Prices of the electricity we use to charge

lenny

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You've posted this argument before but I've never really engaged with it fully enough, but this time I'm going to, by disagreeing that migration is such a large element of the housing shortage. In fact it is so far from it that it contains within it a reminder, that we the native population are the largest element of the problem.

The largest element I've hinted at are the the huge changes in our society that have resulted in so much single occupation of homes. In London almost one third of all homes are single occupancy and the rest of the country is not far behind. A small proportion of that is under reporting, but mostly very short term so having little effect.

That, not immigration, is the largest change since you and I were born, which was when multi-occupation of almost all homes was the norm. Most people married and had children. Many of those family homes contained a grandparent and/or sometimes a now adult child. Marriages commonly lasted until death.

Now huge numbers never marry, remaining single or only having partners, often short term. 42% of all marriages end in divorce and a very high proportion of the remainder end in agreed separations without bothering with divorce. Yet all want their own home.

Immigrants are largely the opposite. Most still marry, especially the Asians. They commonly multi-occupy their homes with two or three generations. The more recent immigrants, including many boat people, almost universally multi occupy, even to the extent of gross overcrowding and "hot bedding". Thus they remind us of where we went wrong.

Take three friends of mine:

"P" grew up in a five person family council house. Now they are the sole person in that same house, but bought long ago under right to buy.

"A" grew up in a six person family council house, otherwise identical to "P", now alone in the original house.

"S" grew up in a six person family council house, but now as above via right to buy and a divorce.

And then there's my family, originally peaking at six persons, parents and four children in one home.

My mother died long before by father so he lived alone in a substantial home for a long time.

My brother married twice having two children by the first wife. She died very early after which he was alone for many years. The marriage to he second wife didn't last long and there were no children, so he lived alone in his own homes for around half his entire adult life.

I remained single for life in my own homes.

My first sister married once to an older husband having four children, He died early, but my sister, like me, is long lived so she has been alone in her own homes for decades.

My second sister married twice with a separation in between, but had very little time alone in her own home, so was the exception in the family.

And then there's the estate I live on. Originally designed with all family houses in the late 1950s in the hope of getting permission to build on one time disputed green belt, building started in the mid 1960s. The huge social changes at the time meant the developer changed and the planners agreed huge changes. The inclusion of a church was scrapped as it became clear that the young of the time wouldn't be going to church and several hundred one bedroom flats replaced plans for far less houses.

All this was done in such a rush that they forgot to change the planned second primary school, so we have that large primary school surrounded with a sea of blocks of one bedoom flats and no family homes, so all the children attending that school are driven there from elsewhere in hundreds of cars. This alone shows how enormous the effect and costs of the societal changes have been.
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Chainring

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Apr 24, 2013
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No - we have allowed the benefit system to provide a living for large numbers of people who have simply opted out of work. If a population of (officially) 68 million can not support itself there is some sort of massive abuse going on. Just think about it logically. How can that be?

We KNOW that since COVID literally millions of people of well under retirement age have stopped working. Tackle that and you won't need SO MUCH migration.

There are of course very well qualified people who we would want as migrants. There are though very large numbers of people arriving here legally and illegally that we only need because we have let other people opt out of work.

We are running here a giant PONZIE SCHEME. It will crash and burn pretty soon if we don't get rid of it
Has anyone on here wondered WHY so many people are not working? If you look around when you are out, notice how many people there are with sticks, electric go-karts etc. Quite young people as well. See how many disabled parking bays painted outside houses. How many bays sandblasted away and the house up for sale. How many friends or relatives with strokes, heart attacks etc. We have one member of our family in the house unable to work, thanks to The Jab. Their partner died. In the space of a few minutes the other day, as I loaded my bike outside Lidl, there were FOUR ambulances racing about. That is the most I have seen. That is not normal, or is it 'The New Normal'? https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/revealed-pfizers-hidden-vaccine-injuries/
 
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Peter.Bridge

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Apr 19, 2023
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It was only a question of whether the dems were going to cheat enough to win. They got swamped, so had to give up. The trucks carrying votes around were nearly all found and tracked.
For those who didn't believe me:
This was voter registrations, not votes. It is caused by financial incentives for people involved in voter registration efforts - the voters and addresses don't exist (or don't match). Phony voter registration forms just cause more workload and frustration for election officials, all voter registrations are vetted before they are given a ballot.

