UKIP leader

I agree ww I am 55 and will be working for at least another 15 years I guess. I pity the young ones I really do. Having to run faster and faster just to stand still. Will they ever see retirement ?

Jess said
Well I can see where he's coming from inasmuch as London will be right royally poleaxed without a non-stop influx of immigrants to keep it running on a basic level (hotels, catering, cleaning etc) and to contribute high-level skills in business, education and health.

This is the myth, but its nonsense. London does not have the spac for a "non-stop influx of immigrants" for heavens sake! It cannot house everyone already there and many immigrants are already living in appallingly overcrowded conditions.

There are many large successful capital cities which manage with few or no immigrants to do the low paid jobs! Indeed in the eighties Londons population was falling and until Blair took office immigration had slowed to modest levels. There is no reason why we shouldnt repeat that. Wages would increase, some less successful businesses, coffee shops and fast food joints might close, others would have to become more efficient. The market would adapt That would all be a good thing.

We have the benefit of being retired though. Our children have to earn a living and so have to put up with all that entails. I look at the stress that working life b rings to them and wonder sometimes just how much more can be asked of them. I do think that we are more unhappy now as a whole than we have been in living memory.

We have very few immigrants here. There just aren't enough jobs around to go round.

That does not surprise me in the slightest petra . I do smile though when I walk along the beach (across the road from my house) breathing in the clean, sea air. I smile and chat to various friendly people and walk back home through the park stopping to feed the ducks. I might (briefly) think of the people crushed on ww's "new train" with miserable faces going to work in the Shard, the cube or some other pretentiously named lump of metal and glass, going home to their million pound mortgages and I wouldn't swap for anything in the world.

This post industrial period was always going to be difficult. But undoubtedly it could have been helped with forward planning and financial assistance by government. But with this government hell bent on austerity it was never going to happen

gilly I couldn't agree more. And yes petra that is what may well happen but with what result? It doesn't bode well. Khan is getting the best deal for London that is his job and what he was elected to do. Now perhaps the Northern mayors should do the same.

Well I can see where he's coming from inasmuch as London will be right royally poleaxed without a non-stop influx of immigrants to keep it running on a basic level (hotels, catering, cleaning etc) and to contribute high-level skills in business, education and health.
If you add to that the risk of massive damage to the financial sector...
That's partly why London voted remain isn't it.

That's it exactly gillybob If nobody is listening to you, ignoring you and somebody comes along promising you something different be it true or false ( as in Trump) you 'might' give them a chance, if only to show the Westminster bubble the finger.
Something else to add to your anger: Sadiq Khan wants a 'bespoke' brexit deal for London How far up your own backside can you get.

Encouraging young people into universities is fine but there have to be the jobs to go to afterwards. As it stands many of our best brains have to move South to "use" their degrees or else take pathetically low paid jobs doing something that has nothing to do with their degree. My dad worked in heavy industry in a company employing almost 1000 people (mainly young men) . The company closed and my dad at 60 never worked again. Some of the younger men trickled down into small businesses such as ours but we are talking about 100 max. The rest (and I know a few of them) have been forced to take jobs in Asda, Morrisons etc, They were skilled people.

Add to that the mines, the shipyards and many other heavy industries etc. and the problem is massive.

I think in a way both governments have identified the problem, but neither been effective.

With the demise in old industries, one of the ways Labour attempted to assist was to open up further education to the working classes, and help them enter the new knowledge market. This must have helped some young, but clearly not the older folk.
The Tories. Are quite good on rhetoric but not quite sure what they've done but then I'm biased oh there's the New train!!

The problem is though ww that neither the Conservatives nor Labour do anything for the working classes either.

You have it spot on Penstemmon and JessM .

I live and work in the "forgotten North" that place right at the top of England.

