Keir Starmer

[Phil Pascoe]

Unmployment has fallen? Only because of the way it's classified. We've 9,000,000 economically inactive. 380,000 Asians on benefits. Per capita GDP has stagnated for 20 years.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

UK
Russia
Belarus

We stand together United

You forgot most of the rest of the world. However do the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan etc. manage? It must be hell for them.

 

[ey_tony]

UK
Russia
Belarus

We stand together United

Do you really believe that only the ECHR benefits the British people and that our legal system is incapable of protecting its own citizens or metering out fair justice when needed?
The case I highlighted is a perfect example of an outside body interfering with what should be a simple process of evicting criminals and liars who have entered the county illegally! We've had this problem for years.
If we were allowed to deport criminals for whatever they've done to face the laws of their own country we wouldn't have so many coming here hiding behind the skirts of the ECHR in the first place. Once here it's virtually impossible to get rid of them.

The case of Abu Hamza al-Masri was another prime example of interference by the ECHR. Look at the lengths and costs they had to go to get rid of him.

If it can be proven beyond any doubt that someone coming here is guilty of a case of premeditated murder without any justification then they should be turfed out back to their home country forthwith to face the music with no appeals so that if they have the death penalty in that country then that's their problem not ours. We don't need them, we have enough of our own home-grown criminals without importing them.

The ECHR has ruled that the Albanian murderer has aright to family life...what about the person whom he shot in the head? Didn't they have a right to family life?
It's about time we got rid of this nonsense had a referendum on leaving the ECHR.

 

[woodieallen]

I chuckled this morning when I read that under VAT rules, the UK’s biggest and richest private schools are in line for substantial financial windfalls as a consequence of the government’s plan to impose VAT on their fees, according to official new guidance issued by tax authorities.

A document issued by HMRC on Thursday made clear that, once registered for VAT, independent schools will be able to claim back the tax they have paid on capital projects such as buildings and land acquisition completed over the past 10 years.

You couldn't make it up.

 

[AJB Temple]

Yes, the tax advisers twigged to this a while ago and schools have been taking action accordingly. It goes further. A private school I know quite well, provided a number of services to the adjacent primary and secondary schools for free. This included use of some sports facilities, drama and music facilities and some other things. With the VAT imposition the governors have "suggested" that it is inappropriate for parents to subsidise the state schools further, when they are already doing so by paying via taxes for state school places that they are not using.

 

[spanner48]

But French registered rescue vessels aren't picking up migrants in open water and dropping them off on UK shores (at least, as far as I'm aware)?

Indeed not. Have you not noticed the complete absence of SNSM [Société Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer] ? They couldn't care a toss about boat people.

 

[RobinBHM]

Do you really believe that only the ECHR benefits the British people and that our legal system is incapable of protecting its own citizens

I don’t trust the politicians who are so keen on leaving it.

Right wing Tories and Reform want to remove protections for U.K. citizens whilst putting themselves above the law.

The antics of Conservative Party since 2019 is a good indicator.

 

[Spectric]

Wages have stagnated since 2010, millions of people now suffer in work food and fuel poverty

Because there is so much strong competition our manufacturing is almost gone and we now have more service type jobs which will never pay the high rates people want and if we raise wages it makes us even less competitive and so down we go. I look back and was earning far more money in the nineties than I can earn now and plus the cost of living was much lower so what has gone wrong. Well I look around and no longer see all the industries we once had and job opportunities, you now see young men working in cafes and retail because there are just not the career options anymore where they could have been trainee's or apprentices. One of the problems has been that we have let house prices outpace wages, they should have been restrained to keep a roof over peoples heads without extortionate mortgages and so eased the cost of living.

 

[ey_tony]

I don’t trust the politicians who are so keen on leaving it.

Right wing Tories and Reform want to remove protections for U.K. citizens whilst putting themselves above the law.

The antics of Conservative Party since 2019 is a good indicator.

I don't trust anyone particularly left wingers who want to retain the ECHR as it's ham-stringing our legal system and society.
This isn't some third world dictatorship. Our legal system has been the example to set for most advanced nations of the world and anyone who isn't a fan of a Federal Europe can see where the problem lies.

 

[Sachakins]

Not if it is enforced by law. Quite the opposite. An insult. Destroys respect and ******* integration.
How on earth could they show respect after 130 years of brutal colonisation? And why?

Respect is earned not given
Integration is a two way street
Countries have laws, accept it or leave.
Colonisation has nothing to do with it.
Accepting cultural norms of a new country brings inclusion
Rejecting cultural norms of a new country shows arrogance and segregation.

