I agree. In calling UKIP supporters (not just members) loonies and fruitcakes Cameron immediately alienated tens of thousands of people who were mildly interested in what UKIP had to say. Mr Brown carried on the work.

Not all Labour supporters nor Conservative supporters agree with everything every MP of that party says. This is a democratic country and each person is entitled to a different opinion to the leader or to other MPs. So anyone who believes that the FIRST priority for the UK is to leave Europe must seriously think about voting UKIP.

Voting for UKIP does not then mean that they agree with all its stated and rumoured policies. As you imply, Jeedz, insulting a Brit for his beliefs merely hardens that person's resolve to see them through. I would not insult any Labour supporter by assuming that everyone who voted for Blair's government agreed with his decision to participate in the killing thousands of innnocent Iraqis.

And by the way, for the younger posters here, Heath sacked Powell not for his 'racist' beliefs (which were a media myth) but for telling people at the forthcoming election to vote Labour. No-one who saw Powell's late-night TV broadcasts in the 1960s could possible have believed he was a racist. He was simply explaining the worries, real or imaginary, of his constituents. He believed that as an elected MP, that was his job.

He did, however, warn of the dangers of uncontrolled immigration. He was a historian, so he knew that the whole of the UK was made up of former immigrants! He was not against it per se.

Where are you getting this from?

If mankind originates in Africa and spreads out from there then we all got here from somewhere else at some point or another in the past.

Brand has significantly more credibility than Farage, a former banker turned career politician with dodgy expenses claims and the gall to pretend he is working class and poor when he makes six figures a year. He has also spoken on the record of his aims to dismantle the NHS and replace it with American health insurance before someone told him that is unpopular so he completely flipped that policy.

I can only assume you don't know who Enoch Powell is if you criticise that reference.

I know who Enoch Powell is and I probably knew all about him before you did Phill, this game is not new to me, I also know that he is actually more popular in middle England than the media pretend and I know that a lot of people are somewhat warm to him. If you set him up as the devil how do you think his sympathisers will react?

Moving on, I wasn't playing 'who's best' but my point was that Russell Brand is not going to do us any favours by challenging Nigel Farage and he is definitely not as popular as he and his supporters assume. I also don't know where you get the idea that Farage pretends to be working class and poor, I think he pretends to understand the working class and I think this is why he is successful. While Farage, Miliband, Clegg, Cameron all have upper class, public school backgrounds, to the working men and women Farage looks like the only one who seriously cares about one of the top issues and concerns to them (immigration). Whether we like it or not this consistently polls in the top 3 for concerns and issues that people care about and if any of the other three parties want to do something about UKIP they need to start talking about this seriously.

I thought he was maybe referring to the Anglo Saxons etc, something which has been proven to be incorrect. If he was in fact referring to the fact we've all come out of Africa then the statement is pretty meaningless given there was no nation of Britain at the time.

Bit of tangent but when did the 'nation of Britain' originate? Most native Brits are a mix of mostly leftover upper Paleothic and neolithic farmers from the mid-east so both of these groups at some point 'migrated' to the UK. I don't like pointless reductionist statements like 'we are all immigrants if you go back far enough' as these platitudes neither address, solve or help the problem and the average mechanic worried about a Pole taking his job or a Muslim 'changing' his 'area' is not going to be swayed by empty words, but this statement is not untrue per se.

If I had to give an explanation that makes sense to me, rather than taking the 'nation of Britain' as a starting point (despite my previous statement) I'd consider the term immigrant instead. I'd say that I'd consider someone an immigrant when their movement to a new country has an impact, no matter how small, on the current population. For example, they are paying into the national tax pot, using services that are funded from taxes etc etc.

I've not given it too much thought and I'm sure there are a few flaws in there, I can think of a couple already, but I think it does away with the idea that everyone who came to the British Isles is an immigrant no matter how far back we go.

Fair enough, although this is a very British and post 1960s view of the word 'immigrant'. There's nothing wrong with that ofc, you are British (I assume) and this is a UK politarding thread. It's just that the word immigrant would have a very different definition in 1900s New York, modern UAE or 1970s Australia for example. I definitely get your point and definition in this context.

No, my definition would still apply in the examples you have given. I deliberately included both a positive and negative element and that would apply in 1900's New York, 1970s Australia and UAE.

Sorry, I read your example as the definition so yes you are right.

I agree they need to take immigration seriously and step one should be rejecting the ukip position. Instead they are not taking it seriously by trying to compete with who has the most flawed policy possible without being exactly as flawed as the "competition". The major parties, especially Conservatives, are playing the wrong game just because the wrong policy is currently popular amongst a certain segment of voters.

I agree with the meta point that just calling immigrant opposition racist wasn't helpful. Its also possible to be ignorant or xenophobic too, or some combo of the three.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HMhWB95ldQ

No Question Time tonight. Boo hoo.

The quality of the debate is as a rule poor and the politician's trot out their stock answers to most questions but what is worth noting is the actual questions that are asked by the representative audience.

C'mon, Barclays was called Boerclays for a while. Barclays is also rated the worst UK bank for honesty and customer service. I get that Barclays sponsors the Premier League so maybe you cut it some slack. But Barclays also paid a $300M fine for doing business with Cuba in violation of various sanctions (shortly before Jeb Bush went to work for them), as well as paying fines for money laundering, tax evasion, etc. And Barclays charges children 600 pounds to be mascots? That bank is a turd.

