Latest news with #Damascene
AU Financial Review
3 days ago
- Business
- AU Financial Review
Are Labor's industrial relations summits a union power grab?
What is it about Labor governments and summits? You'd have thought with a resounding victory like that of May 3 they would not need to ask anyone what to do. Exactly a month later, newly minted Industrial Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth – from memory, the first woman to hold the post – is now holding yet another gathering, specifically to 'kick-start productivity', in line with the Treasurer's Damascene realisation that productivity improvement might slow the country's slide into bankruptcy. I guess that is why he earns the big bucks.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Britain can't afford another spendthrift chancer in Downing Street
Nigel Farage believes in fairies. That was the only conclusion I could make, a year ago, after taking a look at the hopeless Christmas list of policies that made up Reform's manifesto.I half-suspected it had been doodled on the back of a fag packet after a particularly hearty afternoon at Boisdale. It was all too good to be true: lifting income tax thresholds to £20,000 while cutting NHS waiting lists to zero suggested Reform's leader takes the Bourbon approach to Trussonomics. Bond market chaos loomed, if Sir Humphrey hadn't packed a confuddled Farage off to The Red Lion first. But flush with his local election success, Farage claims he wants to get the fourth-place Tories of little consequence, today's big speech sought not only to flesh out Reform's prospectus, but to outflank Labour, punching at the chasm between Starmer's parsimonious chancellor and his austerity-phobe backbenches, appealing to those immiserated by Rachel Reeves's performative fealty to the OBR. The Red Wall – je vous ai compris!Having already committed to nationalising Britain's steel industry, the Damascene conversion of this lifelong Thatcherite to social democracy en route to Number 10 continued with a pledge to reinstate the winter fuel allowance to pensioners and to scrap the two-child benefit limit. On top of this, Farage committed to introducing a new transferable marriage tax allowance on the first £25,000 they earn – on top of his retaining his commitment to hiking the income tax threshold. Never one to downplay his ambitions, Farage couched his speech in civilisational terms. The UK's collapsing birth rate represents 'an existential crisis for our country'; Reform will 'do everything in its power to encourage British people who are able and want kids to have them'. Yes, he admitted, it will all be a little expensive. But isn't it worth it to get Britain bonking?Farage has alighted upon a grim fiscal dilemma. Spending on the elderly is surging just as the old-age dependency ratio – the number of potential workers per pensioner – is collapsing. Without more babies, Britain's economy will become even more dependent on human quantitative easing – the mass importation of migrant workers to fill the human shortfall. That is an outcome that few Reform voters would greet with enthusiasm, even if they were staffing their care Farage's solutions are just as shallow as last year's manifesto's. Evidence suggests that the two-child limit hasn't reduced birth rates. Questions as to how this largesse would be funded cued Farage's usual waffle about scrapping migrant hotels, net zero and DEI. Sounds splendid. But will tearing down a few pride flags really fund the £50 billion plus blackhole these policies would create? Rather than break from the past, Reform would only hasten our rush towards national is a useful tribune – a lightning rod for the frustrations of voters fed up with both old parties. But on today's evidence, he has a long way to go before he has a serious plan for government. Britain can't afford another spendthrift chancer in Downing Street. If Farage really is serious about tackling our existential challenges, he needs better policies than this. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Web Release
26-05-2025
- Business
- Web Release
Celebrate Eid Al Adha with the Elegance and Indulgence of Ghraoui Chocolate
