Jonathan Kingham

Fashworth-Hayes now leading the charge in trying to convert the talking point from "people shouldn't have kids they can't afford" to "removing the two-child benefit cap is funding the great replacement" is a sign of things to come

The Home Office continues to use language that its own data refutes

Some pre and post Cavmas purchases. What’s my @popclassics.bsky.social age?

Oh who can it be

True, but the issue here is that the UK is looking to retrospectively change the rules for settlement so that, eg care workers will require 15 years to reach it while high earners will take only 3. And the new Rules will also apply to eg a non working spouse of a high earner.

Earned settlement The government is consulting on how the current settlement system should be reformed and how those reforms should be implemented.

This tweet is a reference to (and a neat summary of) the government’s recently announced ‘Earned Settlement’ policy www.gov.uk/government/c...

I think it is also worth pointing out that it is one thing for the government to use that sort of language - as offensive as it is - and quite another for the civil service to be expected to apply pejorative language to public announcements. Started by the Tories, this shames Labour as well.

Home Office on X: "Britain welcomes migrants who contribute to our economy and society. High earners, entrepreneurs and skilled frontline workers like NHS staff will be fast-tracked to settlement – rewarding those who give, not take." / X Britain welcomes migrants who contribute to our economy and society. High earners, entrepreneurs and skilled frontline workers like NHS staff will be fast-tracked to settlement – rewarding those who give, not take.

x.com/ukhomeoffice...

Yes

When was this, out of interest?

my great-grandparents arrived in the UK in the 1890s with nothing.
they sold pickles from the front room window, took in laundry, worked as tailors.
their children were nurses, teachers, salesmen.
their grandchildren were professors, designers, opticians, doctors, magistrates, entrepreneurs.

It's also emblematic of Starmer's government having the worst comms instincts imaginable.

A policy of fast tracking settlement as an incentive is, at least by the standards of modern immigration debate, relatively inoffensive...

... but then they couch it in Reform talking points about "takers".

Their definition of takers is being defined as anyone who isn't a higher rate taxpayer, unless they're a medical professional, teacher, entrepreneur or accepted onto the global talent visa. So an accountant earning £50,269 they'd call a taker.

That is exactly what they are saying.

That is exactly a key problem with this project. It is retrospective. Eg it was a govt decision to lower the Skilled Worker skills threshold to admit careworkers.. under pressure from DHSC. Now they are saying they are unskilled and should take 15 years to settlement as they don’t contribute enough

I’m sorry to say that the way I read the Earned Settlement policy paper, and other recent statements, it is much wider than that (as bad as that is). I think that the tweet is actually a neat summation of this whole new project.

From the @wsj.com chief foreign correspondent

Remember how everyone stood on their doorsteps 5 years ago, clapping for care workers?

Well, anyway. Now they can fuck off.

The fact that everyone *including news media* is always talking about the news in terms of political strategy, palace intrigue, and their own posturing, leads to a culture of treating every issue politics touches as just another pro sport

This is so disgusting.

As I was saying...

Imagine the reaction to allegations that Corbyn had made hissing gas noises to Jewish kids as a schoolboy - and then if he had responded to those allegations by shouting 'Bernard Manning!' at the journalists

The radio silence about Farage from people who are usually supremely vocal about antisemitism is so so telling.

I don't get how Jenrick can actually believe that we should shrink the population and then start making more of our own things from pots and pans to what iPhones? How does he think that happens? He wants a period of negative migration that would see the population shrink, alongside plans to scrap net zero, reindustrialise to spread wealth beyond London and counter threats from China. He'd also cut welfare, while building more homes. I ask him whether he cares about criticism from the political class that his approach has looked, at times, intemperate.

He doesn’t care: he’s been shown over and over that the path to power is just lying and bullshitting, and convincing Britain’s horrific media outlets to puff you up. What happens after that is basically irrelevant, as you can see now.

Reform UK strips council leader of membership over undisclosed X account Party expels Ian Cooper in Staffordshire after historic racist social media posts emerge

The Reform U.K. leader of Staffordshire county council has been expelled from the party because he failed to disclose one of his social media accounts during vetting: www.ft.com/content/3849... Can you guess what the problem with that account turned out to be?

Former Dulwich pupil says Farage told him: ‘That’s the way back to Africa’ Exclusive: Yinka Bankole says he felt compelled to speak out after Reform leader’s attempts to ‘dismiss’ hurt of alleged targets

"'Where are you from?’ he asked. Within seconds of offering my rather confused and sputtering answers, he had a clear response: ‘That’s the way back to Africa,’ with an accompanying hand gesture pointing towards a place far away."
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

this shit is just beyond parody, man

this story isn’t going away

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Sometimes people tell me that I exaggerate when I say that the US openly hostile towards Europe. The NSS speaks a very clear language though, and it is a hostile one.