That's why.

 

[spanner48]

It doesn’t mean you are correct.

Your arguments seem largely to be built on cognitive bias not facts

And your's?

 

[Yorkieguy]

Do you really believe that only the ECHR benefits the British people and that our legal system is incapable of protecting its own citizens or metering out fair justice when needed?
The case I highlighted is a perfect example of an outside body interfering with what should be a simple process of evicting criminals and liars who have entered the county illegally! We've had this problem for years.
If we were allowed to deport criminals for whatever they've done to face the laws of their own country we wouldn't have so many coming here hiding behind the skirts of the ECHR in the first place. Once here it's virtually impossible to get rid of them.

The case of Abu Hamza al-Masri was another prime example of interference by the ECHR. Look at the lengths and costs they had to go to get rid of him.

If it can be proven beyond any doubt that someone coming here is guilty of a case of premeditated murder without any justification then they should be turfed out back to their home country forthwith to face the music with no appeals so that if they have the death penalty in that country then that's their problem not ours. We don't need them, we have enough of our own home-grown criminals without importing them.

The ECHR has ruled that the Albanian murderer has aright to family life...what about the person whom he shot in the head? Didn't they have a right to family life?
It's about time we got rid of this nonsense had a referendum on leaving the ECHR.

Warning, this may induce drowsiness - don't operate machinery!

I concur with your view about the Albanian, albeit I don't know of the judgement or the reasoning.

Firstly, as to 'leaving the ECHR', that ship has already sailed:

The UK has it's own Human Rights Act, which conforms to the UDHR and ECHR.

The UK Human Rights Act 1998 sets out the fundamental rights and freedoms that everyone in the UK is entitled to. It incorporates the rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic British law. The Human Rights Act came into force in the UK in October 2000.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents

In June 2022, the UK Government had published a 'Bill of Rights' which laid out plans to repeal the Human Rights Act. The Commission believed the provisions in the Bill would water down human rights protections, make access to justice more difficult and put the UK in breach of its international obligations.

I don't see Sir Keir Starmer KC - a Human Rights Lawyer - wanting to take a second pop at that, nor should he. It was a ludicrous proposal, given that at the end of WW2, the UK, and UK lawyers were a major player in the drafting of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Rights of all Human Beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanour Roosevelt, it was accepted by the General Assembly on 10 December 1948. Of the 58 members of the United Nations at the time: 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained, and two did not vote.

"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status".

Article 26:​

1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

Errm, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran?

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

The European Convention on Human Rights is the first Council of Europe’s convention and the cornerstone of all its activities. It was adopted in 1950 and entered into force in 1953. Its ratification is a prerequisite for joining the Organisation.

The European Court of Human Rights oversees the implementation of the Convention in the 46 Council of Europe member states. Individuals can bring complaints of human rights violations to the Strasbourg Court once all possibilities of appeal have been exhausted in the member state concerned. The States condemned by the European Court of Human Rights have the obligation to erase the consequences of the violation for the victim and to take general measures such as amending their legislation or their juridical practices.

(There are those who mistakenly believe that the ECHR is a European Union organisation. It isn't).

There are 46 ECHR judges in all, including British judges:

https://www.echr.coe.int/composition-of-the-court

Secondly, the UK has it's own Supreme Court, where most British human rights issues are resolved:

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom:

We are the final court of appeal in the UK for civil cases, and for criminal cases from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Supreme Court hears cases of the greatest public or constitutional importance affecting the whole population.

The Human Rights Act 1998, which came into force in October 2000, made available, for the first time, a remedy for breach of the European Convention on Human Rights in the UK courts. This means that, in appropriate cases, all UK courts, including the Supreme Court, are tasked with deciding whether public bodies have acted compatibly with the European Convention on Human Rights. In addition, through the Human Rights Act, Parliament imposed on all UK courts, including the Supreme Court, a duty to interpret legislation so as that it is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, so far as it is possible to do so.

If it is not possible to interpret legislation compatibly with the Convention, the courts can issue a "declaration of incompatibility" – which sends a clear steer to legislators that they should change the law to make it Convention-compliant. No UK court, including the Supreme Court, has the power to "strike down" legislation if it is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Human Rights Act also requires UK courts, including the Supreme Court, to "take account" of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (which sits in Strasbourg). UK courts are not required, however, always to follow the decisions of that Court. Indeed, they can decline to do so, particularly if they consider that the Strasbourg Court has not sufficiently appreciated or accommodated particular aspects of our domestic constitutional position.

