Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
There are only 20% of people at the DfE that are crap? That seems very much on the low side to me...
20% in the public sector over all, disproportionately focused on the DFE, DCMS, and large chunks of local councils or would seem… It is, of course, impossible to judge in the Cabinet Office and Number 10 until they’ve sobered up.
Ukrainian intel says Russians are deploying Tochka-U missile systems against Kyiv. And it sounds bizarre. I was sure Russians deem Tochkas obsolete and they aimed at retiring them all long time ago. Are they already running out of modern Kalibrs and Iskanders or what?
The USSR never used to throw things away - that's how they ended up with enough equipment for all the Category C divisions.
Certainly their high-end weapons have been conspicuous by their relative absence in this war.
I really think the West has massively overestimated the effectiveness of Russian weapons and the Russian military. Even after the Gulf and Iraq wars people would always say "that's the export model, and the Russian forces are much better trained" to explain the apparent deficiencies.
Only a few weeks ago you could find endless comments about how the anti-tank weapons the West has sent would not be effective against modern Russian tanks and their explosive reactive armour, and the grills being fitted to defeat top-attack weapons.
It's actually staggering to see how badly the Russian military is performing. Whatever happens to Ukraine, and Russia can still choose to kill vast numbers of people and declare victory, there will have to be a complete reassessment of the Russian military.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector and an annual cull of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
The Brillo weathervane has spaketh. We're all Carole cat women now.
Are we going to flip on a sixpence from being a centre of excellence for money laundering to being dead against it?
Quite something if so. It would show that Germany isn't the only country that can overturn 30 years worth of deeply ingrained policy in response to what Putin is doing.
It would be another clear-up of the Blair-Cameron era.
Mandelson's announcing that the Labour party was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" summed up the mentality and strategy.
I was never intensely relaxed about him saying that. There was a need to combat the view that Labour were hairshirted sourpusses who couldn't abide the idea of people having a nice meal out now and again, but it wasn't necessary to bend that far on the rhetoric.
Tories: Labour is the party of envy, of jealousy, of levelling down, of spending other people's money, of class hatred, of not letting people enjoy their well-earned riches.
Same Tories: how dare Mandelson say that he is 'intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich'! Shows that Labour isn't the party of ordinary hard-working people at all.
Yep, the old 'Politics of Envy Class Warrior or Champagne Socialist Hypocrite' dichotomy. And if you somehow avoid either you're 'dull'. There is just no type of Labour that quite passes muster. It's amazing we ever win any elections at all really.
Well I guess equally if Labour are so good it's even more amazing they win so relatively few - always excepting Mr. Blair of course....
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
There are only 20% of people at the DfE that are crap? That seems very much on the low side to me...
20% in the public sector over all, disproportionately focused on the DFE, DCMS, and large chunks of local councils or would seem… It is, of course, impossible to judge in the Cabinet Office and Number 10 until they’ve sobered up.
I would suggest the odds are they're taking the piss.
Unless there is some secret strategy we haven't seen yet, it looks increasingly likely that the only way Putin can win the war is by using thermobaric, chemical or tactical nuclear weapons to break the Ukrainians' will. It gives me hope but also a sense of real worry.
I am old enough to remember when people decried NATO's WWIII plan as - hold the Fulda Gap for three days, then blow up the world.
Yes, the positions are reversed from 1985. The red army isn’t going to surge over the border, instead it’s going to slowly limp into Poland or Estonia before being routed, and then the risk is the Russians go nuclear.
I don't think that, with the war in Ukraine, Russia could attacks anything else, at the moment.
I'm wondering what happens if the unthinkable happens - What if Ukraine pushes Russia back, at least in the North West ?
The Brillo weathervane has spaketh. We're all Carole cat women now.
Are we going to flip on a sixpence from being a centre of excellence for money laundering to being dead against it?
Quite something if so. It would show that Germany isn't the only country that can overturn 30 years worth of deeply ingrained policy in response to what Putin is doing.
It would be another clear-up of the Blair-Cameron era.
Mandelson's announcing that the Labour party was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" summed up the mentality and strategy.
I was never intensely relaxed about him saying that. There was a need to combat the view that Labour were hairshirted sourpusses who couldn't abide the idea of people having a nice meal out now and again, but it wasn't necessary to bend that far on the rhetoric.