The worst American bank is probably JP Morgan, where Oxford-born Blythe Masters worked. Blythe is the person credited with inventing financial weapons of mass destruction, credit default swaps. She also led JP's Global Commodity division until this past summer, when JP sold it due to Dodd-Frank, and poor Blythe was not part of the sale. Though she made like $15M last year, so she ain't all that poor. About the sale of the business, Blythe said, "We are no longer able to make prices". "Make prices". Exactly. Another way to say that is, "rig prices" or "fix prices".





You can thank Blythe for paying through the nose for crude oil over the past 11 years.

She's a rather attractive bird tho.





And, Phil, don't tell me I'm being a misogynist, when dear Blythe is defacing your currency, literally, and at the BoE.


lol, a friend from Manchester once told me during an argument we were having over some word usage, "Don't tell me, we invented English!" lol, bastard, but it was hard to argue against that. I stole his beer on a regular basis though, so it all came out in the wash. Grolsch. Awesome beer.

True that.

If you're gonna attack barclays go for the libor scandal. As far as financial scandals go they don't get much bigger.

yeah, I think I mentioned libor in that post. That was clearly the worst. That we know about. Japanese banks are tame by comparison, and almost none of the Japanese banks were caught up in the sub-prime crisis. And I don't really expect UK regulators to yank Barclays charter. Taking down large banks really can crash or disrupt financial markets. I just never realized that Barclays is just as bad as any US bank.

IDK about the difference in ranking between the wunch but for me it was 'The world's local bank' HSBC when we found out that in fact were knowingly helping drug cartels, terrorist sponsors and dictatorships launder money-for me this is worse than rate manipulation and market rigging (it seems everyone was doing those two things 2004-2009).

But that kind of pastime is always good for a seat in the Lords.

Back to the 'immigrant' discussion amd I really believe that what irks the average Brit is not so much the problems which they think beset the country but the fact that politicians of the main parties constantly try to pretend that these problems do not exist - or that they are not as bad as we all know they are.

The most recent catalyst has been, of course, the blatant lie by Blair over Iraq which demonstrated once and for all that Parliament (many of whom stole public money by overstating their expenses) does not examine anything properly nor, apparently really care.

The public have for years been trying to get politicians to take the problems (perceived or otherwise) of the NHS, immigration, drugs, banks, the railways, police corruption, public drunkeness and other itms properly tackled. Instead they prefer to spend their time debating who shall head enquiries into who shall head enquiries into who shall look at possible wrongdoings by persons unknown; and gay marriage; and sort of wriggling around the question of whether there really were WMDs in Iraq 15 years ago.

It has taken UKIP to suddenly get both Labour and Conservative leaders to say that, "err, of course there's a problem with immigration, and we intend to tackle it by, err, doing something... although since we don't know how many illegal immigrants are in the country it's difficult...And yes, we are concerned that the EU, whose books have not been passed by auditors for 12 years is getting a bit above itself, and of course we always intended to get things changed, and, err, we will consider coming out if we dont. Perhaps."

That's one reason UKIP has been so popular - it's got the main parties thinking about real problems. Don't imagine for a moment that anyone can agree with all the policies attributed to UKIP (nor to any other party).

People's irrational fears =/= real problems.

Which real problems is UKIP thinking about?

Strictly, I didn't say UKIP was thinking about any problems - I suggested that what had been reported as coming from spokesmen or other UKIP sources had got other parties thinking about those possible problems.

Again, strictly I doubt whether the main parties have actually thought about much - most of their statements have probably been noted down on the back of *** packets rteady for the morning papers.

Since UKIP is a new, fragmented party it's inevitable that any potential manifesto or potential aims will be disjointed. I suspect they have not been ordered to sing from the same hymn sheet, as Labour was under Tony Blair. Personally I prefer people to have differing opinions and be allowed to express them, as should, surely, happen in a democratic society.

I must point out that I am not a member of any party - as Mr Mackay stated in 'Porridge' "I treat them all with equal contempt." Though there have been a few politicians whom I have admired.

This "new" party has been around for over two decades dude. How long do we have to wait for them to not be a ****ty jumbled mess of prejudice and lies feeding off the ignorant like a parasite?

Personally I prefer people having factually incorrect opinions and lies being called out for their bull****. Give me truth over kumbaya all opinions are equally valid any day.

That the cowards in the real parties aren't tackling the lies head on is disgusting. These problems really don't exist out they really are a fraction as bad as people wrongly believe when they do exist in some form. Most people don't even understand the law around immigration and how the anti immigrant nuts create most of the problems trying to solve these myths.

Also that you imply legalising gay marriage shouldn't have happened is super offensive, **** like this is why I hate that tabloid ignorance is infecting British politics giving extremists like ukip here and the neo Nazis in Greece power. It was the easiest civil rights fix ever and should have happened years ago. Welcome to equality, fascists.

What exactly are these problems then?

If we want to have a proportionally younger population that pays taxes and funds the NHS for our growing elderly to use, then importing immigrant workers would seem an excellent way to do it.