geha714

Just naked racism from Farage and the Mail.

Only British and commonwealth citizens are allowed to vote. It's not 'stealing' to legally take part in your own country's elections

Russian Z-bloggers are also summing up the winter.

Though also worth noting that if command hierarchies in Iran are falling apart you'll get different IRGC commanders on the coast making their own decisions about whether to hit shipping or not

If the IRGC is now shifting from "Strait of Hormuz are closed for all" to "Strait of Hormuz is only closed for US warships" it would be an indicator that Iranian sea and anti-ship drone capabilities are so degraded that the ex-Khamenei regime is spiralling to complete military defeat

The Strait of Hormuz remains open to tankers “until further notice,”said former IRGC commander&Secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council,Major General Rezaei.

His remarks were cited by the FT.At the same time,he warned that U.S. military vessels are “legitimate targets” for Iranian strikes

Not so much mowing the loan as burning the garden, demolishing the house and covering it all with cheap tarmac

There are no guardrails on US or Israeli actions anymore. Haven't been with the latter since October 7 2023 and with the former since the first Southcom strike on boats in the Caribbean.

The Americans and Israelis are going to kill their way through several levels of Iran's command hierarchy.

Putin now knows how far Beijing will go to save a friend in existential peril

Trump and Netanyahu go for Iran’s jugular Washington is ill-equipped to handle the regional conflagration it has unleashed

This is the lead sentence of my Financial Times piece today on the US-Israeli campaign against Iran:

"And so begins the latest brazen and wholly predictable gamble from America and Israel to shape the Middle East to their liking."

The rest at this link:

www.ft.com/content/1cd2...

'How should Labour answer the immigration numbers question?' - LabourList Does Labour think that immigration to Britain should be lower? The party found the question hard to answer…

My 2023 pre-election piece on how Labour could use the big fall in numbers in 2024-25 when net migration would halve to create a rational framework for choosing and managing immigration.Volatile unanticipated spikes and troughs make this kind of approach more important
labourlist.org/2023/12/labo...

It was correct to say that net migration of 600-900k was unsustainably high.

Starmer govt has no [public] account of what a sustainable level is [April 2025: wanted to hit 200k-250k but didn't expect to overshoot; Mahmood wants much lower]

No account of how it makes policy decisions on numbers

Whether the numbers are right, there are such big holes in how to make policy + articulate it

- No immigration plan: no process to predict/decide

- No account of what their "sustainable" number is.
(Just "still feels high" whether its +600k +205k or heading to negative net migration this year!)

James projections for the next three rounds from 205k are these very eye-catching figures

Dec 2025: net immigration of 184,000
June 2026: net immigration of 47,000
Dec 2026: negative net migration (net emigration) of 62,000

bsky.app/profile/jame...

There may be an astonishingly low net migration figure for 2026. The government has not seemed to notice or anticipate this - because it is using vibes-based soundbites.

It may be a temporary trough. James Bowes has done detailed work on this
bsky.app/profile/jame...

Net migration in 2025 will be v close to the 2012 level: the lowest level this century outside the pandemic. (161k in 2012, 157k in year to Sept 2012)

It was 140k in 1998, after spiking from 48k in 1997

But 2026 net migration will be well below anything from 1998-2025 outside pandemic

Historic trend (Oxford)
migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/br...

That was 4th February 2026 to the Home Affairs Select Committee. The claim that net migration is still pretty high also features in political chatter about her speech this coming Thursday
committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence...

The Home Secretary has the vibe that it is "still pretty high"

"Comfortably over 200,000" is a stretch for the year to June 2025 figure of 205k + is out-of-date given actual facts on falling visas, as well as projections for 2026.

She compares it to net migration target 2010-19 govt always missed

Nigel Farage is clearly deliberately misleading people in claiming that immigration has not fallen at all - and it is only an emigration exodus that sees the number fall (He could make other points about emigration and immigration still being 850k, but this claim to the BBC was simply wrong)

Many statements of government ministers, of opposition politicians, of MPs, broadcasters and others about immigration and net migration are out-of-date.

Some of it unintentional lag effect. Some of it appears to be deliberate skewing for misleading political effect.

Immigration and net migration have undoubtedly fallen much further + faster than the government was expecting when it published its April 2025 White Paper, after immigration and net migration spiked much higher in 2022-23 than the government expected in 2019-21. The 2026 date will surprise again

If no change in the emigration stat, net migration for 2025 will be around 159,000

2025 net migration 130k-180k if its a bit up/a bit down

Emigration was rising but flattened.

its rising among recent non-EU arrivals. (Rising emigration is misunderstood + wildly misrepresented in media/politics)

There are lots of marginal differences people might not use their visa, or have visas that don't involve a 12 month stay

Longterm immigration was 898k when visas + detected arrivals added up to 902k (year to December) and there has been a 46k fall, so it is going to be about 852k

Immigration for 2025 is going to be in the ballpark of 850k, having been 900k (898k) in the year to June.

852,000 visas issued for non-visits (year to June) fell to 809,000 visas. 46,000 arrivals by small boat or other unauthorised routes (year to Dec) which had been 49,000 (year to June)

Net migration in 2025 was about 160,000.

That headline 2025 net migration figure will come out in May: it will clearly be significantly below the 205k for the year to June 2025 (est range: 130-180k) as 2025 visa data is now published.

But the 2026 figure is likely to show negative net migration.

Shaft still confident the new Madoka Magica movie will come out before GTA6

For what it's worth, the new August 28 date is the first time I'm confident that the new Madoka movie is going to make its deadline. Not unscathed but like, it'll exist