NBTA - Which Planet Are They On ?

[Paul C]

This is the knub of the problem. Too many people in the world and stuff not being shared out fairly.

 

Define "fairly" though.....or to put it another way, and looking at the OP, is "fair" a waiting linear list, or based on an interpretation of housing need (eg having kids, not having another residence, etc)?

Edited November 7, 2016 by Paul C

[Dave_P]

 

Surely this is short term thinking?

People live longer so we have more old people, so we need more young people to look after them, so we import lots of immigrants. However these will themselves get old and need looking after, and likely have a lot of children (as is their culture) who will also get old. This looks like a situation that can only be sustained by exponential growth, which is itself not sustainable.

 

..............Dave

You're right but again the growth through immigration helps, not hinders, since the migrant workers will earn their money here and often retire back 'home', burdening their own countries. Obviously this is still problematic globally but not specifically for the UK.

[mrsmelly]

With the cost of land, materials and labour no house will be affordable for many. The answer was to have stopped Maggie selling off council houses.

 

Too late now! It is social housing that is required not affordable housing, as has been said all houses are afforded by somebody.

 

I completely agree. Although Maggie was undoubtedly along with Churchill our best Prime minister last century I found it an apalling and stupid bit of legislation to sell off council houses.

 

Tim

[spadefoot]

By "best", I assume you mean "most psychopathic".

[Mike Todd]

 

This always seems like a red herring to me. For a start, the rate of population growth in the UK isn't particularly high; it's about half the global average, I think, just over half a percent a year. (Yes, it's closer to 'baby boom' levels than the low rates we had from the 70s to the 90s, but still...). And in any case, a growing population generally goes hand in hand with a growing economy and a growing workforce, so assuming a fixed proportion of GDP is spent on schools, hospitals, training etc., there shouldn't be any particular problem with providing services to a population just because it's growing. This is especially true insofar as population growth is the result of immigration by economically active, working-age adults rather than high birth rates and low death rates. (Of course, the proportion of GDP spent on public services etc. isn't actually fixed; the present government is trying to bring it down from a long-term average of 40% or so to something more like 35%, which is why we're continuing to experience a squeeze on those services in spite of economic growth.)

The problekm is not so much population growth but the increase in housing demand, fuelled in part by the much larger number of households.

[Victor Vectis]

 

I completely agree. Although Maggie was undoubtedly along with Churchill our best Prime minister last century I found it an apalling and stupid bit of legislation to sell off council houses.

 

Tim

OK. I'll bite.

 

Clem Attlee?

 

Churchill won the war but lost the peace. And although she tried, Thatcher didn't manage to totally dismantle what the Attlee government set up in the late 1940s

[mrsmelly]

OK. I'll bite.

 

Clem Attlee?

 

Churchill won the war but lost the peace. And although she tried, Thatcher didn't manage to totally dismantle what the Attlee government set up in the late 1940s

 

Churchill was also a war monger which I do not like but he was the only man for the job at that moment in time. Hitler had to be dealt with.

Thatcher was too much of a materialist it was always about money and not welfare but she was the only woman for the job at the time, The unions had become ridiculously powerful and were all but running the country and had to be stopped. I say this as a working class lad with a father who was a shop steward of many years standing in a trade union though he never advocated striking stating it never worked. Hey ho Arthur Scargill has shown his true colours many times since the miners strike and still bleeds the NUM.

 

Tim

[carlt]

Churchill was also a war monger which I do not like but he was the only man for the job at that moment in time.

Likewise Atlee (which Churchill acknowledged, hence the Post-War Consensus).

[mrsmelly]

Likewise Atlee (which Churchill acknowledged, hence the Post-War Consensus).

 

Yes Churchill was a one trick pony but a hellofa one.

 

Tim

[Richard10002]

 

Surely this is short term thinking?

People live longer so we have more old people, so we need more young people to look after them, so we import lots of immigrants. However these will themselves get old and need looking after, and likely have a lot of children (as is their culture) who will also get old. This looks like a situation that can only be sustained by exponential growth, which is itself not sustainable.

 

 

 

Seems a bit simplistic to me.... Whose culture are you talking about? the culture of some immigrants is to have lots of children, although I sense that this is less the case as time goes by, and the culture of many immigrants is not to have lots of children.

[homer2911]

1. You have your decimal point in the wrong place.

 

2. The changing demographic issue is helped by immigration, not hindered.

My apologies to all. Blame it on a late night after a very busy day. So we have a mere 300,000 increase in population to deal with, year in, year out, for the foreseeable future. How many schools, how many GP surgeries, and how many hospitals, year on year? Anyone done the calculations?

[spadefoot]

My apologies to all. Blame it on a late night after a very busy day. So we have a mere 300,000 increase in population to deal with, year in, year out, for the foreseeable future. How many schools, how many GP surgeries, and how many hospitals, year on year? Anyone done the calculations?

Well hopefully the government/civil service has. How they implement this depends on their political persuasion.