Tories: Labour is the party of envy, of jealousy, of levelling down, of spending other people's money, of class hatred, of not letting people enjoy their well-earned riches.
Same Tories: how dare Mandelson say that he is 'intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich'! Shows that Labour isn't the party of ordinary hard-working people at all.
Yep, the old 'Politics of Envy Class Warrior or Champagne Socialist Hypocrite' dichotomy. And if you somehow avoid either you're 'dull'. There is just no type of Labour that quite passes muster. It's amazing we ever win any elections at all really.
Your recent winning form is about as good as mine on hurdle races.
We had 13 Mandy years and communities levelled down. You may never get a majority again from everyone who remembers it.
Fantasy: embrace the glorious advantages of globalisation says Blair! Reality: like a Putin peace mission has visited the place, this sums up Labours last rare visit to power in just 2 sentences.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
Betting post here. It might be worthwhile putting a few quid on laying Trump for next GOP nominee for 2024 and / or putting some money on other contenders such as DeSantis. Not so much for the rights or wrongs of whether he hasn’t condemned Putin enough, more for the stupidity of his comment that Putin was a “genius”. I think that comment is going to come back to haunt him, ahem, ‘bigly’ in the nomination race, especially if someone takes him on aggressively. DYOR.
I won't because I already have a big (underwater) short on him but I do agree. Trump 2.0 is feeling less and less likely to me.
Unless there is some secret strategy we haven't seen yet, it looks increasingly likely that the only way Putin can win the war is by using thermobaric, chemical or tactical nuclear weapons to break the Ukrainians' will. It gives me hope but also a sense of real worry.
I am old enough to remember when people decried NATO's WWIII plan as - hold the Fulda Gap for three days, then blow up the world.
Yes, the positions are reversed from 1985. The red army isn’t going to surge over the border, instead it’s going to slowly limp into Poland or Estonia before being routed, and then the risk is the Russians go nuclear.
I don't think that, with the war in Ukraine, Russia could attacks anything else, at the moment.
I'm wondering what happens if the unthinkable happens - What if Ukraine pushes Russia back, at least in the North West ?
Playing out the scenario, you’d forgive Ukraine for at least wanting to create a demilitarised “buffer zone” the other side of the border.
Betting post here. It might be worthwhile putting a few quid on laying Trump for next GOP nominee for 2024 and / or putting some money on other contenders such as DeSantis. Not so much for the rights or wrongs of whether he hasn’t condemned Putin enough, more for the stupidity of his comment that Putin was a “genius”. I think that comment is going to come back to haunt him, ahem, ‘bigly’ in the nomination race, especially if someone takes him on aggressively. DYOR.
I won't because I already have a big (underwater) short on him but I do agree. Trump 2.0 is feeling less and less likely to me.
His rivals need to really piss him off with a Trump style nickname.
Unless there is some secret strategy we haven't seen yet, it looks increasingly likely that the only way Putin can win the war is by using thermobaric, chemical or tactical nuclear weapons to break the Ukrainians' will. It gives me hope but also a sense of real worry.
They seem to have a relatively small number of the Thermobaric MLRS setups - under 50 in toto.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
Unless there is some secret strategy we haven't seen yet, it looks increasingly likely that the only way Putin can win the war is by using thermobaric, chemical or tactical nuclear weapons to break the Ukrainians' will. It gives me hope but also a sense of real worry.
I am old enough to remember when people decried NATO's WWIII plan as - hold the Fulda Gap for three days, then blow up the world.
Yes, the positions are reversed from 1985. The red army isn’t going to surge over the border, instead it’s going to slowly limp into Poland or Estonia before being routed, and then the risk is the Russians go nuclear.
And there's the paradox: it's unsafe to beat Russia.
This also applies to sanctions: if they are too effective Putin will tell the Russian public they are an act of war justifying a nuclear response. And they probably will be too effective. And pig dog's supporters will tell us that we should have accepted his light touch approach to corruption among his immediate circle.
Unless there is some secret strategy we haven't seen yet, it looks increasingly likely that the only way Putin can win the war is by using thermobaric, chemical or tactical nuclear weapons to break the Ukrainians' will. It gives me hope but also a sense of real worry.
I am old enough to remember when people decried NATO's WWIII plan as - hold the Fulda Gap for three days, then blow up the world.