Successive governments ignore us. They closed our mines, shipyards and heavy industry but did not replace them with anything else. Small engineering businesses such as ours sprang up in order to try and make up for the shortfall but we do it without any help in fact quite the opposite actually we just get constantly kicked in the teeth. I (and most Northerners) are sick to the back teeth of hearing about London. Londons new rail link, Londons house prices, Londons tube strikes, Londons new runway.... It's so bloody boring. If any government really gave a damn they would cancel all unnecessary investment for London and spread the wealth around the country but they won't will they? We can't even get investment for the A1 to be made into a dual carriage way. It's unbelievable.

It wouldn't surprise me if UKIP do get a foothold in these parts. Conservatives don't give a stuff about us and the Labour Party are worse than useless.

One day the peasants will revolt !

Apologies for the rant.

That was going to be my point exactly before I was waylaid by someone objecting to my argument.

I live in the so called prosperous south, as I was trying to say, and ukip simply can't get a foothold here.

It is lessons that governments need to learn -that where people feel let down and left behind they will fall for the propaganda of division and hate, but it is a fools paradise. UKIP will never do anything for the poor and working classes. They have no answers other than creating a society that identifies "others" to blame and distrust. Try to find any information about their intended policies - it doesn't exist.

Exactly Penstemmon. Successive governments have been carried away with the success of London and the notion that "the market" would somehow eventually benefit everyone. Much more could have been done to move civil service and similar jobs out of the capital and into areas where good quality office jobs are badly needed. And much more could have been done to improve railway connections in the North.
But as you say, UKIP have done nothing other than swan around stirring up hatred and collecting those 20 MEP salaries without doing much work for them (and now AM salaries as well). And in the case of Nutall and Farage, illegally using some of their EU allowances to fund UKIP campaigning.

There has been a huge failure of both Conservative and Labour to offer any practical hope to towns and areas decimated by the loss, through national policy/ international economics/ 21st century tecnology, of local industries that sustained local communities.
They have been left desolate, workless and hopeless. This is in both former industrial and rural areas. Governments could have built up employment opportunities / infrastructure in areas before or immediately after the carpet was pulled away but successive governments chose not to. This has left a space for the power hungry to manipulate these communities with politics of division and hate. They offer no real policies that will improve the opportunities in these areas but simply use the frustration and anger of the communities for their own ends. If anyone out there knows what UKIP, and/ or other far right political groups have planned to support regeneration and improve the lot of the workless/ poor communities I would like to hear it.

Bigoted? Incoherent? Narrow parameters of my belief system? reason is lost?

My you do have a way with words don't you?

It is just that I fundamentally disagree with every fibre of my being with mairs political ideology

As I have not set out my 'political ideology' then you cannot possibly have more than your own bigoted stereotyped notion of what that is WW.

I am sorry you cannot remain coherent with anyone who stretches the narrow parameters of your belief system. I guess when 'fibres' take over reason is lost!

Here have a cuppa!

DId you try my Political quiz link btw WW?
uk.isidewith.com/

It's called dog whistle politics

"There has been a lot of hate directed to pensioners and older people on social media ever since last June.It'sad fact of life, and those younger people who say it will live in all towns and cities"

Exactly right. I cannot imagine even the most furious Bremoaner who you might find on Gransnet would wish to suggest older people should have been barred from voting.

The hate was coming largely from younger people on social media, although I have heard before and since despicable comments by middle aged people on the radio, even presenters giving credence to the vile idea that remaining life expectancy could affect the validity of right to vote.

That is not to say that generally I can't debate and chat quite happily with anyone on GN. It is just that I fundamentally disagree with every fibre of my being with mairs political ideology.

Do not tell me how I should be feeling - I know how I feel and I am generally diametrically opposed to mairs politics. It is a fact. I cannot at any level identify with her stance ,-,she knows that , which is why we clash so fiercely. I could go into why - she knows why and that is all that matters.

I do try sometimes you know ( to agree) and in fact I have done so a few times on past threads, our politics are different but it's always possible to agree on certain things.
You have become very angry about something here which was not intended, I have read the posts several times.

Well bless my soul I wouldn't have guessed that rose actually I don't think I would have survived the shock if you had agreed with me.

It won't always be possible for me to agree with you ww and I think you have it very wrong in this case.