Calais Visitors

[Alex22]

England is twice as crowded as Germany, plenty of stats out there showing this and of course we're a smaller country.  So I imagine the answer to 'who says we're full '  is the statisticians.

[cheddar-caveman]

I don't think it so much a question of having the space, there's plenty of that, but having the infrastructure and services to cope with many more people. The NHS is already at breaking point and most schools are full to bursting with 30+ in classes. There are also an awful lot of nationals out of work (probably many not wanting to I admit).

[Alex22]

I disagree, there isn't plenty of space in our big cities unfortunately.

[Undercover Pensioner]

I don't think it so much a question of having the space, there's plenty of that, but having the infrastructure and services to cope with many more people.

cheddar-caveman I certainly agree that this is the case but I don't believe it is because of the additional numbers. I think you have to look deeply to see why the country feels 'full' to groups of people but not to all. The housing, infrastructure and services have not been built.  More than that some areas have lost industries leaving them like ghost towns.  They often don't have any effect from additional numbers and yet they will talk about how their jobs have been 'taken'.  Governments have been glad to take the taxes people coming into the country have provided but have not done anything in return.  They did not renew industry where it had died.  They did not build the hospitals, schools or roads.  It is possible and even necessary to do these things but the vanity of Osbourne made him forget that if you put the patient on a diet and he looses so much weight he dies that is not a successful loss of weight it is a very unsuccessful outcome. 

[Akbuk]

I voted leave for some of the reasons already given. Recent events have shown us what's going on, 120 flats occupied by around 600 people. Some of them occupants were elderly, maybe living on their own or as a couple, we can all work the maths out.
I watched Andrew Neil a few weeks back interview a LibDem MP. Neil asked him how many refugees his constituency had taken in? Eerrrr about 20. Neil, thats not correct, you have taken in less than 10. MP, thats wrong, Neil, I have your local authorities figures here. Neil, why is it your constituency in the South takes 10 or as you say 20 but Salford Manchester has taken in just under 600? Silence !!
Of course refugees are different to EU citizens BUT nonetheless at the end of the day its the head count. That head count goes right through this countries society & its inevitable certain areas are going to pay the price............and they have. Starting with Boston, Lincolnshire.

[BazzerPontefract]

Incredible.
It not now simply Geo Osborne and the magic money tree he chose not to use, it the magic land mass with ever increasing surface area on which to build homes and motorways and hospitals, it the magic natural environment with ever increasing productive capability to grow food, it the magic energy source to fire the bricks and cement to fire and roll the steel to generate the cladding and insulation, it the magic labour and skills source (but just a minute, is that not the only thing that makes any sense, importing immigrants to build the hospitals and schools and home for yes, you've guessed, ever more immigrants).
Grown-Ups know there is only finite resources and these should be invested prudently to solve some of our existing problems we have, rather than adding more problems to the already large stack of native problems.

[cheddar-caveman]

I'm sorry UP but this cannot be laid solely at Osbourne's door. It goes back over several decades and consecutive governments. The Cons won't just borrow as do the Labs, they try to keep within their budgets, prudent money management.
Any household that spends money the way the Labs do very soon find themselves bankrupt. Fortunately for the Labs, but not for the country, there is always the IMF with billions available for such extravagance, rubbing their hands as our debt climbs and climbs.

[Undercover Pensioner]

I entirely agree once again cheddar-caveman; it cannot just be laid at Osborne's door.  However, I believe that to say "The Cons won't just borrow as do the Labs, they try to keep within their budgets, prudent money management." is to misunderstand how a countries budget works.  We can easily lay that misunderstanding at Thatcher's door - it has certainly been used to frighten the voters by all parties since then but is really not how the majority of economists see a country; it is not the economy of a household.

My argument against Osbourne is that, while austerity was needed in the first two or three years after the global crisis, it was entirely the wrong instrument to continue using after that.  He has disrupted the flow in the economy to such an extent that he has damaged it.  No one should be against balanced budgets - why would you be?  But you do have to ask yourself who the economy is for.  In a country where part of our economy works on tax and government spending (another model would probably require Kim Jong In or an equivalent right-wing dictator who owns everything) to attack just one area - which is what Osbourne has done, destabilises the economy and stops it growing. 

I watched an interview with Osbourne recently where he basically said that it was an interesting experiment but, oh yes, it's failed.  Not a word about the people involve in his failure that he has put into poverty.

The Labour Party is suggesting a Keynesian economy.  Most economists believe this works although it is not designed, by it's nature, make the rich richer merely by hanging on to capital; the have to make the capital work.  If you like your Maggie Thatcher idea of an economy being like a household budget Keynes offered an idea that is similar in it's simplicity. 

In the good time you save.
In the bad times you use that saving to spend on capital investment.
If you need to borrow in the bad time it is only for capital investment.
You balance your daily living expenses against income.

What Osbourne has done to us has left us, now the majority of economies are growing again, alone with the USA with stagnant income growth and now the possibility of soaring prices.