Note: The European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights exist separately from the European Union. The Supreme Court's relationship with the Strasbourg Court is not, therefore, changed by the UK's exit from the European Union.

There is also the 'International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights' of which are a total of 174 parties to the Covenant, but that includes Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Iraq, so it doesn’t mean they all abide by the Covenant - clearly they don't, but we're supposed to be the good guys, so we do comply:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights

Ironically, British representatives in particular, were extremely frustrated that the proposal had moral but no legal obligation. (It was not until 1976 that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force, giving a legal status to most of the Declaration).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights

If there are security concerns, British citizens can, and are, stripped of their British citizenship.

How many people have lost their citizenship?​

According to the Home Office, 220 people were stripped of their British citizenship for the public good between 2010 and 2022. That was almost always due to national security concerns. The highest year on record was 2017, when 104 people lost their citizenship. In comparison, three people lost their citizenship in 2022, the latest year for which data is available.

Article 12 guarantees freedom of movement, including the right of persons to choose their residence, to leave and return to a country. These rights apply to legal aliens as well as citizens of a state, and can be restricted only where necessary to protect national security, public order or health, and the rights and freedoms of others

The article also recognises a right of people to enter their own country: the right of return The Human Rights Committee interprets this right broadly as applying not just to citizens, but also to those stripped of or denied their nationality. They also regard it as near-absolute; "there are few, if any, circumstances in which deprivation of the right to enter one's own country could be reasonable".

Despite those protections, on 22 February 2023 the UK Special Immigration Appeals Commission upheld the UK Home Secretary’s decision to strip Shamima Begum of her citizenship. Shamima Begun was one of three 15-yr old schoolgirls who were radicalised, groomed and trafficked to Syria - the other two of whom were killed.

https://www.statelessness.eu/update...teless-still-deprived-her-british-citizenship

Worth listening to the video:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53428191

I suspect she will engender little sympathy from many in this thread, despite what she's endured. The 'Militant Daily Mail Reading Tendency' will doubtless say: 'She brought it on herself - serves her right'.

The bottom line when it comes to whatever anyone cares to call people who make it these shores - illegals, benefit scroungers, asylum seekers etc, is that they will keen on coming here, (and to France, Germany, Italy Greece etc), and the likelihood is that when their asylum claims are processed, two thirds will be approved. That leaves a third who Kier Starmer says 'will be removed'. He's yet to say exactly where they'll be removed to, until of course he 'smashes the gangs and stops the coming'. I won't hold my breath.

 

[ey_tony]

Because there is so much strong competition our manufacturing is almost gone and we now have more service type jobs which will never pay the high rates people want and if we raise wages it makes us even less competitive and so down we go. I look back and was earning far more money in the nineties than I can earn now and plus the cost of living was much lower so what has gone wrong. Well I look around and no longer see all the industries we once had and job opportunities, you now see young men working in cafes and retail because there are just not the career options anymore where they could have been trainee's or apprentices. One of the problems has been that we have let house prices outpace wages, they should have been restrained to keep a roof over peoples heads without extortionate mortgages and so eased the cost of living.

It's greed which has forced up the property prices.
At one time you got a mortgage of 2.5 times your annual salary but then the bubbles started to inflate and greedy people saw property as a quick way of making a fast buck rather than a long term investment but they weren't bright enough at property investment and ended up borrowing way beyond their means from greedy lenders and so the house prices rose. It happened in the 1970s, in the late 1980s and then culminated in the market crash in 2008.

All created by irresponsible borrowers and lenders.
In 2010, interest rates should have started to rise but there were 3 million homes at risk of being repossessed due to borrowers being unable to service their mortgages if interest rates had risen and no government would want to preside over that even if it was the fault of the clowns who borrowed too much and the clowns who loaned them far too much.
Many people actually put nothing into the properties. They didn't even save and put down a deposit. They borrowed 100% or even more mortgages. They had no equity in their properties as they were over priced and they couldn't sell them due to negative equity.

It was the pensioners again who'd saved for their old age who lost out as the interest rates were reduced to help the greedy borrowers so their anticipated interest on their life savings to help pay their bills was effectively wiped out.

House prices should be at least 40% lower than they are today but the greed of those since the 1980s has meant prices were way too high and why younger people today simply can't afford to buy their own homes.

All you have to is compare the cost of an average house in the mid-70s and use an interest calculator to work out how much that sum of money would be worth today and then compare to the average house prices of today.
I can remember living in a village where you could purchase a newly built detached bungalow on an estate for around £8000. Today that same bungalow will cost maybe in excess £265,000.
Had that £8000 been invested at the average inflation rate it would be worth around £80,000 in today's money which explains why house prices are so high. They've risen far faster than inflation due to greed.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I saw a nice two bed bungalow with a decent garden sell for £200,000 - my father built it and sold in 1960 for ..................................... £999.

