BRITAIN said it would cut the number of non-EU migrants allowed to work in the country by a fifth to a maximum of 21,700 a year, as it seeks to radically slash immigration levels.Oh dear. Look, I'm aware that I court some controversy by being in favour of open borders at least in principle, though I'm always careful to put a few conditions which I believe are absolutely essential prerequisites such as no taxpayer funded handouts, no free housing, no language assistance and no modification of the local culture. That's not an exhaustive list either, but you get the picture - the circumstances in which I'd support open borders are vanishingly unlikely under a government of any of the UK's main parties. All the same I'm still in favour of the ideal of free movement of money, goods, services and people, but even it's not even necessary to accept that much to see what a dumb idea a hard limit is. What do you do when your cap of 21,700 migrants is full halfway through the year? Tell applicants that they'll have to wait 'til the following year, perhaps. Okay, but it could be that among those number 21,701 and up is the world's most naturally gifted brain surgeon who suffered the misfortune of having been born in some war torn despotic shithole, and that they intended to leave the place and settle in Britain, dedicating their life and skills to the NHS. So what are they going to do when they hear, "Sorry, come back in six months?" They're probably going to go to another country rather than wait, and so Britain loses that talent maybe to here or New Zealand or Canada or whatever country is smart enough to welcome skilled migrants without shutting the door when an arbitrary number is reached. Doesn't even need to be a brain surgeon. It could be the stereotypical corner shop entrepreneur - doesn't matter as long as they're putting in. Why the fuck would any country want to limit the number of people who want to come in and work and contribute? Frankly it makes little more sense than NuLab's long term policy of inviting in every fucker who knows to get off the plane holding a hand out, palm up.
Home Secretary Theresa May also announced plans to tighten student and marriage visas, as the government seeks to cut migration from the current level of hundreds of thousands of arrivals a year, to tens of thousands.
And on the subject of NuLab, or UnNuLab or whatever we're going to call them now, they're not to be out-fuckwitted by a bunch of Tories and LibDems. Oh, no.
As he embarks on a review of the party Mr Miliband, labelled Red Ed during the leadership campaign, warned his party not to expect, what he described as a quiet life.Even dafter than Teresa May and the Cobbleition, and showing no greater understanding of the idea that people are free to move. Keeping out people who want to come in is hard but it's not a patch on keeping in people who've had enough and want to get out, and the more monied someone is the easier it is for them to leave one country for another. Either Red Ed is too thick to realise this and too ignorant of recent history to know that lower taxes increased revenue for Nigel Lawson, or he's simply a Laffer Curve Denialist who assumes that you can tax people to the point they simply stop working and still somehow get tax off them.
In an indication of the tax policy he wants Labour to pursue, he said the 50p top rate of income tax for people earning more than £150,000 should be permanent.
And this is precisely the kind of thing that keeps me opposed to both parties (I'm counting the Cobbleition as one party for the time being, though I sometimes count all of them as a single party with three wings). In their separate ways they're both equally committed not just to the big state and further loss of liberty but to continued stupidity as well. Dimmer leaders for a dumber Britain.
'Kinell.