Yes, the positions are reversed from 1985. The red army isn’t going to surge over the border, instead it’s going to slowly limp into Poland or Estonia before being routed, and then the risk is the Russians go nuclear.
I don't think that, with the war in Ukraine, Russia could attacks anything else, at the moment.
I'm wondering what happens if the unthinkable happens - What if Ukraine pushes Russia back, at least in the North West ?
What if they crossed the border? It's not impossible, nor unthinkable, at least for a limited time. One more possible escalation. Certainly by accident or reckless enthusiasm.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
And, consequently, a culture of cutting corners, ignoring rules and ignoring societal impact exists.
Betting post here. It might be worthwhile putting a few quid on laying Trump for next GOP nominee for 2024 and / or putting some money on other contenders such as DeSantis. Not so much for the rights or wrongs of whether he hasn’t condemned Putin enough, more for the stupidity of his comment that Putin was a “genius”. I think that comment is going to come back to haunt him, ahem, ‘bigly’ in the nomination race, especially if someone takes him on aggressively. DYOR.
I won't because I already have a big (underwater) short on him but I do agree. Trump 2.0 is feeling less and less likely to me.
His rivals need to really piss him off with a Trump style nickname.
The Brillo weathervane has spaketh. We're all Carole cat women now.
Are we going to flip on a sixpence from being a centre of excellence for money laundering to being dead against it?
Quite something if so. It would show that Germany isn't the only country that can overturn 30 years worth of deeply ingrained policy in response to what Putin is doing.
It would be another clear-up of the Blair-Cameron era.
Mandelson's announcing that the Labour party was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" summed up the mentality and strategy.
I was never intensely relaxed about him saying that. There was a need to combat the view that Labour were hairshirted sourpusses who couldn't abide the idea of people having a nice meal out now and again, but it wasn't necessary to bend that far on the rhetoric.
I'd say that the fundamental issue is between 'earned' and 'unearned' money.
Now getting lots of money by earning it - whether that's through employment or having a business or investment choices - isn't easy and almost always involves a lot of hard work and intrinsic ability.
But unearned money can be different if it is acquired through dishonest, criminal, malignant means.
Now I don't know how many people are willing to engage in dishonest, criminal or malignant methods to acquire unearned money.
But I'm pretty sure that there are proportionally more of such people in politics and parts of the financial sector - and both with much more scope to do so.
Think about Mandelson's full quote - "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes" and exchange 'filthy rich' for 'dirty money'.
Doesn't that sum up British government mentality on this issue ?
I'd say there was a bargain struck during the long financial bubble which popped in 08, the essence of which was to let the City - and those enabled by the City - run wild & free in exchange for the gdp and tax revenue generated.
Before we talk about another Sindy referendum I think we should get clarity on the SNP's position with regards to Nato.
We will worry about all the small stuff once we are independent.
Thats kind of why we won´t go independent. The lack of clarity on the "small" stuff. It is weak and its pretty stupid to fail to address critical policy areas and then say to the voters "trust us". So, keep this going Malc and then you can never win.
It is only a matter of when , not if. The old codgers who are last remaining spineless unionists are popping their clogs fast. Anyone under 50 has only lived under the cosh and so when a decent politician is running the country and forces a referendum, it will be independence. Can you tell me why the Ukranian's do not want to be Russian's again.
No apostrophes there, Malc. It's "Ukrainians" and "Russians" in this context, as you are denoting a number of people, rather than a posessive, which would mean something that belongs to a Ukranian or a Russian. You see, an apostrophe is usually used in the possessive form, like "Janet's family", "John's bicycle", "that Ukranian's car" or, using something you are familiar with, "Jobseeker's Allowance".
You also need a question mark (which looks like this "?") at the end of your last sentence. But we're all really proud of the great strides you're making. A cogent sentence is only a matter of time.
What @state_go_away seems to forget that this isn’t some squabble between two nations where there are many shades of grey, this is one nation aggressively invading another with zero provocation. This isn’t a problem that calls for mediation, this is a problem that requires a “stop fucking doing that and go away” solution.
No mediation is possible yet anyway. If there was something that Putin would have been willing to settle for then there would have been serious negotiations instead of an invasion.
How can you mediate between one side wanting to remain independent, and the other wanting to annex them?
Once a lot of people have died, and both sides have realised they won't get everything they want by fighting, then mediation is possible. Or one side might win everything they want by fighting before that point.
