Comments on immigrant benefits

I think there is some sense in that, Graphite. There are far fewer collective activities these days than in the past - of the sort that a whole village takes part in, I mean. There is still the odd cheese roll or wellie fling, but I'd put a pound to a penny most of the participants are 'incomers' anyway. Much as the thought of community dancing would fill me with dread, a lot of that sort of thing would bring people together.

I was reading recently about collective harvest-gathering, with the first finished helping the one who was latest, and so on, in (supposedly) good-natured competition. Obviously that would be efficient for getting all the crops harvested before they deteriorated, which would reduce the need for feeding those who were too old/ill/frail to do so themselves, but it would also foster a community spirit, as there was celebration afterwards with rituals and singing etc, which again would make people feel they 'belonged'. Whilst the men were harvesting, the women were binding the sheaves and everyone joined in - even the children had things to do, and to discourage idleness, the woman who bound the fewest sheaves had to sit in a cart during the festivities (!). I'm not suggesting public humiliation like that, but on the whole I can see that pulling together is a good thing, whilst nowadays everyone is in their own houses living separate lives.

I was amused by the idea of men helping the late corn-gatherers, as it reminded me of when they mow one another's lawns, or put the neighbours' bins out with a cheery - 'I got yours, Colin!' Another lie in was it?' I think it must be a hard-wired impulse with some men .

... it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

Your Kennedy quote, Maizie, reminds me of Bertrand Russell’s 1932 essay In Praise of Idleness - which, for those unfamiliar with it, isn’t about idleness but about a fairer distribution of work. He argues (among other things) for people to be able to work fewer hours while still earning enough to meet their needs so that all could have a job. The leisure time that resulted from working fewer hours would leave people with the energy to engage in active rather than passive pursuits as a means of self-improvement. It was of its time, unemployment was high but as a philosophy it still holds true today.

Extract:

When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the remaining time should necessarily be spent in pure frivolity. I mean that four hours' work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit. It is an essential part of any such social system that education should be carried further than it usually is at present, and should aim, in part, at providing tastes which would enable a man to use leisure intelligently. I am not thinking mainly of the sort of things that would be considered 'highbrow'. Peasant dances have died out except in remote rural areas, but the impulses which caused them to be cultivated must still exist in human nature. The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part.

files.libcom.org/files/Bertrand%20Russell%20-%20In%20Praise%20of%20Idleness.pdf

The asymmetry principle is based in Communication Theory, and is easy to see in all sorts of debate. As an example, I used to find the constant nit-picking on 'trans' threads frustrating. If I didn't spell everything out, with caveats and exceptions that would usually go without saying, I would have to make another three posts to answer the daft 'requests for clarification', and when I did spend ages spelling it all out the accusation was that my posts were too long to read. I knew exactly what was happening, but it reaches a point where you either have to stop refuting nonsense or play the game and give it the time it takes.

Hang on in there, Lathyrus? Inflation is falling, immigration is falling, minimum wages are rising, as are renters' and workers' rights. It's slow progress, but as you say, that was inevitable.

What a pity he goes on to do exactly this. Denying people’s real experiences of having to do without whilst others, who have contributed nothing, are provided for by the State. He even says many people are better off than before they just think they are struggling because they watch adverts.

Richard is correct. Many people are better off than before. You only have to say on here that we 'boomers' had it easy when we were young compared with today's younger people and out come the tales of early hardships. Yet you only have to read posts on 'consumer' type topics to find that many of Gnet posters are comfortably off (not all, just many) In other posts he has great concern for the 20% of the population who are living on or below the poverty line, he's just not touched on it in this particular one. So it's a shame that you've dismissed him on the strength of one sentence.

He neatly dodges the problem of the cost of unauthorised immigration by just referring to immigrants who are authorised and are “filling the gaps.”

I have followed Murphy for about 10 years now. He believes that it is the duty of the state to care for all the individuals within it and that the state can afford to do this because, like a growing number of people (including economists) he knows that the state isn't constrained by a shortage of money, but by economic and political ideology. And that the assertion that depending on taxation to finance the state is a convenient lie which sets people at odds with each other. As demonstrated daily...

He also believes that there is far more to people's 'contribution' to the state than money alone.

