The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )

[Clint Planet]

I despair.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Are you always this emotional Clint? Despairing, repulsed. All very dramatic for an Internet forum.

 

[neil999]

http://www.theguardian.com/news/dat...ou-are-probably-wrong-about-almost-everything

interesting article about perception vs reality, from a leftist perspective obvs as its the guardian.. as ive said before ive no problem with opinions but its amazing how ill informed people can be

@Bruce Wayne might find this interesting..

 

[Bruce Wayne]

http://www.theguardian.com/news/dat...ou-are-probably-wrong-about-almost-everything

interesting article about perception vs reality, from a leftist perspective obvs as its the guardian.. as ive said before ive no problem with opinions but its amazing how ill informed people can be

@Bruce Wayne might find this interesting..

Aye, there was a thing in the Economist about this topic (may have been the same research - I can't recall). That was saying that the people generally most opposed to immigration are those that have least exposure to it.

There are quite a few biases that help make our perceptions a bit wonky. Interestingly though, there's also been quite a few studies showing how experts are no better at predicting stuff than we are either.

Noreena Hertz did a book about it last year.

The truly sad thing about it all is that the political parties themselves will often play up to the misconceptions. We saw that in the devolution referendum. Very sad.

 

[neil999]

Aye, there was a thing in the Economist about this topic (may have been the same research - I can't recall). That was saying that the people generally most opposed to immigration are those that have least exposure to it.

There are quite a few biases that help make our perceptions a bit wonky. Interestingly though, there's also been quite a few studies showing how experts are no better at predicting stuff than we are either.

Noreena Hertz did a book about it last year.

The truly sad thing about it all is that the political parties themselves will often play up to the misconceptions. We saw that in the devolution referendum. Very sad.

drives me mad that, but it does seem to win votes

(i think lol)

 

[Bruce Wayne]

drives me mad that, but it does seem to win votes

(i think lol)

Certainly seems to. If anything, I'm inclined to think its getting worse.

 

[Coach]

Fantastic article on the refugee policy

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...Government-borrowing-policy-from-the-BNP.html

 

[Billy Dean]

Fantastic article on the refugee policy

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...Government-borrowing-policy-from-the-BNP.html

Europe's treatment of refugees truly disgusts me.

 

[Tree13]

Maybe LSE didn't know what they were doing.

More likely the scope of their research was limited by the funding available.

Come on Clint, you're better than that. On a very simple level, do you not agree that reliability of research results is increased where the sample size is bigger?

 

[Billy Dean]

Another good one about refugee policy: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/28/britain-refusal-help-migrants-inhumanity

 

[EverBlue86]

Problem with unrestricted immigration is the size of our country and the fact we have an NHS and social housing which gets put under more pressure from it.

In the end the left can't have everything their own way it's either have your unrestricted immigration but know that the welfare system won't be able to cope down the line or have our welfare state but sort out a proper immigration policy.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Problem with unrestricted immigration is the size of our country and the fact we have an NHS and social housing which gets put under more pressure from it.

In the end the left can't have everything their own way it's either have your unrestricted immigration but know that the welfare system won't be able to cope down the line or have our welfare state but sort out a proper immigration policy.

@neil999 there you go. It's been posted many times before, but in the interests of actual facts and stuff, migrants contribute far more to the public purse than they ever take out. They are more likely to have a job than natives. They tend to have higher qualifications, and make significantly fewer requests of the welfare system.

It's not particularly well known, for instance, that something like 2/3 of the welfare budget goes on pensions. Many migrants return to their homeland long before they end up drawing a pension.

Their children also tend to do better in our schools than the native population. Earlier in the thread, @neil999, posted up a piece on how poorly constructed most peoples perceptions of immigration actually is. The data is out there if you want to look at it, and it would help form opinions based on facts rather than what the media push out as soundbytes.

 

[steken1]

I'm sorry I do not have time currently to answer this, I hope to do so later this evening.

For now though, LSE produced a report which studied 5000 families over 15 years which proves conclusively the link between parental wealth and academic achievement.

So for the majority of the population poverty does impact achievement. There are of course exceptions.

One thing on this. IQ is largely accepted to be hereditary which plays a part in academic achievement. Parents who are wealthier will most likely have played societies game better and be more intelligent, then passing that on.

 

[wm02]

There was an interesting article in Sunday's Washington Post that experienced campaign advisers from the States will be working for the Labour and Conservative parties. Sorry about that.

 

[EverBlue86]

@neil999 there you go. It's been posted many times before, but in the interests of actual facts and stuff, migrants contribute far more to the public purse than they ever take out. They are more likely to have a job than natives. They tend to have higher qualifications, and make significantly fewer requests of the welfare system.

It's not particularly well known, for instance, that something like 2/3 of the welfare budget goes on pensions. Many migrants return to their homeland long before they end up drawing a pension.

Their children also tend to do better in our schools than the native population. Earlier in the thread, @neil999, posted up a piece on how poorly constructed most peoples perceptions of immigration actually is. The data is out there if you want to look at it, and it would help form opinions based on facts rather than what the media push out as soundbytes.

Don't buy it mate you add an additional 100k+ to the population many with no savings and a need for social housing public housing will be stretched it's not rocket science.

I'm saying nothing about jobs, but devils advocate if the migrants were not here and the govt had a backbone they could get many of the native population into work. Australia manage it fine, New Zealand manage it fine etc. Etc.

was on the tele yesterday the PM of one of those countries were migrants leave from on the boats etc. That Britain Is a soft touch it's why half of migrants travel through about 8 countries to get to us