Has Putin really miscalculated though? Has he not got the big call - that the US would not defend Ukraine - right?
VVP's objective is not to end up with a prosperous, independent Ukraine in the EU and/or NATO. It certainly looks like he's going to get that. A second Belarus would have been ideal but he'll settle for a failed state full of starving wretches.
Fingers crossed Putin will start to see Ukraine rebuild and prosper from his jail cell.
Unless there is some secret strategy we haven't seen yet, it looks increasingly likely that the only way Putin can win the war is by using thermobaric, chemical or tactical nuclear weapons to break the Ukrainians' will. It gives me hope but also a sense of real worry.
I am old enough to remember when people decried NATO's WWIII plan as - hold the Fulda Gap for three days, then blow up the world.
Yes, the positions are reversed from 1985. The red army isn’t going to surge over the border, instead it’s going to slowly limp into Poland or Estonia before being routed, and then the risk is the Russians go nuclear.
I don't think that, with the war in Ukraine, Russia could attacks anything else, at the moment.
I'm wondering what happens if the unthinkable happens - What if Ukraine pushes Russia back, at least in the North West ?
What if they crossed the border? It's not impossible, nor unthinkable, at least for a limited time. One more possible escalation. Certainly by accident or reckless enthusiasm.
That certainly wouldn't be any kind of genuine outrage and I am not sure Putin would be able to extract even the synthetic variety from it
This may be a good time to recycle some of those old Cold War jokes.
For example, in 1987 Boris and Ivan are discussing how the Soviet Union works. Boris says, "You know, Ivan, I think this must be the richest country in the world."
"Why do you say that, Boris?"
"Because for seventy years, everyone has been stealing from it, and there is still stuff left to steal."
(More seriously, for a moment: I have a collection of Russian political jokes compiled in 2017 -- and it is disturbing to see how similar many of them are to the jokes told 40 or 50 years ago.)
"Mariupol evacuation halted for a second day - International Red Cross
The evacuation of civilians from the besieged south-eastern city of Mariupol has been halted, the International Committee of the Red Cross says.
Ukrainian and Russian forces blamed each other for failing to observe a ceasefire to allow local people to escape, after a similar agreement fell apart yesterday."
Unless there is some secret strategy we haven't seen yet, it looks increasingly likely that the only way Putin can win the war is by using thermobaric, chemical or tactical nuclear weapons to break the Ukrainians' will. It gives me hope but also a sense of real worry.
I am old enough to remember when people decried NATO's WWIII plan as - hold the Fulda Gap for three days, then blow up the world.
Yes, the positions are reversed from 1985. The red army isn’t going to surge over the border, instead it’s going to slowly limp into Poland or Estonia before being routed, and then the risk is the Russians go nuclear.
I don't think that, with the war in Ukraine, Russia could attacks anything else, at the moment.
I'm wondering what happens if the unthinkable happens - What if Ukraine pushes Russia back, at least in the North West ?
What if they crossed the border? It's not impossible, nor unthinkable, at least for a limited time. One more possible escalation. Certainly by accident or reckless enthusiasm.
That certainly wouldn't be any kind of genuine outrage and I am not sure Putin would be able to extract even the synthetic variety from it
It might put some enthusiasm into Russian troops, mind.
Betting post here. It might be worthwhile putting a few quid on laying Trump for next GOP nominee for 2024 and / or putting some money on other contenders such as DeSantis. Not so much for the rights or wrongs of whether he hasn’t condemned Putin enough, more for the stupidity of his comment that Putin was a “genius”. I think that comment is going to come back to haunt him, ahem, ‘bigly’ in the nomination race, especially if someone takes him on aggressively. DYOR.
I won't because I already have a big (underwater) short on him but I do agree. Trump 2.0 is feeling less and less likely to me.
His rivals need to really piss him off with a Trump style nickname.
I have almost no doubt that people saying "hit the Russians with harder sanctions" will soon be saying "oh the poor Russian people, end the sanctions". The Russian economy is about to fall off a cliff, and it won't be pretty.
Ukrainian intel says Russians are deploying Tochka-U missile systems against Kyiv. And it sounds bizarre. I was sure Russians deem Tochkas obsolete and they aimed at retiring them all long time ago. Are they already running out of modern Kalibrs and Iskanders or what?
The USSR never used to throw things away - that's how they ended up with enough equipment for all the Category C divisions.