Election workers in Pennsylvania who receive a new voter-registration form confirm the voter’s identity and address. They also send mail to the address listed on the form. New voters, and those voting in a new precinct, must provide an ID, and their signature is checked against a poll book.

“There are so many checks and balances in the process to make sure the election is secure and integrity is protected,”
 
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Ghost1951

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Woosh

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What would Trump do when China increases its own sanctions against the USA? China has just announced export control of antimony, gallium and germanium to the USA. China controls 90% of the world antimony market, Belgium controls 8%. Trump may say that he will stop wars in Ukraine and the Middle East but he's already started economic wars with China and EU, while threatening therest of the world. Back in the 70s and 80s, the USA can shut its border and survive. No longer true.
 

Peter.Bridge

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Apr 19, 2023
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Has anyone on here wondered WHY so many people are not working? If you look around when you are out, notice how many people there are with sticks, electric go-karts etc. Quite young people as well. See how many disabled parking bays painted outside houses. How many bays sandblasted away and the house up for sale. How many friends or relatives with strokes, heart attacks etc. We have one member of our family in the house unable to work, thanks to The Jab. Their partner died. In the space of a few minutes the other day, as I loaded my bike outside Lidl, there were FOUR ambulances racing about. That is the most I have seen. That is not normal, or is it 'The New Normal'? https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/revealed-pfizers-hidden-vaccine-injuries/
Screenshot_20241117-100728.png

 
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Ghost1951

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Jun 2, 2024
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You've posted this argument before but I've never really engaged with it fully enough, but this time I'm going to, by disagreeing that migration is such a large element of the housing shortage. In fact it is so far from it that it contains within it a reminder, that we the native population are the largest element of the problem.

The largest element I've hinted at are the the huge changes in our society that have resulted in so much single occupation of homes. In London almost one third of all homes are single occupancy and the rest of the country is not far behind. A small proportion of that is under reporting, but mostly very short term so having little effect.

That, not immigration, is the largest change since you and I were born, which was when multi-occupation of almost all homes was the norm. Most people married and had children. Many of those family homes contained a grandparent and/or sometimes a now adult child. Marriages commonly lasted until death.

Now huge numbers never marry, remaining single or only having partners, often short term. 42% of all marriages end in divorce and a very high proportion of the remainder end in agreed separations without bothering with divorce. Yet all want their own home.

Immigrants are largely the opposite. Most still marry, especially the Asians. They commonly multi-occupy their homes with two or three generations. The more recent immigrants, including many boat people, almost universally multi occupy, even to the extent of gross overcrowding and "hot bedding". Thus they remind us of where we went wrong.

Take three friends of mine:

"P" grew up in a five person family council house. Now they are the sole person in that same house, but bought long ago under right to buy.

"A" grew up in a six person family council house, otherwise identical to "P", now alone in the original house.

"S" grew up in a six person family council house, but now as above via right to buy and a divorce.

And then there's my family, originally peaking at six persons, parents and four children in one home.

My mother died long before by father so he lived alone in a substantial home for a long time.

My brother married twice having two children by the first wife. She died very early after which he was alone for many years. The marriage to he second wife didn't last long and there were no children, so he lived alone in his own homes for around half his entire adult life.

I remained single for life in my own homes.

My first sister married once to an older husband having four children, He died early, but my sister, like me, is long lived so she has been alone in her own homes for decades.

My second sister married twice with a separation in between, but had very little time alone in her own home, so was the exception in the family.

