There are still small boats landing at the Southern coastline. It started in 2018, and the records continue to this year. The indictment is against it all. The lack of activity to stop it suggests deep cultural confusion due to a lack of professional insight.
Arrivals in the UK
The worsening crime crisis is also indicative of this fact. The lack of professional insight continues to show. The schools, chambers, and institutions don’t seem to have an answer for us. They bill but provide no insight. They send invoices but not solutions.
Reform UK has rapidly increased its membership of late. It now surpasses 200,000. It’s a powerful surge of support since its inception, and election of five MP’s last July.
It needs more than 100,000 members to surpass Labour. It’s no mean feat. Yet the party has shown its potential to grow support organically outside of an election cycle.
The makeup of Parliament is different to our perceptions. In one way it’s because of how the seats are divided up. There are a majority for English MP’s, and a sliding scale for the three remaining regions.
Seats in Parliament
It affects the division of interests and power. It may appear that England gets more from its Parliament than Scotland, let’s say. This is due to having over 500 seats. Yet time is still given to the UK’s other parts.
As we look at the crisis at the Channel coastline, it’s worth observing that we’re dealing with an issue we can’t control. The numbers are pre-determined by agents of criminality, and are not our responsibility.
However, the capture of data, recording of people’s movements, and processing of their next steps is exactly our business. It’s the job of a state to make sure undocumented people are accounted for.
Since the start of this year, 25,000+ people have made it across the strait of water off the French coast. It’s a staggering figure, and it shows how determined criminals can be to settle people here in droves.
The issue of course is that, once arrived, these problems only increase because we don’t have a quick returns procedure. The crisis unfolded in ways too quick to begin with, and it’s a tough nut to crack.
The government’s announcements are helpful, and follow the Covid days of keeping people informed, but there’s a lingering doubt over the presence of so many people who’ve nowhere fixed to live.
It’s the sort of crisis some governments are made for, and others broken by, as the issues that have to be navigated are of such high sensitivity, and the stakes too large, it risks the future of the nation itself.
The success of a party in the House of Commons is not always dependent on the same thing, but this year’s election gives hope to MP’s their chances may have improved significantly.
In particular, Labour must be betting large on getting through legislation to increase their chances in the political stakes. It rings true already, in part because of pay increases for workers.
A brief analysis of the Commons chamber right now, post-election, reveals why there’s an advantage. The seat share for Labour spiked at the ballot box, against misery for the Tories.
While Reform UK did impressively well to get their first seat share, the Liberal Democrats are in pole position to get their mandate across stronger in the next batch of lawmaking.
The matter of employment comes up in political debates, but it’s not so clear what politicians mean when they say they’ve improved the job prospects of ordinary voters.
According to statistics produced by the government, the employment rate has barely changed since the 1970’s. It shows a clear, almost steady line until the present day.
Office For National Statistics
The overpromising of party’s and a tendency to underdeliver may be explained by a potential to hit average, and find little to mark oneself out with if things are ok.
In a simple graph it’s possible to asses where we are in terms of the Channel crossings. This unprecedented event on our South coast isn’t able to be ignored and it transcends security concerns too.
In recent months the rate of illegal migration has overall declined. It means intense work to secure our coasts and make human and people traffickers give up has worked to an extent.
The point is by these events political groups with few affiliations or without legitimacy here try to change government policy so we live in a situation we didn’t plan for. It’s undemocratic and leaves us in a precarious situation.
The UK’s public purse is in dire straits. The graph below indicates where the national debt is right now. In the coming years it may get much worse if enough isn’t done to stem its rapid growth.
A look at the results for Nigel Farage MP in his previous electoral runs since 1994 reveals an interesting upward trend. If compared to the incumbent Conservative Party front-runner that same year (excluding two by-elections), however, it doesn’t show such a confident upward streak.
Farage/Conservative Party vote share
The fact is Nigel Farage needs to win against a Conservative leader in future to take the reins of conservatism. He would need to look beyond Rishi Sunak’s result this year and see he falls far short by thousands. This is based on a showing of his own constituency results and no other’s.
Nigel Farage has won his first seat in Parliament. However, his history of standing in UK elections is a chequered past. All but one of his former attempts were as a candidate for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and failed miserably. However his vote share has increased significantly in recent years.
Nigel Farage – Vote Results
This year he exceeded himself by over 5,000 votes since his last attempt in South Thanet. Let’s see if it’s a winning streak.
The vote share for the Conservative Party demonstrates the drop experienced by Rishi Sunak this year. His election campaign clearly fell flat with voters as his tally shows a sharp decline in engagement.
The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) have produced statistics today in a report entitled Adult Male Population and Capacity Release which covers the reach of its prison estate in terms of capacity.
It shows a stagnant if declining rate of usable places within a range of hundreds since the start of this year.
Useable Operational Capacity chart
It indicates thousands of more places may be needed to allay fears of overcrowding to a point of exceeding capacity and a need to seek alternative arrangements in the justice system.
The total outcome for the Conservatives this election is remarkable considering past performance.
The final tally shows a sharp drop in its number of seats in Westminster. In comparison to previous general elections, the Tories have lost at least 150 seats.
In a few past elections the tally has been so high it makes 2024 look like a washout.
Reform UK show a strong polling tendency in their five winning constituencies. In spite of poor projections from some involved, the ‘first past the post’ system has in fact yielded a few key wins for the party.
