🧵Given the ruling yesterday on the injunction to try to stop the Bell Hotel housing asylum seekers, it may be worth examining what’s going on here. Fundamentally, we are at a critical point. The judiciary sees itself as neutral arbiters of the law, with no political function. This is quite a dangerous place to be. The in his statements Lord Justice Bean made mention of not wanting to reward protesters such that other councils would follow suit with similar injunctions. This reasoning is explicitly political and not neutral in the slightest.

This study has been doing the rounds since it dropped. I thought I'd address a few of the claims. First by premise, then by statistics. Conclusion first: the claims made here rely on some heavy assumptions, statistical mistakes, and key omissions.

https://twitter.com/notanastronomer/status/1960281123134550119

First we must address the big point: the calculations here do not account at all for future ILR grants and the subsequent entitlements they are eligible for, namely universal credit and pensions. Karl Williams has done some great work on this for the Centre for Policy Studies.

🧵Zoe Gardner has been trotted out in the news a lot to parrot all the usual talking points about how we can’t stop asylum seekers from coming here, se need immigrants, and critics of this are evil racists. She’s referred to as an “immigration expert.’ Let’s have a look at that. Starting with her educational experience, she originally has a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Modern Greek studies from King’s College London. Her master’s is in “Comparative Politics, Nationalism, and Ethnicity” from the LSE.

This is absolutely vile. A private company that makes a huge amount of money off government contracts is now putting out a call to landlords in order to lease their properties to asylum seekers. The full muscle of the public-private partnership taking supply out of the market. They are wantonly profiting off what cannot be called anything other than an invasion. Responsible for 30,000 foreigners, most of them young men whom we know nothing about. They speak of it in corporate language, like it’s a routine business deal.

🧵 The American state is not our friend. They pursue their own interests. In the 20th century alone we have:
1. Wilson’s post-WW1 loan terms. He imposed far harsher terms on Britain than any other major power. He explicitly wanted to kneecap us despite the wartime cooperation.

https://twitter.com/typeforvictory/status/1899094083353620581

2. The Washington Naval Conference, which in American eyes served both to bottle our fleet size and effectively disintegrate the Anglo-Japanese alliance. Prior to this Wilson had spoken of wiping England off the map!

WHY RETARDED NATIONS FAIL
In their book ‘Why Nations Fail,’ Acemoglu and Robinson argue that the success or failure of a country is determined by its political and economic institutions. However, one thing they have failed to account for is MASSIVE RETARDATION. What is MASSIVE RETARDATION? Simply put, it’s when the leaders of political and economic institutions see a ‘really obviously bad idea’ and decide ‘I think I’m going to go with that.’ Bonus points if doing absolutely nothing would’ve been a better option.

I have seen claims floating around that people involved in the coverup of grooming gangs have been convicted. Let’s take a look at just a couple of those involved in the coverup at Rotherham alone shall we? Joyce Thacker, director of children’s services for Rotherham council, was forced to resign after the publication of the Jay Report. However, she was paid £40k compensation to leave her post. No conviction for her nonfeasance.

As a young lad I jokingly coined the term ‘fourth world countries’ to describe those which had once been rich but through their own bad government policy wrecked it and ended up poor. Now that I am (slightly) more mature I would probably use the term ‘Post-prosperity nations.’ A prime example of this phenomenon is Argentina. In 1913 Argentina was among the wealthiest nations in the world. Its GDP per capita was higher than that of France. Another example would be Venezuela. I’m going to focus on Argentina here, & what it means for Britain.

Something I’ve thought a lot about lately is how by all accounts 18th and 19th century British politics was far more corrupt than now but with vastly superior outcomes. Old Corruption of office holders, South Sea company bribery, sale of army commissions, to name but a few. Yet this system also produced great men like the Pitts (the Elder held the famously rotten borough of Old Sarum), the East India Company, the Dukes of Marlborough and Wellington as military commanders. Some truly fantastic accomplishments all around.