Will

Looking out on the Tartar Steppe

[Martin Skold @MartinSkold2]

Some people (on the left) will regard this as a tragedy. Others (on the right) will regard this as just deserts.

And others (like me) will point out that what it actually illustrates is an economy that so totally misallocates resources that a reasonably (but perhaps not unusually) competent person is first routed into an overpaid bullshit sinecure -and then- into penury.

This dynamic is economy-wide.

[max tempers @maxtempers]

WHY ARE HOSPITALS SUDDENLY FILLED WITH FOREIGN DOCTORS OF DUBIOUS QUALITY WHO SOMETIMES CAN BARELY SPEAK ENGLISH? WHY ARE BRITISH DOCTORS WHINING ABOUT BEING UNEMPLOYED?

- Abolition of the Resident Labour Market Test (2019):

Prior to this international medical graduates (IMGs) were on the bottom of the priority list for training jobs; UK-trained doctors were given preference. This made it extremely difficult for IMGs to get a position in competitive specialties such as Surgery, Radiology, Ophthalmology, Anaesthetics, and the UK Foundation Programme.

- OET accepted for GMC registration (2018)

Previously, IMGs that needed to provide proof of English proficiency could only use IELTS Academic which was harder and had a tougher writing element.

- Exemption from IELTS UKVI for a Tier 2 work visa (2019)

The Home Office exempted doctors applying for work in the UK from providing a separate (more difficult) proof of English proficiency.

- Widening Access to Specialty Training scheme [WAST] (2018)

Previously, there were fewer opportunities for IMGs to have their foundation competences signed off. Now they can join the programme before they even arrive in the UK.

- UK graduates made ineligible to apply for Standalone FY2 (2020)

UK-trained doctors were previously given priority to apply for Standalone FY2 - preferencing them for posts. This is now open primarily to doctors who completed internship overseas. This means many more places for IMGs!

- OET accepted by the UKFPO (2020)

Lower bar for English proficiency.

- Immigration Health Surcharge: Scrapped for all NHS Workers (2020)

Cost saving of around £5000 for a family of four as these would have to be paid upfront.

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

It's shocking how much consensus there is amongst tax policy wonks and economists of Left and Right on the tax reforms the UK needs to boost growth & make the tax system fairer

More shocking: they're reforms that are never mentioned by any politicians

[Corey Walker 🇺🇸 @CoreyWriting]

The sad thing about Charlie Hebdo is that the terrorists ultimately won. To this day, people are terrified of publishing images of Muhammad and Islamists have far more power throughout France and Europe.

[bernoulli_defect @BernoulliDefect]

Britain’s poor performance in selecting, managing, and administering migrants in the last few decades is usually presented as empowering the far right, but it also makes a case for limited government.

The state attempted a massive project in an easily winnable domain (billions of people to select from, just pick ones that will earn above the British average or test extremely well) and failed due to the boring reasons libertarians always bring up about government failure: political ideology getting in the way of pragmatism, poor civil service performance, and free markets (migrants + agencies) outmanoeuvring slow government.

Add to this the massive fiscal risks of getting migration wrong - an OBR model claims that one low wage migrant arriving at 25 will have a net cost of £600k over their lifetime - and the libertarian/small government case against migration becomes boringly obvious.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

@obversers @RichardMCNgo I think that is a very fair point. The damage from WW2 was repaired with a free-trade doctrine guaranteed by the US. Without this vessel the robustness fails.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

@OnTheWoolsack Many are shifting back. One of the main reasons online stayed after covid measures were over is a big 'covid bulge' of ~25% extra students who got it on their predicted grades working through 3-4 year degrees where there was no space to physically hold exams with 25% more people.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

Shifting demographics dictate the Overton window. This would have banged in 2016 but nearly 10 years on looks anachronistic. Right now, in the UK, we have people in jail for tweets. Britpoppers are retiring or near to and can no longer dictate culture in the same way.

[Channel 4 News @Channel4News]

"I wouldn't work in the States at the moment."

Comedian Stewart Lee says he would fear being "locked up" if he performed his comedy in President Trump's America.