Certainly their high-end weapons have been conspicuous by their relative absence in this war.
I really think the West has massively overestimated the effectiveness of Russian weapons and the Russian military. Even after the Gulf and Iraq wars people would always say "that's the export model, and the Russian forces are much better trained" to explain the apparent deficiencies.
Only a few weeks ago you could find endless comments about how the anti-tank weapons the West has sent would not be effective against modern Russian tanks and their explosive reactive armour, and the grills being fitted to defeat top-attack weapons.
It's actually staggering to see how badly the Russian military is performing. Whatever happens to Ukraine, and Russia can still choose to kill vast numbers of people and declare victory, there will have to be a complete reassessment of the Russian military.
The problem the Russians always had (back to Soviet times) was not so much technology as production of high technology items. They could hand craft a few awesome machines. But that was it. And their economy has de-industrialised since then, in many crucial areas.
They don't have the productive capacity to make lots and lots of high end weapons.
Betting post here. It might be worthwhile putting a few quid on laying Trump for next GOP nominee for 2024 and / or putting some money on other contenders such as DeSantis. Not so much for the rights or wrongs of whether he hasn’t condemned Putin enough, more for the stupidity of his comment that Putin was a “genius”. I think that comment is going to come back to haunt him, ahem, ‘bigly’ in the nomination race, especially if someone takes him on aggressively. DYOR.
I won't because I already have a big (underwater) short on him but I do agree. Trump 2.0 is feeling less and less likely to me.
His rivals need to really piss him off with a Trump style nickname.
Betting post here. It might be worthwhile putting a few quid on laying Trump for next GOP nominee for 2024 and / or putting some money on other contenders such as DeSantis. Not so much for the rights or wrongs of whether he hasn’t condemned Putin enough, more for the stupidity of his comment that Putin was a “genius”. I think that comment is going to come back to haunt him, ahem, ‘bigly’ in the nomination race, especially if someone takes him on aggressively. DYOR.
I won't because I already have a big (underwater) short on him but I do agree. Trump 2.0 is feeling less and less likely to me.
His rivals need to really piss him off with a Trump style nickname.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
Unions may oppose performance-related pay (PRP), but PRP has been a reality in the Civil Service for many years now - although it is modest in scope, usually capped at about £3K, so nothing like private sector PRP.
My branch of the Civil Service also introduced Instant Recognition Awards for pieces of outstanding work. These were even more modest - a £30 voucher to spend in Cafe Rouge, M&S or somewhere similar. They had no discernible impact on staff retention, unsurprisingly.
The Brillo weathervane has spaketh. We're all Carole cat women now.
Are we going to flip on a sixpence from being a centre of excellence for money laundering to being dead against it?
Quite something if so. It would show that Germany isn't the only country that can overturn 30 years worth of deeply ingrained policy in response to what Putin is doing.
It would be another clear-up of the Blair-Cameron era.
Mandelson's announcing that the Labour party was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" summed up the mentality and strategy.
I was never intensely relaxed about him saying that. There was a need to combat the view that Labour were hairshirted sourpusses who couldn't abide the idea of people having a nice meal out now and again, but it wasn't necessary to bend that far on the rhetoric.
I'd say that the fundamental issue is between 'earned' and 'unearned' money.
Now getting lots of money by earning it - whether that's through employment or having a business or investment choices - isn't easy and almost always involves a lot of hard work and intrinsic ability.
But unearned money can be different if it is acquired through dishonest, criminal, malignant means.
Now I don't know how many people are willing to engage in dishonest, criminal or malignant methods to acquire unearned money.
But I'm pretty sure that there are proportionally more of such people in politics and parts of the financial sector - and both with much more scope to do so.
Think about Mandelson's full quote - "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes" and exchange 'filthy rich' for 'dirty money'.
Doesn't that sum up British government mentality on this issue ?
I'd say there was a bargain struck during the long financial bubble which popped in 08, the essence of which was to let the City - and those enabled by the City - run wild & free in exchange for the gdp and tax revenue generated.
I can remember Ed "No" Balls trying to claim that people who were raising questions about the bubble in the derivatives market were "talking Britain down" and being "unpatriotic"
The Brillo weathervane has spaketh. We're all Carole cat women now.
Are we going to flip on a sixpence from being a centre of excellence for money laundering to being dead against it?