Celebrate Eid Al Adha with the Elegance and Indulgence of Ghraoui Chocolate This Eid Al Adha, elevate your celebrations with Ghraoui Chocolate's latest luxurious collection where time-honoured craftsmanship meets irresistible flavour. Known for its legacy of excellence and devotion to quality since 1805, Ghraoui unveils a seasonal assortment that captures the essence of the holiday in every bite. From delicately moulded chocolate pieces inscribed with festive Eid greetings to opulent gift trays and personalised boxes, Ghraoui's creations are crafted to leave a lasting impression. Each piece is made using the finest natural ingredients without artificial additives, ensuring a rich, authentic taste that reflects the brand's Damascene heritage and European savoir-faire. This year's Eid Al Adha collection features a harmony of flavours, from velvety pralines and nut-studded delights to vibrant fruit infusions. Whether you're gifting an elegant token or presenting a lavish hamper, Ghraoui offers tailor-made packaging options including embroidered boxes and bespoke sleeves designed to make every gesture feel deeply personal. Thoughtfully prepared and beautifully presented, Ghraoui's chocolates are more than just sweets. They are a celebration of joy, generosity, and refined taste. Nationwide and Regional Delivery Available Ghraoui offers seamless delivery across the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ensuring your Eid gifts arrive with elegance wherever your loved ones may be. Dubai, Dubai Mall Opening Hours: Sunday – Wednesday: 10:00 AM – 11:00 PM Thursday – Saturday: 10:00 AM – 12:00 AM Address: The Dubai Mall, Level 1, Fashion Avenue For orders & delivery: WhatsApp: +971503315993 / Landline: 042388248 Abu Dhabi, Dalma mall Opening Hours: Sunday – Wednesday: 10:00 AM – 11:00 PM Thursday – Saturday: 10:00 AM – 12:00 AM Address: Dalma Mall, 1st Floor For orders & delivery: WhatsApp: +971503313992 / Landline: 025464984 Website: Instagram: Ghraoui UAE
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Return hubs' won't solve the Channel crisis
Sir Keir Starmer is a man who wishes to give the impression of a Damascene conversion. Having issued a series of thundering pronouncements on the costs of legal migration earlier in the week, the Prime Minister is now attempting to convince the public that he will be able to halt the illegal Channel crossings. Whether he has a viable plan for doing so – or indeed has genuinely been swayed from his previous pro-migration stance – is another matter entirely. On today's evidence, there is little prospect of reining in a flow that has risen to a record pace under his premiership. Speaking in Albania alongside his counterpart Edi Rama, Sir Keir announced that the UK was to seek arrangements with third countries for 'return hubs'. A natural conclusion from the venue, and from the two Italian migration detention centres already open in the country, was that Albania would be one of these partners. Yet Mr Rama shot the idea down, stating that the relationship with Italy is a one-off. It was a strange piece of choreography; why make the announcement in Albania, if Albania is not set to be one of the countries involved? As things stand, it is entirely unclear which countries, if any, the UK would partner with. Moreover, Sir Keir – having dismantled the Rwanda scheme the moment he took office, with what would appear to be an associated increase in the pull factor drawing migrants to Britain – now appears to be attempting to reintroduce the scheme in watered-down form. The Rwanda scheme would have seen migrants arriving in the UK deported to claim asylum elsewhere, vastly reducing the attraction of illegal channel crossings. 'Return hubs', however, would just be a place to host failed asylum seekers attempting to frustrate their removal from Britain. This would be an improvement on the status quo, but at best a marginal deterrent to those crossing the Channel. Successful applicants who made the journey would be permitted to stay. Given that in 2023 Britain had one of the highest asylum grant rates in the EU, and the relative dynamism of the British economy, the draw factor to migrants would still remain considerable, even if recent data suggests grant rates have dropped. If Sir Keir genuinely wishes to smash the criminal gangs and end the Channel crisis, he should swallow his pride, and consider Rwanda-style deportations as the deterrent Britain needs. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Starmer's tough policy on migration is the biggest con since Meg Ryan simulated an orgasm in a diner
Does Keir Starmer really want to reduce immigration? Does an alcoholic willingly hand over a vodka bottle? Our Prime Minister has never met an immigrant or asylum seeker he didn't like. The small-boat illegals who break into our country in their tens of thousands are all 'vulnerable people being ruthlessly exploited by vile gangs', as far as this north London human rights lawyer is concerned, no matter the cost to the British people in sexual assaults, acid attacks, diluted national values and culture, increased competition for public services and rental accommodation. We are supposed to believe the Labour leader who coldly threatened the protestors after the Southport massacre with harsh punishment for their 'far-Right thuggery' has had a Damascene conversion. (Protestors were not 'far-Right' at