And then there's the estate I live on. Originally designed with all family houses in the late 1950s in the hope of getting permission to build on one time disputed green belt, building started in the mid 1960s. The huge social changes at the time meant the developer changed and the planners agreed huge changes. The inclusion of a church was scrapped as it became clear that the young of the time wouldn't be going to church and several hundred one bedroom flats replaced plans for far less houses.

All this was done in such a rush that they forgot to change the planned second primary school, so we have that large primary school surrounded with a sea of blocks of one bedoom flats and no family homes, so all the children attending that school are driven there from elsewhere in hundreds of cars. This alone shows how enormous the effect and costs of the societal changes have been.
.
This is an interesting post and the points are well made.

You are right that a greater proportion of the population live in single occupancy homes than was the case in earlier times and that will have had some effect on the availability of homes.

I used Google to ferret out the following table, looking at the ratio of housing units to population in England which is where the problem is most evident.

Data for England

YearTotal dwellings (millions)Population (millions)
199119.747.9
200121.249.4
20112353.1
202124.956.5

The ratio of houses to people changes from 2.4 persons per dwelling in England in 1991 to 2.2 persons per dwelling in 2021.

That was an eye opener for me Flecc. I did not expect that. Thanks for pointing it out.

When I am ranting on my soap box, what I want above all, is to make sure I am not talking nonsense. The situation is more nuanced than I was presenting it.

But then I thought about what the housing situation would be had we not had about ten million incomers since 1991.

I turned again to the excellent Google tool. It tells me the following:

In 2021/22, 16% of people in the UK were born abroad, which is about 10.7 million migrants. The most common countries of birth for migrants were India, Poland, Pakistan, Romania, and Ireland.
So the UK has ten million people who were born elsewhere and would not be occupying housing had they not migrated here.

Now, notwithstanding, your excellent point about the change in the numbers of single persons occupying housing that previously had more occupants, it is completely undeniable that the presence of an extra ten million people, albeit that they might be less likely to be single occupants in their homes, inevitably contributes to housing shortage along side other pressures such as you pointed out . It can not be otherwise can it?

I also return to my earlier point about the very rapid rise in migration in the last couple of years. Johnson and Sunac while promising to reduce migration, allowed - even encouraged it to rise at a rate previously not seen. Not only did they fail, they were very much worse than useless - one of MANY reasons they got such a drubbing at the last election.

The stated reason for the granting of so many settlement visas in 2022 and 2023, was the shortage of care staff.

Social care is not rocket science. With better pay and conditions we should be able to supply personnel for such roles from the nation's own resources. If a nation of 68 million people can not supply workers to fulfil its needs there is some kind of internal disaster going on.

My view is that the disaster is a combination of dreadful pay and conditions in some areas of work, brought on by the addiction to cheap foreign labour and a VERY easy regime being operated by the gate keepers of free money for people who don't work.

Care workers looking after people in their own homes have disgraceful work conditions and pay. I know a lady who did this work and could go into the details if required. She recently gave up work and is now unemployed.

I know a number of other people who have chosen to be unemployed simply because they don't want to work and think it is not worth their while. The sensible answer to this issue is NOT to open the borders to people from impoverished nations, but to improve the conditions and address the issues which prevent recruitment.

The UK economy and social services system has become a giant PONZI scheme, addicted to recruiting more people from abroad to pay for rewards for people already here. Like all PONZI schemes it will inevitably run into disaster pretty soon unless it is stopped.
 
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Woosh

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This is an interesting post and the points are well made.

You are right that a greater proportion of the population live in single occupancy homes than was the case in earlier times and that will have had some effect on the availability of homes.

I used Google to ferret out the following table, looking at the ratio of housing units to population in England which is where the problem is most evident.

Data for England

YearTotal dwellings (millions)Population (millions)
199119.747.9
200121.249.4
20112353.1
202124.956.5

The ratio of houses to people changes from 2.4 persons per dwelling in England in 1991 to 2.2 persons per dwelling in 2021.

That was an eye opener for me Flecc. I did not expect that. Thanks for pointing it out.

When I am ranting on my soap box, what I want above all, is to make sure I am not talking nonsense. The situation is more nuanced than I was presenting it.