Quite something if so. It would show that Germany isn't the only country that can overturn 30 years worth of deeply ingrained policy in response to what Putin is doing.
It would be another clear-up of the Blair-Cameron era.
Mandelson's announcing that the Labour party was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" summed up the mentality and strategy.
I was never intensely relaxed about him saying that. There was a need to combat the view that Labour were hairshirted sourpusses who couldn't abide the idea of people having a nice meal out now and again, but it wasn't necessary to bend that far on the rhetoric.
Tories: Labour is the party of envy, of jealousy, of levelling down, of spending other people's money, of class hatred, of not letting people enjoy their well-earned riches.
Same Tories: how dare Mandelson say that he is 'intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich'! Shows that Labour isn't the party of ordinary hard-working people at all.
Yep, the old 'Politics of Envy Class Warrior or Champagne Socialist Hypocrite' dichotomy. And if you somehow avoid either you're 'dull'. There is just no type of Labour that quite passes muster. It's amazing we ever win any elections at all really.
Your recent winning form is about as good as mine on hurdle races.
We had 13 Mandy years and communities levelled down. You may never get a majority again from everyone who remembers it.
Fantasy: embrace the glorious advantages of globalisation says Blair! Reality: like a Putin peace mission has visited the place, this sums up Labours last rare visit to power in just 2 sentences.
A rather jaundiced (!) take on New Labour. That government surely grows in stature as we gaze back from these days of Boris "Boris" Johnson.
Betting post here. It might be worthwhile putting a few quid on laying Trump for next GOP nominee for 2024 and / or putting some money on other contenders such as DeSantis. Not so much for the rights or wrongs of whether he hasn’t condemned Putin enough, more for the stupidity of his comment that Putin was a “genius”. I think that comment is going to come back to haunt him, ahem, ‘bigly’ in the nomination race, especially if someone takes him on aggressively. DYOR.
I won't because I already have a big (underwater) short on him but I do agree. Trump 2.0 is feeling less and less likely to me.
His rivals need to really piss him off with a Trump style nickname.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
Factually wrong on almost every point, save the lack of unions for the trading end of financial services firms, and tinge oddity that is TfL (through train driver pay issues are hardly unique to TfL).
Edit - Oh and you object to unions being involved in negotiating members’ salaries in principle then there really is no hope for you.
The resignation of the Belarusian CDS, if confirmed, might be the signal of something a lot bigger. He has quit, it is said, because the Belarusian army has refused to go into Ukraine, despite direct orders and that "replacing commanders would not solve the problem". This could confirm rumours that were circulating in recent days that precisely such a mutiny was under way. Meanwhile the Ukrainian army is forming a Belarusian unit of exiles that are fighting under the white-red-white flag. Just a reminder that it is only just over a year since the huge protests against Lukashenka´s fixed election. Putin´s Mussolini may be in a spot of bother and that could become a very big headache for the Russian troops in the north,
We are still holding our breath in Tallinn, and the Putinists are still very far from collapse, but certainly the Ukrainians have had a much better 24 hours. On the other hand the martyrdom of Mariupol is turning into a massive humanitarian catastrophe.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
Unions may oppose performance-related pay (PRP), but PRP has been a reality in the Civil Service for many years now - although it is modest in scope, usually capped at about £3K, so nothing like private sector PRP.
My branch of the Civil Service also introduced Instant Recognition Awards for pieces of outstanding work. These were even more modest - a £30 voucher to spend in Cafe Rouge, M&S or somewhere similar. They had no discernible impact on staff retention, unsurprisingly.
I remember PRP. So low as not to make any real differtence, and therefore not worth the hassle of administering it, or the bad feeling it caused. I happened to go on a managment course at Sunninghill when it was being brought into my agency (about 30 years ago, which shows how out of date HYUFD is). I asked about it from this point of view, finding it hard to make sense of it all, and was somewhat taken aback when the lecturer wholeheatedly agreed and said you had to have either much bigger bonuses or not at all.
Edit: Sunninghill was, and may for all I know still be, the Civil Service College.
The problem the Russians always had (back to Soviet times) was not so much technology as production of high technology items. They could hand craft a few awesome machines. But that was it. And their economy has de-industrialised since then, in many crucial areas.
They don't have the productive capacity to make lots and lots of high end weapons.
It does remind me of Bill Hicks on the Gulf War.
