yet I've not seen any policies that would achieve anything). So British people don't want foreigners coming here and taking our jobs (despite no evidence this is happening)? How would they feel about being told they can no longer go overseas to live and work?

The logical result of deny EU citizens the right to work here would be not only Brits being unable to work elsewhere in the EU but also Brits unable to live or even visit without a visa. More likely though the only resolution would be for us to leave the EU, as freedom to travel and work is such a fundamental principal of the EU that it's hard to see how other countries would let Britain opt out.

[zip accident]

Yes, gets to the heart of the problem with the Tories' proposals (though as yet I've not seen any policies that would achieve anything). So British people don't want foreigners coming here and taking our jobs (despite no evidence this is happening)? How would they feel about being told they can no longer go overseas to live and work?

The logical result of deny EU citizens the right to work here would be not only Brits being unable to work elsewhere in the EU but also Brits unable to live or even visit without a visa. More likely though the only resolution would be for us to leave the EU, as freedom to travel and work is such a fundamental principal of the EU that it's hard to see how other countries would let Britain opt out.

Is Tahiti in the EU?

[Harlequin]

The questions above those graphs are quite different. It does seem reasonable to me that someone might want some people from a country to be able to live and work anywhere in the EU but not all citizens (which could include, for example, major criminals).

[pogo]

But that's not what's being proposed. What is being proposed (though again I've yet to see workable proposals) is somehow stop citizens of other countries coming here and working freely. Already people from outside the EU can't come here and work without a hard to obtain work visa. So the only way to tighten this further is somehow stop EU citizens coming here to work.

The problem is that people's views on this seem out of touch with reality. One striking observation is that support for tougher rules is least where immigration is most. It doesn't seem impacted by experience immigration. Instead the strongest support seems to be in the most economically deprived areas, which attract fewer immigrants. Support for strong immigration measures seems to be a proxy for unhappiness with the state of the economy.

This is hopeful as it suggests that as the economy improves people's attitudes will soften, and UKIP will seem less attractive. It's also hopeful because immigrants overwhelmingly benefit the economy, being mostly young, productive, hard-working and placing far fewer burdens on the NHS, welfare budgets or local services than natives. If this were better explained to voters, and it's hardly rocket science, then their concerns might lessen and support for extreme measures and UKIP will drop.

You'll always have racists who'll support an 'immigrants out' party whatever the economic logic. But these are a small minority, not enough to have an electoral impact. They just need to be separate them from those with economic concerns who find UKIPs message more reassuring.

[Harlequin]

In that case, perhaps the questions asked of the "2,000 GB adults" should have reflected what is actually being proposed. As they are, responses to two very different questions are being compared as if they were exactly equivalent.

[Darkflame]

overwhelmingly benefit the economy, being mostly young, productive, hard-working and placing far fewer burdens on the NHS, welfare budgets or local services than natives. If this were better explained to voters, and it's hardly rocket science, then their concerns might lessen and support for extreme measures and UKIP will drop.

Not that I am remotely against immigrants - but thats all very short term advantages isn't it?
Along the same lines as "lets all have lots of children to pay for our pensions!"

[pogo]

Much of our politics is essentially short term though. Look at all the posts here complaining about monthly figures, never mind annual ones. But even ignoring that, our biggest economic concern now is recovering from the recent deep recession. Anything that can boost that is a good thing and so to be welcomed. The govt could do make a big difference to our economy at no cost to the taxpayer if they just relaxed immigration restrictions (on e.g. workers and students) and planning restrictions.

Long term the biggest problem for developed economies is a demographic one. In some countries the birth rate is less than the replacement rate so populations are declining or set to decline. Add to that ever improving health care, so people are living longer than ever, and you have countries facing a demographic timebomb, facing a future where there are too few working age people to support those that have retired. Japan, Germany and Italy are the three countries most often mentioned, all major economies, two of them in the EU.

Countries that avoid this either have a high birth rate or high immigration, or a combination. So yes, immigration is very much a part of the solution to a long term problem.

[Harlequin]

I wonder how that is supposed to work on a long term worldwide scale. It seems obvious that increasingly higher human populations are an unsustainable disaster in the making. If immigration is the only alternative then what effect is that to have on the countries from which people are migrating?

[pogo]

Globally more immigration is overwhelmingly positive. It benefits the country receiving immigrants who are invariably more motivated, hard working and entrepreneurial than average (often they've needed all these to emigrate), and almost all of working age. It benefits the sending country who get remittances, the expertise and wealth of returning immigrants, and contacts for trade and cultural exchange. And it overwhelmingly benefits the immigrants themselves; freedom of movement is an important freedom and that includes being able to travel and work as widely and freely as possible.

Immigration also tends to address imbalances. A country with too many unemployed young people can export them to a country with jobs. On a smaller scale an industry unable to recruit locally or nationally can bring people in from overseas. And countries with a high birth rate can supply new citizens with a low one.

The problems with a declining population are many. First it worsens the dependency ratio. This is normally the ratio of retirees + children to working age adults, though its retirees/working age adults that's key as retirees are many times as expensive and require far more (care/health) workers. This is not just an economic problem addressable through greater savings; as the dependency ratio worsens more and more workers need to be employed in health and social care, depressing the number employed actually making things. Eventually services suffer as workers simply can't be found, or can't be paid for.

Another problem is with debt. As the population, in particular the working population, declines the number of taxpayers falls and so the cost to each of repaying the debt rises and paying the interest on it rises. Debt positions in parts of Europe and Japan are already unsustainable, worsening demographics just makes them worse.

The latest data is here:

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP. ... ay=default

Look at the last column, 2009-13. The three worst countries are Japan (41), Italy (33) and Germany (32).

[gravy]

I wonder how that is supposed to work on a long term worldwide scale.

[pogo]

0.7% growth last quarter, but just an excuse to post this clip of Ed Balls being upstaged by a spider.