But then I thought about what the housing situation would be had we not had about ten million incomers since 1991.

I turned again to the excellent Google tool. It tells me the following:



So the UK has ten million people who were born elsewhere and would not be occupying housing had they not migrated here.

Now, notwithstanding, your excellent point about the change in the numbers of single persons occupying housing that previously had more occupants, it is completely undeniable that the presence of an extra ten million people, albeit that they might be less likely to be single occupants in their homes, inevitably contributes to housing shortage along side other pressures such as you pointed out . It can not be otherwise can it?

I also return to my earlier point about the very rapid rise in migration in the last couple of years. Johnson and Sunac while promising to reduce migration, allowed - even encouraged it to rise at a rate previously not seen. Not only did they fail, they were very much worse than useless - one of MANY reasons they got such a drubbing at the last election.

The stated reason for the granting of so many settlement visas in 2022 and 2023, was the shortage of care staff.

Social care is not rocket science. With better pay and conditions we should be able to supply personnel for such roles from the nation's own resources. If a nation of 68 million people can not supply workers to fulfil its needs there is some kind of internal disaster going on.

My view is that the disaster is a combination of dreadful pay and conditions in some areas of work, brought on by the addiction to cheap foreign labour and a VERY easy regime being operated by the gate keepers of free money for people who don't work.

Care workers looking after people in their own homes have disgraceful work conditions and pay. I know a lady who did this work and could go into the details if required. She recently gave up work and is now unemployed.

I know a number of other people who have chosen to be unemployed simply because they don't want to work and think it is not worth their while. The sensible answer to this issue is NOT to open the borders to people from impoverished nations, but to improve the conditions and address the issues which prevent recruitment.

The UK economy and social services system has become a giant PONZI scheme, addicted to recruiting more people from abroad to pay for rewards for people already here. Like all PONZI schemes it will inevitably run into disaster pretty soon unless it is stopped.
England has always had a large number of migrants, even before joining the EU.
The degradation in public services healthcare, transport, housing started already the year of the the miners strike but really began to bite only after the conservatives won power in 2010. Back then, the Pound was worth roughly 1.5 Euros. British workers were much better paid compared to French for example. Now the table has turned. North Sea oil revenue has dwindled, the Pound is worth 1.18 Euros in a good week. French workers take home 10%-15% more than British workers.
I think most of the decline is down to brexit. A lot of Europeans from our neighbouring countries have left the UK and been replaced with more than twice their numbers by Indians, Pakistani, Chinese, Arabs, Africans, Albanians and Ukrainians. We have indeed replaced a more productive workforce twice in numbers with less productive ones.
 
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Ghost1951

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England has always had a large number of migrants, even before joining the EU.
The degradation in public services healthcare, transport, housing started already the year of the the miners strike but really began to bite only after the conservatives won power in 2010. Back then, the Pound was worth roughly 1.5 Euros. British workers were much better paid compared to French for example. Now the table has turned. North Sea oil revenue has dwindled, the Pound is worth 1.18 Euros in a good week. French workers take home 10%-15% more than British workers.
I think most of the decline is down to brexit. A lot of Europeans from our neighbouring countries have left the UK and been replaced with more than twice their numbers by Indians, Pakistani, Chinese, Arabs, Africans, Albanians and Ukrainians. We have indeed replaced a more productive workforce twice in numbers with less productive ones.
The writing was on the wall well before BREXIT.

The UK long ago got addicted to cheap labour and terrible working conditions for certain low paid workers, and used the anaesthetic of EASY dole money to sedate the UK workers who could not tolerate the conditions. That care woman I know and mentioned above, is pretty fat, but otherwise able, and she easily replaced her salary by just 'going sick'. It isn't that hard to pass the required medical for a life on the taxpayer's teat. My son's ex-wife used to do the medicals for those benefits. She thought it was scandalously easy to get on the ticket and said there was a lot of abuse of the system with claims related to pain and exhaustion which can not be empirically tested.