Once again though, I was watching the CNN man and they blew it all man, all the anxiety. Remember how it started? They kept talking about the ‘Elite Republican Guard’ in these hushed tones, remember that? Like they where the boogieman, you know; “Yeah, we’re doing well, but we have yet to face… …the ‘Elite Republican Guard’.” Yeah, like these guys are ten feet tall, desert warriors; “NEVER LOST A BATTLE!” “WE SHIT BULLETS!” Well, after two and a half months of continuous carpet bombing and not ONE reaction at all from these fuckers, …they became simply the ‘Republican Guard’, not merely as ‘Elite’ as we may have led you to believe. And after one month of continuous bombing not one reaction AT ALL, they went from the ‘Elite Republican Guard’ to the ‘Republican Guard’ to the ‘Republicans made this shit up about there being guards out there… we hope you enjoyed your firework show.
Unless there is some secret strategy we haven't seen yet, it looks increasingly likely that the only way Putin can win the war is by using thermobaric, chemical or tactical nuclear weapons to break the Ukrainians' will. It gives me hope but also a sense of real worry.
I am old enough to remember when people decried NATO's WWIII plan as - hold the Fulda Gap for three days, then blow up the world.
Yes, the positions are reversed from 1985. The red army isn’t going to surge over the border, instead it’s going to slowly limp into Poland or Estonia before being routed, and then the risk is the Russians go nuclear.
I don't think that, with the war in Ukraine, Russia could attacks anything else, at the moment.
I'm wondering what happens if the unthinkable happens - What if Ukraine pushes Russia back, at least in the North West ?
What if they crossed the border? It's not impossible, nor unthinkable, at least for a limited time. One more possible escalation. Certainly by accident or reckless enthusiasm.
That certainly wouldn't be any kind of genuine outrage and I am not sure Putin would be able to extract even the synthetic variety from it
The Pskov base is mostly empty. The nearest Russian tank column to Estonia is over 1000 miles away. They would have to disengage in Ukraine to even move. The Estonian CDS has said that there is no active threat to Estonian security "for the time being".
The Brillo weathervane has spaketh. We're all Carole cat women now.
Are we going to flip on a sixpence from being a centre of excellence for money laundering to being dead against it?
Quite something if so. It would show that Germany isn't the only country that can overturn 30 years worth of deeply ingrained policy in response to what Putin is doing.
It would be another clear-up of the Blair-Cameron era.
Mandelson's announcing that the Labour party was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" summed up the mentality and strategy.
I was never intensely relaxed about him saying that. There was a need to combat the view that Labour were hairshirted sourpusses who couldn't abide the idea of people having a nice meal out now and again, but it wasn't necessary to bend that far on the rhetoric.
Tories: Labour is the party of envy, of jealousy, of levelling down, of spending other people's money, of class hatred, of not letting people enjoy their well-earned riches.
Same Tories: how dare Mandelson say that he is 'intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich'! Shows that Labour isn't the party of ordinary hard-working people at all.
Yep, the old 'Politics of Envy Class Warrior or Champagne Socialist Hypocrite' dichotomy. And if you somehow avoid either you're 'dull'. There is just no type of Labour that quite passes muster. It's amazing we ever win any elections at all really.
Your recent winning form is about as good as mine on hurdle races.
We had 13 Mandy years and communities levelled down. You may never get a majority again from everyone who remembers it.
Fantasy: embrace the glorious advantages of globalisation says Blair! Reality: like a Putin peace mission has visited the place, this sums up Labours last rare visit to power in just 2 sentences.
A rather jaundiced (!) take on New Labour. That government surely grows in stature as we gaze back from these days of Boris "Boris" Johnson.
New Labour embraced the idea that, with globalisation, all the non white collar jobs would be offshored.
Except for the small fact that they forgot about productivity - a very good case can be made that jobs in "high cost" locations can *cost less* per unit of actual work done. In fact, once you take productivity into account, quite a lot of low cost locations - aren't.
When offshoring failed to deliver the goods (ha) the next step was on-shoring the offshore workers. Who would work cheaply, in your highly productive economy. For a time. After as while they tend to demand something fascist, like a pay rise. But they could be replaced....
This may be a good time to recycle some of those old Cold War jokes.
For example, in 1987 Boris and Ivan are discussing how the Soviet Union works. Boris says, "You know, Ivan, I think this must be the richest country in the world."