Bobby Kennedy articulated this in 1968

Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product – if we judge the United States of America by that – that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman\’s rifle and Speck\’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

Yes I saw the incident in France, I need to look up that right wing feminists group, and try to unpick what that actually means.

What is needed us recognition of their problems and action to improve their lives. They will vote for the party that makes an effort to do that.

These actions to improve the lives of those who are struggling is precisely why I and many others voted Labour at the last election. But I was not naive enough to think that they could wave a magic wand and achieve this overnight. They are unravelling decades of the Thatcher legacy and it will take time. But those politically naive people who cannot see this will knee-jerk us into Reform - a kindergarten type response that will come back to bite them and all of us.

It is unbelievable that anyone might think that Reform is the party to "make an effort to do that."

Thank you for posting the Shakespeare.

MaizieD

Primrose53

Just seen the quote regarding “Dr Sai Ishaya” above.

Never heard of him, can find out nothing about him so would hardly call him a reliable source.

I asked AI about him. Apart from his presence on X there is nothing to identify him.

However, with caveats, AI said that:

His analysis is:

✔ Grounded in a real communication principle
✔ Plausible in describing online political tactics
✔ Psychologically literate

Thank you, Maizie. Who he is isn't so important (a medical doctor I believe) but what he said about Brandolini's law (or the bullshit asymmetry principle) ...

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit (aka deliberate misinformation) is in order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

I do think advertising plays a part in all this.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM

This is an old video that I watch years ago called The Story of Stuff - about the damage that manufacturing and consumerism does, including exploiting the people, resources and destroying the environment of developing countries. It’s from the USA and aimed at young people but the message is clear and even more pertinent today.

Extract:

Our national happiness peaked in the 1950s, the same time as this consumption mania exploded. Hmmm. Interesting coincidence. I think I know why. We have more stuff, but we have less time for the things that really make us happy: friends, family, leisure time. We’re working harder than ever. Some analysts say that we have less leisure time now than in feudal society. And do you know what the two main activities are that we do with the scant leisure time we have? Watch TV and shop. In the U.S., we spend 3 to 4 times as many hours shopping as our counterparts in Europe do. So we are in this ridiculous situation where we go to work, maybe two jobs even, and we come home and we’re exhausted so we plop down on our new couch and watch TV and the commercials tell us “You suck” so we gotta go to the mall to buy something to feel better, and then you gotta go to work more to pay for the stuff you just bought so you come home and you’re more tired so you sit down and watch more TV and it tells you to go to the mall again and we’re on this crazy work-watch-spend treadmill and we could just stop.

So in the end, what happens to all the stuff we buy anyway? At this rate of consumption, it can’t fit into our houses even though the average house size has doubled in this country since the 1970s. It all goes out in the garbage. And that brings us to disposal. This is the part of the materials economy we all know the most because we have to haul the junk out to the curb ourselves. Each of us in the United States makes 4 1/2 pounds of garbage a day. That is twice what we each made thirty years ago. All of this garbage either gets dumped in a landfill, which is just a big hole in the ground, or if you’re really unlucky, first it’s burned in an incinerator and then dumped in a landfill. Either way, both pollute the air, land, water and, don’t forget, changes the climate.

There have been many threads here about the ongoing job of decluttering because people have far too much stuff. There are probably far more threads about shopping. We are urged constantly to shop to boost the economy but as most our spending goes on imported goods bought from huge corporations, all we end up doing is making the CEOs and shareholders of those corporations even richer (while workers are paid minimum wage and having to claim Universal Credit) while their accountants are busy finding ways to minimum their tax exposure. We are all familiar with the big names who pay no UK tax at all. True, our High Streets are in decline but it doesn’t stop people from shopping with online retailers. I live at the end of a small no through lane where vehicles have to turn around. There isn’t a day goes by when Amazon vans aren’t delivering to someone. My two nearest neighbours, working parents plus two children, have deliveries every day. I have no idea what they are buying nor it is my business but one can’t help wonder. Every day? Are they part of the work-watch-spend treadmill?

Primrose53

Just seen the quote regarding “Dr Sai Ishaya” above.

Never heard of him, can find out nothing about him so would hardly call him a reliable source.

I asked AI about him. Apart from his presence on X there is nothing to identify him.

