Here comes UKIP Options

[Simon Kirby]

UKIP win by-election with a landslide. The majority have spoken.

[JeffG]

A lot of people would not be happy at living on the Isle of Wight as it is now, let alone sharing it with the whole population of the UK. What do you envisage: filling every square metre with huge tower blocks?

A lot of the UK is, thank goodness, not built on, because of agriculture. open spaces and forests etc. Chop down all the trees and what are we going to breathe?

[Weavers Walk]

A lot of people would not be happy at living on the Isle of Wight as it is now, let alone sharing it with the whole population of the UK. What do you envisage: filling every square metre with huge tower blocks?

Nope, far from it....just pointing out that the often rolled out argument "we're overcrowded" is not really accurate.

[Andy Capp]

Nope, far from it....just pointing out that the often rolled out argument "we're overcrowded" is not really accurate.

That depends with what prejudice you view the comment. I feel that both ends of the argument just look for confirmation bias* without really caring about the truth.

*We all do it: Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, or prioritize information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning.

[Weavers Walk]

That depends with what prejudice you view the comment. I feel that both ends of the argument just look for confirmation bias* without really caring about the truth.

I don't view the comment with any prejudice at all. The person making the assertion is entitled to their own view. (And the same freedom allows others to find it fvckin' hilarious)

What I did was post a link which I hoped would give a more 'balanced' view. I happen to think the percentages speak for themselves i.e. we are not overcrowded.

[Biker1]

we are not overcrowded.

When I travel about by foot, road or train or when I try to book a doctors or hospital appointment I feel that we are.

[Simon Kirby]

When I travel about by foot, road or train or when I try to book a doctors or hospital appointment I feel that we are.

Let's take health. If the service is stretched then open more doctors surgeries and hospitals.

But that's not what people want - people in Newbury vote Tory, and will soon be voting UKIP, because they don't want to pay for "benefit scroungers" like the old and the sick, and it's convenient to blame a stretched service on "immigrants". The reality is that on the whole the eastern European economic migrants that have swelled the populations in the last 10 years are largely young, fit, and hard working, and so pay a relatively high proportion of the tax-cost of running the health service whilst using it relatively little.

[Biker1]

Let's take health. If the service is stretched then open more doctors surgeries and hospitals.

But that's not what people want - people in Newbury vote Tory, and will soon be voting UKIP, because they don't want to pay for "benefit scroungers" like the old and the sick, and it's convenient to blame a stretched service on "immigrants".

Sorry for the unresponsive reply but what a load of rubbish.
Could you redefine your examples of "benefit scroungers" please.

[Simon Kirby]

Sorry for the unresponsive reply but what a load of rubbish.
Could you redefine your examples of "benefit scroungers" please.

The issue here is how certain groups of benefit claimants such as the unemployed and disabled are characterised as "benefit scroungers" without demur, whereas in reality those groups are no more scrounging than any other benefit claimants, the most numerous of which are pensioners and users of the national health service. If you don't like my examples then I hope you challenge others when you come across them.

[MontyPython]

The issue here is how certain groups of benefit claimants such as the unemployed and disabled are characterised as "benefit scroungers" without demur, whereas in reality those groups are no more scrounging than any other benefit claimants, the most numerous of which are pensioners and users of the national health service. If you don't like my examples then I hope you challenge others when you come across them.

Most only classify a few as scroungers.

However you count someone has worked all the life and contributed to society as much of a scrounger if ill or in old age as someone who has never worked has no intention of doing so. Very strange!