Best Of

"Sean Thomas
My 20-year-old daughter can’t find a job, and the reason is infuriating
Entry-level work used to be done by our children – now it seems to be given to immigrants"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/19/my-20-year-old-daughter-cant-find-a-job-reason-infuriating/

By coincidence, my calendar's inspirational thought for the day is from PB's Leon. But he might be wrong about his daughter. A lot of entry level work in retail disappeared when high streets were boarded up, in catering when pubs and restaurants closed, and a lot of white collar entry level work has been given to AI (or at least, that's the excuse the PHBs give for not hiring). Tories will add that Labour's job taxes don't help by destroying negative differentials but if the jobs aren't there in the first place...

Assistant Manager at Dominos gets you a skilled worker visa. Other factors may be greater, but this one is real too.

TfL are getting station attendants on work visas because they claim they can't recruit here. I mean, come on.

If the Assistant Manager at Dominos, or TfL Station Attendant is on £41,700 or above then why should they not get a visa?

Well, because a) someone disreputable might hire someone from overseas on £41,700 and then make them pay a proportion of their wages back to the employer in cash, with the threat of withdrawing the role and the visa hanging over their head b) we should only import foreign workers in roles for which we demonstrably lack the skills and cannot train a suitable candidate, and both the roles you indicate, regardless of the nominal salary, do not fall into that category. After all, someone here moving into an assistant manager role creates an entry level role at Dominos for a young person or someone struggling on a zero-hours contract; bringing someone in does not.

For those who don’t know - the sale of visas is a vast trade.

The one with care home staff was shut down after nearly no one recruited ended up working in care homes.

The jobs often don’t exist or pay far less than any minimum pay number.

There is little enforcement - companies found to be selling visas are barred. New ones are bought on line immediately.

A measure to bar companies that shared directors with other companies that had already been bared was blocked as “too harsh”

A visa like this can go for north of £15k

"Sean Thomas
My 20-year-old daughter can’t find a job, and the reason is infuriating
Entry-level work used to be done by our children – now it seems to be given to immigrants"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/19/my-20-year-old-daughter-cant-find-a-job-reason-infuriating/

By coincidence, my calendar's inspirational thought for the day is from PB's Leon. But he might be wrong about his daughter. A lot of entry level work in retail disappeared when high streets were boarded up, in catering when pubs and restaurants closed, and a lot of white collar entry level work has been given to AI (or at least, that's the excuse the PHBs give for not hiring). Tories will add that Labour's job taxes don't help by destroying negative differentials but if the jobs aren't there in the first place...

I'm about to arrive at a previously Labour for life turned hater of Keir household, it will be interesting to see how they feel about Andy.

Not Corbynny enough is my guess.

The question is why your pals went off Keir Starmer. He does seem to have anti-charisma. He evokes an almost visceral hatred in many. I don't know why he does but it is futile to deny it. But the corollary is that changing the man at the top – and nothing else – might be enough.

He was known as Starmer the Charmer at university and considered very charismatic. But somehow this has been lost or does not come across in his Prime Ministering.

In that sense, a lot like John Major in the second half of his Premiership. If people don't want to be charmed, there's not a great deal to be done.

It doesn't matter how rationally fair it is or isn't, because that's just part of being human.

FPT

On previous thread Petercairns sais:

"It;'s also worth noting that the International annual rate of jobs decline in mature oil fields is set at somehwere between 2-4% so from 1980 to 2030 the natural decline would be from about 130k to around 50k on a 2% decline. or roughly where we will are now regardless of Government policy."

Sorry but I do laugh when people make such ill informed comments.

What the hell has the decline in jobs in mature oil fields got to do with anything. Of course they decline. But then you find NEW oil and gas fields to replace them. There is still an estimated recoverable 15 billion BOE equivalent in the UK sector - set against total UK production since the start of the North Sea of 37 billion BOE equivalent. So there are decades of oil and gas still to be developed. Oh and every prediction ever made for the North Sea since it started has underestimated the reserves.

Those job declines are by no means inevitable except due to political decisions

It's only recoverable if it's economic do do so and that means the new fields have to be developed in large enough numbers and be big enough to maintain upgrade and expand the existing aging North Sea infrastructure and all indications are taht on a field by field basis they are not.

Things like Rosebank and West of Shetland go straight to tanker so they mostly don't contribute to the network costs, certainly for oil.

It matters not a jot how much oil is down there, if the long term cost of developing it, extracting it and getting it ashore doesn't make sense. The smaller the new field and the futher out it is, the more it costs to get it ashore.

Much like Scargills deep mined coal, it matters not how much there is, if someone elses is cheaper.

Most new fields in the North Sea are small and only viable if they tie into the existing pipeline network and that isn't going to change.

Peter.

Simply wrong in every aspect. We are currently abandoning fields in the North Sea with more than a billion barrels of recoverable oil in each. Because of political decisions not economic ones.

Much of West of Shetland goes into existing pipeline systems.

Did you know we take gas from the Clair Ridge platform West of Shetlands, pipe it though to the Magnus in the Northern North Sea, use it for reinjection to help oil production and then pipe the rest of it to Shetlands? I know because I have stood with my hand on the export line as it drops into the sea on Clair Ridge.

Nick Tyrone manfully takes on the Spectator task of explaining why the real winners of last night's three by elections was Reform.

https://spectator.com/article/reforms-defeat-in-makerfield-is-a-blessing-in-disguise/

I saw some SNP people trying to argue that the Aberdeen South result was a success for the SNP.

That’s nothing, I’ve seen PBers arguing that Aberdeen South means that the Kemiservatives ARE BACK!

Indeed.

As I noted this morning, both Makerfield and Aberdeen South should be limited to the present circumstances only and shouldn't be extrapolated.

The Manchester Mayoral election will be of interest. It will tell us how widespread and transferable the Burnseiah Effect is.

If it isn’t, Labour loses. And the shine comes off Burnham rather rapidly.

It’s STV. Should be easy Labour hold

No it’s not.

It’s the Supplementary Vote system that will be used.

One would expect that most LibDem and Green voters put Labour as their second preference while Tory voters will be split between whatever numpty Reform finds to put up, and the Labour candidate. On that basis, SV does work to Labour’s advantage. Given that Reform’s balloon is beginning to look a bit droopy, those better-than-evens odds on a Labour mayoral win look quite tasty to me.

It doesn’t work to Labour’s advantage. It accurately reveals the electorate’s preference for Labour.