However, with caveats, AI said that:

His analysis is:

✔ Grounded in a real communication principle
✔ Plausible in describing online political tactics
✔ Psychologically literate

Maremia

Intrigued by the comment about virtue signaling.
Do some on GN prefer rage bait?

I didn't expect an answer, and it doesn't look like I'm going to get one, does it? Oh well.

I agree with you too, Lathyrus, apart from the inevitability of a Reform government. There are another three years before a GE, which is enough time for people to realise that the Labour government has done some good things that will have borne fruit by then, and for the reality of Reform councils to have shown itself. With any luck, the government will have improved their messaging by then, too.

I agree about people feeling sidelined though. For far too long it has been assumed that workers will pay for everything, and those who don't work can have a free ride. People have had enough, and I don't blame them. Younger generations are better than we were at saying no, and they are saying no to high rent, high childcare costs, high student loan charges, high taxes that pay for pensions and benefits that they don't get. I'm not arguing against pensions for those who've paid in, but I do think there will have to be a re-evaluation of who is entitled to other benefits, and a way of separating pensions from benefits, as they are contribution-based and taxable. I think there needs to be a promise to younger people that they, too, will be entitled to pensions when the time comes, as a lot of the resentment of pensioners seems to come because they believe the idea that the state pension will have been phased out by then.

Immigration is falling, and by the GE it may have fallen so far that even the most anti-immigrant of people will have moved to another way to fester discontent.

Intrigued by the comment about virtue signaling.
Do some on GN prefer rage bait?

Lathyrus3

MaizieD

Ah well us ordinary people didn’t not really know the shorthand acronyms that fly about the political spheres.

Is this some sort of inverted snobbery 🤔

It’s a kind of irritation at the superior sneering attitude at this ignorant person doesn’t understand the shorthand that we informed superior people use.

No need to sneer. Just put me right like Doodledog did.

and a despair at what it reveals about the attitude to ordinary people who are mint one the informed elite who know best.

If that’s inverted snobbery I guess I’m guilty of it.

We are all 'ordinary people' on here, Lathyrus. All from different walks of life and all knowing different things.

Claiming that you're an 'ordinary person' being held in contempt for not knowing what MSM stands for was unjustified because nobody said anything contemptuous about you not knowing it. Dd explained the acronym to you. You thanked her. I can't see why you needed to complain about something that hadn't happened.

Spot on Lathyrus3
I can now see only Reform doing well at the next GE.

Actually think all Richard Murhy’s points are relevant to this discussion. I was interested enough to Google the rest of it in a written form.

His first four points are about the collapse of services, NHS, education, job security, housing shortages, cost of living. The things that ordinary people care about.

Then he talks about loss of dignity. Personally I think this is the key point. It is the feeling of being of no account, of always being last in the line, of having your problems dismissed as unimportant or even imaginary or the fault of your own stupidity in believing the media that makes people angry.

What a pity he goes on to do exactly this. Denying people’s real experiences of having to do without whilst others, who have contributed nothing, are provided for by the State. He even says many people are better off than before they just think they are struggling because they watch adverts.

He neatly dodges the problem of the cost of unauthorised immigration by just referring to immigrants who are authorised and are “filling the gaps.”

It’s this kind of I see no ships and Let them eat cake that will sweep Reform into power with the simple sentence of I see your problem,, whilst other parties are busy congratulating themselves on the wonder of their skilled rhetoric.

Not here, but in France a right wing young male activist, who was with a small group of right wing feminists ( it’s what is being reported) was kicked to death recently by young male left wing activists linked to the far left Party there.This just highlights the dangers of any extreme politics.

I don't think he is saying that future wars are solely the tactics of the right, is he? He says that culture wars have been used to replace real policies. That is not the same thing.

Oh he is so close, so close.
It is an utter failure of the left, rather than a success of the right. And he is repeating those failures in his post.
Blame the media, or social media because the people who have turned to the right can't possibly have minds of their own, they can't possibly have looked at the progressives and thought dear God not more of this nonsense.
And fir good measure throw in the word culture war as if that is something solely undertaken by the right.

And Graphite

Thank you NotSpaghetti

There’s something in what Richard Murphy says, particularly in the first long paragraph.
In the second I think he credits the media and advertising with maybe more power than it possesses.Advertising has always been used to show consumers what they could have if only they have the money.Most people are canny enough to understand that and not be enraged that they can’t afford a house with a 30 ft kitchen or a Caribbean cruise.
People are angry, but mainly at successive governments as he says.They’re the ones who chose the policies and ran the country.