By the way - a lot of Indian migrants are very skilled, and are an asset. I'd happily see the back of a lot of Romanians, many of whom are not. As usual, you over simplify to suit your predisposed position of 'BREXIT BAD', 'EU good'. That, as you have said many times is a financial position for you, to do with your domicile abroad, and your business opportunities for your e-bike sales. It amazes me that if France is such a great place to do business (being in the EU) that you have not set up a French company selling your e-bikes, to compliment the Southend operation. What would it take?..... I can guess why not. I have a relative in France who has lived there since 1975 - my brother. He knows well the cost of doing business there. I am sure I don't need to tell you about the impact of the social charges and business taxes.

By the way - your remark about England having always had a lot of migrants does not take account of the very big change in numbers from earlier times. There is no comparison between pre-1990 and now.
 
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Ghost1951

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Has anyone on here wondered WHY so many people are not working? If you look around when you are out, notice how many people there are with sticks, electric go-karts etc. Quite young people as well. See how many disabled parking bays painted outside houses. How many bays sandblasted away and the house up for sale. How many friends or relatives with strokes, heart attacks etc. We have one member of our family in the house unable to work, thanks to The Jab. Their partner died. In the space of a few minutes the other day, as I loaded my bike outside Lidl, there were FOUR ambulances racing about. That is the most I have seen. That is not normal, or is it 'The New Normal'? https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/revealed-pfizers-hidden-vaccine-injuries/
If you want to know the answer to that you only need to look at how much obesity there is in the UK now. It is a massive epidemic and easily accounts for the diseases which disable many people.

In the 1960s and 1970s, people did not even resemble the current population in terms of the number who were over weight. People we would have thought fat back then, would be the norm now.

Even the young are obese, and certainly a great many of them are over weight. I used to live in a city with 50,000 students in the population and as I was walking about I was struck by the number of young student girls who were well overweight and in my own youth would have been exceptionally fat. Most of those girls are well over -weight. This is going to bring such an epidemic of grief on this country. My family cine films made in the 1950s and 1960s show everyone looking positively thin by current standards. Literately no one is in the least bit fat, including the old.
 

Woosh

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The writing was on the wall well before BREXIT.

The UK long ago got addicted to cheap labour and terrible working conditions for certain low paid workers, and used the anaesthetic of EASY dole money to sedate the UK workers who could not tolerate the conditions. That care woman I know and mentioned above, is pretty fat, but otherwise able, and she easily replaced her salary by just 'going sick'. It isn't that hard to pass the required medical for a life on the taxpayer's teat. My son's ex-wife used to do the medicals for those benefits. She thought it was scandalously easy to get on the ticket and said there was a lot of abuse of the system with claims related to pain and exhaustion which can not be empirically tested.

By the way - a lot of Indian migrants are very skilled, and are an asset. I'd happily see the back of a lot of Romanians, many of whom are not. As usual, you over simplify to suit your predisposed position of 'BREXIT BAD', 'EU good'. That, as you have said many times is a financial position for you, to do with your domicile abroad, and your business opportunities for your e-bike sales. It amazes me that if France is such a great place to do business (being in the EU) that you have not set up a French company selling your e-bikes, to compliment the Southend operation. What would it take?..... I can guess why not. I have a relative in France who has lived there since 1975 - my brother. He knows well the cost of doing business there. I am sure I don't need to tell you about the impact of the social charges and business taxes.

By the way - your remark about England having always had a lot of migrants does not take account of the very big change in numbers from earlier times. There is no comparison between pre-1990 and now.
There was a time that I did consider setting up in France just after the brexit vote but dithered too much. I am now too old to want to have another go.
 
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Ghost1951

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There was a time that I did consider setting up in France just after the brexit vote but dithered too much. I am now too old to want to have another go.
When my brother who is a musician retired, he set up a small business importing high quality brass instruments to France and other EU countries. This was well before BREXIT. It operated well enough in a small way, and made him a worthwhile return. He paid himself the profits and then after a certain time he became eligible for social charge on a presumed income much bigger than he had from the business. As I recall, he said it was the equal of a full time wage. It is my impression that in the France, when you employ a worker, you pay that salary and a pretty much equal amount again to the state.