In this episode of Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy he also discusses the state of comedy today.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

The population in small borderline deprived English towns aged between ~23 and 45 who have stayed local & aren't competing in the world economy live in a zero sum economy. This outcome is the default.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

@rupwalker Which is likely the source of the opposition. An ongoing bill with scope creep. Preventing starvation/diseases turns into paying for the Ethiopian spice girls.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

@rupwalker One argument would be the never ending nature of it. % of GDP to aid budget commitments started in the 1970s meaning many have only known a world where every year millions is given to the third world & are asking when it will stop. FWIW I think aid programs do a lot of good.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

The consistency of the hockey stick immigration policy suggests it was a deliberate tool to absorb the inflationary effects of COVID-era money printing. Expanding the population soaks up excess cash, keeping inflation under 5% instead of spiraling to 10-20%.

[Jonatan Pallesen @jonatanpallesen]

It’s a pretty weird situation here in Europe, where at the same time that it has become very clear that the mass immigration is a failure, it is further accelerated in many countries.

[Sam Bowman @s8mb]

Britain has a recurring problem with vague, badly-written laws that make it possible for courts to rule in ways that very few people would actually want them to.

This is one of the root causes of judicial review stopping us from building anything. (Another is a law that shields unsuccessful plaintiffs from paying the costs they create.) And this isn't the ECHR, it's other laws that have been badly conceived and written without much thought about their consequences for other priorities we have.

It's also why the "right to a family life" in the ECHR means that it is very difficult to deport criminals or limit refugees' access to the UK (as with today's story about Gazan refugees). The ECHR has also ruled that Switzerland's climate policies were not extensive enough, and that this violates human rights law (!).

The series of rulings that paying male-dominated jobs, like warehouse work, more than female-dominated jobs, like checkout work, violates the Equality Act also stems from that law being drafted badly in a way that few people want it to.

Activist courts and vexatious litigants are bad, but they can generally only act when the law is written to let them do so.

One danger here is the specific rulings being bad – you cannot build a bicycle bridge without being challenged over its threat to some local green space, and you cannot remove dangerous criminals from the country or limit the influx of asylum seekers.

But another is the state and the rule of law losing its legitimacy in people's minds. If people believe that courts are forcing crazy outcomes on them that they have voted against, they will see the law and courts as their enemy. We can already see the consequences of this in other countries.

This is not compatible with people having faith in Britain's democracy and the rule of law. The ECHR is clearly *one* of the problems here, and I think we should leave it, but so are other laws and protections that stop voters from getting many reasonable things they want.

Parliamentary sovereignty creates a release valve for people to change things if they want. Democracy is valuable not just because it allows for the peaceful removal of governments, but also the peaceful change of *policy*.

When they have such far reaching effects that are as perverse as many of these are, laws and treaties that stand in the way of that can be as dangerous as laws that prevent governments from being removed. The answer is to remove or rewrite these laws and restore Parliament as the country's highest legal and legislative authority.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

@maxwell_marlow It's not clear what state it's in but assuming this is Pu-239 from Uranium decay this seems not just wrongheaded but active vandalism to turn them into ceramics at great cost rather than just sell it or pay the £70mil a year to store. Absolutely crazy.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

@defossardf The stream of people facing repercussions from these vox pops has made people way more reluctant to speak as well. There was a time where 'filming the sesh' so to speak was frowned upon but now there's constant videos of asking questions to get viral clips of drunk people.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

@LemanWalters A man never crosses the same river twice because it isn't the same river and he isn't the same man. I've found whilst saudade/nostalgia can be quite salient you are also changing and likely glossing over the non-event times of commuting or similar to a few prominent memories.

[Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico]

It's quite extraordinary how desperate they've been to get this through. I can't see any interpretation other than that they *want* the UK not to be sovereign over these islands any more. It's not that they feel forced to surrender sovereignty. They actively *want* to lose it.

[Will @Will_Yeadon]

@emergenteffects Any political system where the elites lack skin in the game is hyper vulnerable to this. When a decision maker, their direct family & information channels are insulated from any consequences for 20-30 years you can repeatedly shoot your nation in the foot without realising.