Graphite
Thanks again!

Richard Murphy’s latest video Why People Are Angry in Britain is to the point about what is happening and that can be done. The answer is not to turn to the far-right.

I urge people to watch it. You can click on the More button underneath, scroll down and select read transcript if you prefer:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5hAIr1cgZI

It starts:

People in the UK are angry. Inequality is driving that. That's obvious. And some people are turning as a result to the far right. We know that is true. And you can see why. The anger which people are suffering has very real causes. But my argument is that only a politics of care can address them and that the far right can't. And that's what this video is all about. Let's be clear. The left cannot dismiss the far right by just saying ignore them. The far right are hearing and responding to as well as exploiting real concerns. Real concerns created by the neoliberal politics of destruction of the single transferable party. And let's be clear what I mean by the single transferable party. The single transferable party has been in power in the UK for a long time. It is the Conservatives. It is the Labour Party. It is in part the SMP in Scotland although the membership are most definitely not aligned with what the leadership has been doing. The problem with the single transferable party to which the Liberal Democrats are also aligned of course because they were in coalition government with the conservatives at one period of time and delivered austerity is that it is committed to the politics of destruction and that is what neoliberalism is. It's the politics of household analogy. It's the politics that has delivered austerity and you cannot ignore that fact because these are the policies which have created the situation which is giving rise to the anger as a consequence of the feeling of failure that people are suffering. So I am saying we can't dismiss the feeling of voters about the fact that this has happened because it's a reality. What we now have to do is understand people's anger because anger without explanation becomes hate and hate becomes dangerous politics. And that is my precise concern. So what am I going to do in this video? I'm going to look at why people are angry and then say what we can do about it.?

I’ve picked out this part as pertinent to this discussion.

The sixth cause is fear and misinformation. Let's be clear about this. There is a massive amount of fear and misinformation. There has been a deliberate program put forward of blaming migrants for the structural problems that exist in this country. Let's not pretend otherwise. We've seen it in our newspapers. The Daily Mail, the Daily Express, and the others who make up the gutter press of the UK have done this for years. They have blamed people who have never created the problems in this country and who have in many cases filled the gaps which would otherwise have appeared. Culture wars have been used to replace real policy and social media has amplified anger. The far right has offered simple answers, but simple answers to complex problems are lies. All of this is about promoting fear and much of it is based upon misinformation, but that's not by chance. That's deliberate and that is a cause of anger in its own right. So that one is not based upon reality. It's based upon myths, but nonetheless, it's real.

The seventh cause is the media and manufactured fear. I'm building on the previous idea here, but bringing in quite specifically now the fact that we live in a world where there are multiple demands on our attention and where those who want it know that fear is profitable. As a result, they deliberately provoke social media outrage and newspapers scapegoat migrants. And as a consequence, we are seeing this pernicious attitude that I previously noted. But there is more to it than that. Advertising, as I have often argued, is deliberately designed to make us unhappy with our lives. This isn't by accident. They want us to buy whatever they're offering, to supposedly make our lies fulfilled when at present, apparently, they are not. And that is what I'm really worried about. This is the sense that we are missing out that the media deliberately creates which has undermined people's sense of well-being. Even when if truth be told many people are materially better off than they have been for a long time. But that sense of difference that sense of inadequacy this sense that the media has created that there is a them and us with so much of the media focusing upon the them who have everything and the us who have little are ignored. That is what has created dissatisfaction, anger, and people who want someone to blame for the fact they feel that they are being left behind. A frightened population is easier to manipulate, and that is what the media has created.

Maremia and Lathyrus3

As of now, February 2026, asylum seekers are generally banned from using taxis for medical appointments.

I say "generally" as apparently they will still be authorized in "exceptional circumstances" - e.g. physical disabilities or chronic illness.
However, these require direct Home Office sign-off now.

I have no idea how the sign-off works.

Oreo

I think everyone knows what virtue signalling is and it’s seen all the time on forums unfortunately.

Yes, I think I know what it is, and it is not asking for clarification of a nonsensical 'statistic', which is why I am asking.