This used to be said pre BREXIT to be the main reason so many French people were working in London back then. It was much harder to get a job in France then, supposedly because of this.
 
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flecc

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Thank you for your detailed reply. We could argue endlessly using the statistics but I'll try to keep my response as short as possible

The ratio of houses to people changes from 2.4 persons per dwelling in England in 1991 to 2.2 persons per dwelling in 2021.
The measured time span is far too short. I quote examples of occupancy over lifetimes when the earlier occupancies were commonly far larger than 2.4 per dwelling. Nor do I accept that Google knows what the true immigrant population is now or their multi-occupancy rate.

But then I thought about what the housing situation would be had we not had about ten million incomers since 1991.
But Google tells me that 5.5 million Brits live in other countries now, more than halving the 10 million. My second sister and her partner are examples, now living in Bulgaria permanently. You'll recall that previously she was married in a four person household. That fragmented after separation into herself and a new partner in one home, her ex husband alone in one home until his recent death, her bachelor son in one home and her daughter with a husband in one home with no children. Four homes instead of one, an overall situation unknown in the 1940s and 1950s and not common until much more recently, the social breakdown I referred to, largely since the 1980s.

The stated reason for the granting of so many settlement visas in 2022 and 2023, was the shortage of care staff.

Social care is not rocket science. With better pay and conditions we should be able to supply personnel for such roles from the nation's own resources. If a nation of 68 million people can not supply workers to fulfil its needs there is some kind of internal disaster going on.

My view is that the disaster is a combination of dreadful pay and conditions in some areas of work, brought on by the addiction to cheap foreign labour and a VERY easy regime being operated by the gate keepers of free money for people who don't work.

Care workers looking after people in their own homes have disgraceful work conditions and pay. I know a lady who did this work and could go into the details if required. She recently gave up work and is now unemployed.

I know a number of other people who have chosen to be unemployed simply because they don't want to work and think it is not worth their while. The sensible answer to this issue is NOT to open the borders to people from impoverished nations, but to improve the conditions and address the issues which prevent recruitment.
Fully agree with these quoted points.

The UK economy and social services system has become a giant PONZI scheme, addicted to recruiting more people from abroad to pay for rewards for people already here. Like all PONZI schemes it will inevitably run into disaster pretty soon unless it is stopped.
Here I have to disagree again, there are no rewards for people already here. The whole benefits system is far harsher than previously and has steadily got worse.

During the latter decades of my employment I always argued that it was entirely possible to live adequately on unemployment benefit with most insisting one could not. So when I stopped work in 1991 I didn't announce that but signed on as unemployed, simulating that with a separate bank account, the only one used.

I duly received £44.15 per week, a tenth of my previous net income, but the state also paid my housing costs ( Council Tax, Management Company charges and buildings insurance).

Skilled in living very economically, I completed year one in perfect balance, no gain, no loss. but that included running an old banger legally so I could drive to sign on at the job centre the required every second week!

Year two a change in the rules meant transfer to income support, still £44 a week but a small change in the pence. With my increasing learnt skills I completed that second year with a gain of £350, so living on a net £37 a week and still running the entirely legal car, insured, MOT'd and taxed.

Was it tough? No not at all, rather it was two of my most enjoyable years of my life. We all like to be proved right and I'd done that in emphatic fashion keeping precise comprehensive records. My also unemployed friends who'd insisted it was was impossible all said "for gods sake don't tell the government". :D

But in today's far harsher regime that is impossible. For starters now only 80% of housing costs are paid, so one often has the impossibility of finding the other 20% of mortgage payments from the low unemployment pay, resulting in many losing their home, an aspect of today's housing loss you haven't covered.