all, as an official report just concluded, they were simply distraught about what had become of their country now it contained maniacs from places where they machete small children to death.) Suddenly, two-tier Keir can't wait to impose tough new immigration rules: 'Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together,' he intoned in that watery croak. Oh, please. Pass the sickbag, Marjorie. What a charlatan, what a shameless shape-shifter, what a snake. Keir Starmer is worried that Britain is at 'risk' of becoming 'an island of strangers'. KEIR STARMER! Keir Starmer, the open-borders champ who loses no opportunity to demonise anyone who dares to express doubts about Labour's beloved 'communities' full of such 'strangers'. Keir Starmer, who has voted against almost every measure to reduce immigration, opposing any attempt to deter illegal migration by processing arrivals offshore – like the unceremoniously-dumped Rwanda scheme. Keir Starmer, who won't authorise a national inquiry into the rape gangs lest it reveals the Faustian pact between his party and immigrants who have not only refused to integrate, but have played on liberal idiots like him so skilfully they are apparently able to rape white girls almost with impunity. Keir Starmer, whose government is drawing up a new definition of Islamophobia that could amount to a de facto blasphemy law – silencing people who would really rather their Christian country was not the Western capital for sharia law courts. Keir Starmer, the former shadow immigration minister to Jeremy Corbyn, who wrote in 2020: 'Britain is economically, culturally and socially richer as a result of immigration. We should celebrate this and the huge contribution migration has made to our country. If I am elected leader of the Labour Party, I will always defend migrants' rights and make the positive case for immigration. We must never accept the Tory or media narrative that often scapegoats and demonises migrants. Problems of low pay, housing and public services are not caused by migrants…' Of course not, heaven forbid! Keir Starmer who went on to criticise the Tory 'obsession with chasing arbitrary, unenforceable and unachievable immigration targets. I would never adopt such a target-based approach to immigration'. So it was goodbye to the hostile-environment approach, vowed Starmer. He planned to close 'cruel' immigration detention centres and relax the family reunion rules. Because people fleeing war or persecution 'should not face a lengthy and restrictive' process before they are reunited in the UK with 27 of their closest relatives and three of their wives who can't wait to claim benefits in Hounslow and take a flat from an indigenous family. (OK, he didn't say that last bit, but it's what his attitude means in practice.) Keir Starmer who, five years ago, said his approach to immigration was 'welcoming and compassionate'. Or soft, deluded, catastrophic and a threat to national security and everything we hold dear as voters who backed Reform UK at the local elections see it. Ah, yes, Reform. Make no mistake, behind the PM's new, tough-guy stance on immigration lurks the terror of his Government being swept away at the general election by a turquoise tsunami. (Just wait and see what Reform does to Welsh Labour at the Senedd elections next year; I hear that a large number of serving ministers are standing down for fear of Farage.) 'The Tories lost control of our borders and let net migration soar to record levels undercutting hard-working Brits, I won't stand for it,' said the PM in a cringeworthy, try-too-hard tweet. 'I promised to restore control and cut migration, and I'm delivering with tough new measures. British workers – I've got your back!' Ugh. Can we believe that the arch-globalist kissing cousin of Emmanuel Macron, the EU-philiac who did everything he could to engineer a re-run of the Referendum, is suddenly best mates with the workers who voted in their millions to be an independent, sovereign nation, taking back control of our borders? Don't be ridiculous. Keir Starmer is the biggest fake since Meg Ryan simulated an orgasm in a diner, and at least Ryan's performance hit the entertainment G-spot. Starmer's fills you with a kind of bemused contempt. Unfortunately for the Conservatives, the Labour leader is right about the scale of their betrayal – the deafening numbers admitted in the so-called Boriswave created vast and permanent demographic change and the Tories were rightly annihilated after letting in almost a million migrants within 12 months. It is all very well for Kemi Badenoch to say, as she did at the weekend, 'Our country is a home, not a hotel' when, in the final years of her party's 14-year rule, the UK was less a precious home and more a sprawling, all-inclusive