 

[Chris152]

It's greed which has forced up the property prices.
At one time you got a mortgage of 2.5 times your annual salary but then the bubbles started to inflate and greedy people saw property as a quick way of making a fast buck rather than a long term investment but they weren't bright enough at property investment and ended up borrowing way beyond their means from greedy lenders and so the house prices rose. It happened in the 1970s, in the late 1980s and then culminated in the market crash in 2008.

All created by irresponsible borrowers and lenders.
In 2010, interest rates should have started to rise but there were 3 million homes at risk of being repossessed due to borrowers being unable to service their mortgages if interest rates had risen and no government would want to preside over that even if it was the fault of the clowns who borrowed too much and the clowns who loaned them far too much.
Many people actually put nothing into the properties. They didn't even save and put down a deposit. They borrowed 100% or even more mortgages. They had no equity in their properties as they were over priced and they couldn't sell them due to negative equity.

It was the pensioners again who'd saved for their old age who lost out as the interest rates were reduced to help the greedy borrowers so their anticipated interest on their life savings to help pay their bills was effectively wiped out.

House prices should be at least 40% lower than they are today but the greed of those since the 1980s has meant prices were way too high and why younger people today simply can't afford to buy their own homes.

All you have to is compare the cost of an average house in the mid-70s and use an interest calculator to work out how much that sum of money would be worth today and then compare to the average house prices of today.
I can remember living in a village where you could purchase a newly built detached bungalow on an estate for around £8000. Today that same bungalow will cost maybe in excess £265,000.
Had that £8000 been invested at the average inflation rate it would be worth around £80,000 in today's money which explains why house prices are so high. They've risen far faster than inflation due to greed.

Aye, greed's written into our culture. Ours is an advanced capitalist economy, currently in a state of decay.

 

[ey_tony]

Apparently Rachael Reeves claimed £1225 for help with filling in her tax return....this is the woman in charge the UK's finances....you just couldn't make it up.
I used to fill in my own forms every year without the need of accountants simply because I understood what I was doing.
It's not as if she has numerous incomes to declare...if she needs help filling a regular tax form then she SHOULDN'T be in the job! She's just not up to it!

 

[RobinBHM]

It's greed which has forced up the property prices

It’s 4 decades of neo liberal, right wing policies.

Starting with Thatchers flogging of council houses houses to buy working class voters and stopping councils rebuilding.

Then we have deregulation of banking with interest only mortgages and self cert mortgages.

Then we have vast amounts of QE from 2008 onwards.

Then we have the big 6 house builders being donors to the Tory party in exchange for policies which benefit the house builders.

High house prices are transferring assets from ordinary working people to the wealthy.

And that explains main reason for UKs problems: wealth inequality

 

[Phil Pascoe]

You forgot 10,000,000 immigrants.

 

[Spectric]

It's greed which has forced up the property prices.

People don't seem to buy a home anymore, they are sold on the idea of it being an investment without realising that if everyone is on the same platform then no one is really gaining anything unless you sell up and immigrate.

At one time you got a mortgage of 2.5 times your annual salary

It could even be better, I liked 0.9 times myself.

 

[Noel]

Do you really believe that only the ECHR benefits the British people and that our legal system is incapable of protecting its own citizens or metering out fair justice when needed?
The case I highlighted is a perfect example of an outside body interfering with what should be a simple process of evicting criminals and liars who have entered the county illegally! We've had this problem for years.
If we were allowed to deport criminals for whatever they've done to face the laws of their own country we wouldn't have so many coming here hiding behind the skirts of the ECHR in the first place. Once here it's virtually impossible to get rid of them.

The case of Abu Hamza al-Masri was another prime example of interference by the ECHR. Look at the lengths and costs they had to go to get rid of him.

If it can be proven beyond any doubt that someone coming here is guilty of a case of premeditated murder without any justification then they should be turfed out back to their home country forthwith to face the music with no appeals so that if they have the death penalty in that country then that's their problem not ours. We don't need them, we have enough of our own home-grown criminals without importing them.

The ECHR has ruled that the Albanian murderer has aright to family life...what about the person whom he shot in the head? Didn't they have a right to family life?
It's about time we got rid of this nonsense had a referendum on leaving the ECHR.

So, how would you maintain the GFA if the UK left the ECHR?