I could go on for ages with these arguments but I'll stop now by sayng that the real problem is that Britain is no longer viable and hasn't been since 1950. George Osborne and the Tories were right with the need for austerity to correct our long standing situation, but were far too gentle. What was really needed was far closer to my drastic 90% cut in income in that unemployment period, to get us used to living well within our means instead of on ever increasing borrowings.
.
 
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Ghost1951

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The measured time span is far too short. I quote examples of occupancy over lifetimes when the earlier occupancies were commonly far larger than 2.4 per dwelling. Nor do I accept that Google knows what the true immigrant population is now or their multi-occupancy rate.
I was agreeing with your salient point that occupancy was now lower and that this has in impact in the availability of dwellings to house the population.

Google gets the information from official statistics. The numbers are right and easily findable on sites like .gov.uk and others.

But Google tells me that 5.5 million Brits live in other countries now, more than halving the 10 million.
Yes indeed - my brother being one of them - and his wife, and a medic niece of mine, but this fact does not affect the assertion I made that we have a gain of ten million migrants since the 1990s and that they all require houses which are not available to others. Remember - my initial point was that we have not been building anything like enough houses to shelter the population we have. This has led to a severe shortage - even a crisis of supply and has led to spiralling costs through competition for the available stock. Any essential item in short supply automatically rises in price through competition. Its the first lesson in economics, or it was when I was a boy at school learning about supply and demand.

That can not be challenged.

Here I have to disagree again, there are no rewards for people already here. The whole benefits system is far harsher than previously and has steadily got worse.
The fact that we have 9.29 million working age people who are not economically active (data source UK Parliament) suggests that many of them are living on benefits. Granted some are early retired on pensions, but there are many who are simply scrounging a living. I know some and see them going about. I could take you to a house with three people in that category. The mother is sixty and the two sons are 24 and 28 years old. Both are doing 'unoffficial, part time work', while claiming income support. It is FAR TOO EASY for lads like them to get free money and opt out of the mainstream economic world.

One of the big pressures on politicians is their addiction to gnp growth. They know that they need vast amounts of taxes to support public spending, so they are secretly wedded to population growth - especially of young adults - migrants in other words. It has become a PONZI scheme because some of them pay taxes, but they soon become net takers and add to the welfare bill.
Yes - I think it would be possible to keep this up for ever so I will stop.
 
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Ghost1951

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Jun 2, 2024
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Here's an antidote to some of the far right twaddle posted on this thread, bring back the Clarion Cycling Club.

What far right twaddle JIm?

Utter bo llox.

There is no far right anything here - only sensible economics and analysis of facts.

The evident fact that you think it is wrong but say nothing to refute any of the points suggests that you simply can't do it, but just dislike it and call it names.
 

guerney

Esteemed Pedelecer
Sep 7, 2021
11,530
3,276
If you want to know the answer to that you only need to look at how much obesity there is in the UK now. It is a massive epidemic and easily accounts for the diseases which disable many people.
Noticed the other day that of my 16 immediate neighbours including me, 13 are disgusting wobby fatsos, as I was until forced by self-created bodily high pressure issues (including excessive flatulence) to agressively slim down to my currently soooo much more attractive athletic looking hidden visceral fat blighted new chick magnet self. Boy was that a two year odd slog, still is. BTW are 8kph mobility scooters allowed to travel at that speed on pavements? While wearing my pedestrian skinsuit disguise the other day over my orange lizard body, one almost ran me over on the pavement. The rider had one leg sticking out to make room for a child culed up into one side of the footwell. I could have been run over and kicked at roughly the same time. Those things are heavy man, plus the rider was a yet another disgusting wobbly fasto. The kid was mercifully small and skinny.
 
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jimriley

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 17, 2020
603
402
What far right twaddle JIm?

Utter bo llox.

There is no far right anything here - only sensible economics and analysis of facts.

The evident fact that you think it is wrong but say nothing to refute any of the points suggests that you simply can't do it, but just dislike it and call it names.
While my post followed yours it wasn't specific to it, just general thoughts. But if the cap fits. It's the conclusions following the analysis and the basis of them that are the problem.
I'm off on my bike caring and sharing.