Butlins. We were promised an Australian points-based system admitting highly-skilled individuals, not a salary threshold for admission so low it let in the (third) world and his wife. At least with their proposed 'Deportations Bill', the Tories show they realise they are on death row as far as the electorate is concerned. It's deport or die. The bill has provisions for the removal 'of all foreign criminals, mandatory age checks, tougher visa rules'. The Human Rights Act will be disabled for immigration cases, asylum support will be repayable and there is no permanent right to stay in the UK if you rely on benefits. All good, as far as it goes. But still no pledge to leave the European Court of Human Rights, essential if we are serious about controlling our borders and derailing the immigration-lawyers' gravy train. At this rate, Labour will promise to leave the ECHR before the Conservatives! Do you think I am being a tad harsh, ladies and gents, on the Prime Minister's stirring new stance on immigration? After all, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents etcetera... I really don't think so. It is the work of decades to repair the damage excess immigration has done to our nation, and the longer it's postponed the uglier the reckoning will be. If you look at the Government's new measures, they are pretty paltry. A bit of tinkering with the length of time foreign students can stay without getting a good job, a ban on recruitment of overseas workers (unclear how, or indeed if, this would work), a reduction in the number of work visas that looks a lot better than it actually is, a toughening up of English language requirements which you just know will never be enforced. The NHS has already decided that expecting nurses to speak the language of most patients was 'discriminatory' . While the Government's white paper does agree that we should have a much more selective system, with far lower levels of net migration, the policies come nowhere near delivering that. Karl Williams, of the Centre for Policy Studies think tank, says it looks like Labour 'are aiming for between 200,000 and 300,000 immigrants per annum', as during the 2010s. 'While that's a two-thirds reduction on recent highs that's still extraordinarily high.' The Prime Minister has cunningly not set a cap on overall numbers, arguing that the failure of successive Tory governments to meet a series of targets 'undermined trust'. Hmm. Nothing like failing to set a target at all, Sir Keir, to pull the wool over the public's eyes, eh? The Office for National Statistics has predicted that net migration will settle at 340,000 from 2028, but some experts say that, with more people staying here longer, just over 500,000 is nearer the mark. Yet again, we see how the people are gaslit by their leaders to accept as totally normal levels of immigration which are far greater than at any time in our history, and ruinous for national cohesion and the wellbeing of those who were born here. Do the British people want an extra half a million foreigners, a city the size of Edinburgh, coming to their knackered, overstretched, increasingly ghettoised country every single year? I make that a resounding No. That is why Reform's 'net zero immigration' and pledge to deport all illegal arrivals while taking a draconian approach to the small boats is winning so many votes – they scored an astonishing 33 per cent in the most recent poll (Labour on 20 per cent, Tories on life support at 16). On that showing, the only party that can beat Reform is Reform. Starmer will live to regret his grandstanding on immigration as it becomes clear he's all talk and no action. In private, I'm told that ministers are relying on a significant fall in the legal immigration figures due to measures brought in by the outgoing Tory home secretary James Cleverly. Downing Street will be delighted to take the credit for that decrease and hope it placates the mounting public fury over uncontrolled immigration. Give the voters' little heads a reassuring pat, do next to nothing, quietly park the issue and hope that's enough to get them off your case. Sir Keir Starmer knows full well why Reform are surging in the polls, but the man has a profound distaste for implementing the measures that could help Labour close the gap. He adores immigration, he abhors borders, and he thinks his is the moral, enlightened view and the rest of us who don't agree are a bunch of bigots. Perhaps we could pay for him to have some of those English lessons so he understands the country he notionally leads? Instead of having the back of British workers, as he claims, Sir Keir is about to stick a knife between their shoulder blades while claiming to be a brilliant osteopath. It's a con. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
