US Election, Useless Public Services, The Immigration Dilemma

The US Presidential Election

On Wednesday November the 6th, I got up to see that Donald Trump had won the election. I listened to his co-called 'Victory Speech' over breakfast. He spent most of it thanking his family, his staff and his supporters. He spent more than 5 minutes talking about how great Elon Musk is. In terms of policy he talked about building a wall, getting rid of illegals and fixing America, making it great again. There was no mention of Kamala Harris. It was high on motivation, very up-beat and low on content. Typical Trump. A High Conviction, Low Morality President of the United States of America.

I am less worried about what Trump will actually do and more worried about the messages that his victories send: if you want to win, it's okay to lie, to defame your political opponents, to create and endorse fake news, to make huge promises you can never keep, and so on. High on conviction, low on morality.

So why did America vote for Trump again? It seems that the answer is probably quite simple: 

"On CNN, around midnight UK time, a perfectly unassuming voter was grabbed by CNN as he left a polling station in Pennsylvania. Asked who he voted for he replied, “Donald Trump.” Asked why, by an almost incredulous reporter, he said “Inflation mostly, and the state of the economy.” Quoted from City AM.

It's the economy stupid. The current government is being punished for the high inflation and declining living standards that we have all seen (across most of the world) since the pandemic and the Russian war on Ukraine. I think the other big issue that swayed voters is his tough words on Immigration. 

Now let's see what he actually does. In politics, it seems, words speak much louder than actions.

Useless public services

It's not just in the UK. I need to sort out my late father's US state pension. I completed the online bereavement from on the US Federal Benefits website and received an acknowledgement. That was 3 months ago. So I emailed them and received an acknowledgement. Still nothing. So I tried to call them (they only open on some Tuesday and Wednesday mornings) and after listening to several minutes of spiel redirecting callers to their website and email service I got cut off as 'all agents are busy'. Twice. What am i supposed to do?

Then there's that tax we need to pay in France. The French government tax service sends an email inviting us to login to their website to pay the latest tax. But each time we try to login using one of their ID verification services we get this message:

'Please try again later, Error 400...' And guess who gets into trouble if they don't pay on time?

That's 2 hours wasted this morning by government incompetence. If only I could fine them the way I get fined if I do anything wrong. And pigs might fly.

I asked Gemini to create this image for me

The Immigration Dilemma Continues 

New figures show UK net immigration at even higher levels than previously published. 930,000 in the year to June 2023. 728,000 to June 2024. Here's the dilemma: we want to help genuine refugees including those we have taken from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan in recent years. We want our businesses and services such as the NHS to be able to fill vacancies from abroad when there are no suitable applications locally. We need our universities to subsidise local students by taking high paying foreign students. But we want far less immigration. If we can't get this right we will see increased support for the far right who say they will reduce immigration substantially. We are seeing this swing to far right across the western world. So what's the answer? 

This data is over 10 years old but I doubt it has changed much

Well, the longer term answer is Education. The short term answer is talk tough and provide utter clarity on which groups we let in and why (for example the public will support bringing in people for the NHS). Simultaneously implement a strong and highly visible package of measures designed to make UK residents who are not working and not retired join the workplace when they are able (e.g. training, benefits cuts, incentives, high level campaigns, etc.).

Quote for the Month

"To be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables"  Hilllary Clinton