"Why do you say that, Boris?"
"Because for seventy years, everyone has been stealing from it, and there is still stuff left to steal."
(More seriously, for a moment: I have a collection of Russian political jokes compiled in 2017 -- and it is disturbing to see how similar many of them are to the jokes told 40 or 50 years ago.)
There is a project to send a man into space. But they need an astronaut.
They approach NASA. "Geez, that's tough. We spend a lot of money to train our guys. We could sell you one - for twenty million."
Next they go to the French. "Ah, ze food in space is 'orrible, nobody really wants to go zere....we could sell you one - for forty million.
Finally, they approach the Russians. "Sure, we can do this. The cost is sixty million. No negotiation."
The project guys are rather taken aback at the cost. "Why so much?"
"Twenty million for me, twenty million for you - and we send the American...."
Been a few videos of Russian police getting attacked as they try and arrest people as well. We could be seeing the start of something if this drags on for months.
Reports are ~20 are now dead from the football riot in Mexico. Having stupidly wondered what happened by searching twitter, I imagine the real dead toll could eventually be a lot more. Scores of videos of not we have knocked him out, lets move on, more we have knocked him out, keep stamping on their head.
“Defence chief contradicts Liz Truss over idea of Britons going to fight in Ukraine Sir Tony Radakin says it would be unlawful for individuals to travel to offer military help”
Utter tosh. Liz Truss and the government is right on this, she speaks for the people on this. The people of Ukraine are fighting for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY not just for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe because that’s what President Putin is challenging. And they need real help, not just the rusted unusable junk everyone is praising Germany for sending over. Of course it is something the government in a liberal democracy should trust it’s people to make their own decisions about, they want us to believe in freedom and democracy and that it needs to be fought for or else you lose it don’t they?
Confused mixed messages from military (almost like they want it all over quick) unlike clear message from government. What a proper liberal country is all about isn’t it?
The problem the Russians always had (back to Soviet times) was not so much technology as production of high technology items. They could hand craft a few awesome machines. But that was it. And their economy has de-industrialised since then, in many crucial areas.
They don't have the productive capacity to make lots and lots of high end weapons.
It does remind me of Bill Hicks on the Gulf War.
Once again though, I was watching the CNN man and they blew it all man, all the anxiety. Remember how it started? They kept talking about the ‘Elite Republican Guard’ in these hushed tones, remember that? Like they where the boogieman, you know; “Yeah, we’re doing well, but we have yet to face… …the ‘Elite Republican Guard’.” Yeah, like these guys are ten feet tall, desert warriors; “NEVER LOST A BATTLE!” “WE SHIT BULLETS!” Well, after two and a half months of continuous carpet bombing and not ONE reaction at all from these fuckers, …they became simply the ‘Republican Guard’, not merely as ‘Elite’ as we may have led you to believe. And after one month of continuous bombing not one reaction AT ALL, they went from the ‘Elite Republican Guard’ to the ‘Republican Guard’ to the ‘Republicans made this shit up about there being guards out there… we hope you enjoyed your firework show.
PJ O'Rourke then asked the question that no-one else did - "These Elite Republican Guards - has anyone checked to see if they are still Republicans?"
This may be a good time to recycle some of those old Cold War jokes.
For example, in 1987 Boris and Ivan are discussing how the Soviet Union works. Boris says, "You know, Ivan, I think this must be the richest country in the world."
"Why do you say that, Boris?"
"Because for seventy years, everyone has been stealing from it, and there is still stuff left to steal."
(More seriously, for a moment: I have a collection of Russian political jokes compiled in 2017 -- and it is disturbing to see how similar many of them are to the jokes told 40 or 50 years ago.)
There is a project to send a man into space. But they need an astronaut.
They approach NASA. "Geez, that's tough. We spend a lot of money to train our guys. We could sell you one - for twenty million."
Next they go to the French. "Ah, ze food in space is 'orrible, nobody really wants to go zere....we could sell you one - for forty million.
Finally, they approach the Russians. "Sure, we can do this. The cost is sixty million. No negotiation."
The project guys are rather taken aback at the cost. "Why so much?"
"Twenty million for me, twenty million for you - and we send the American...."
Time to bring back the old Yakov Smirnoff...
In America, you have American Express... "Don't leave home without it!". In Russia, you have Russian Express... "Don't leave home."
It still amazes me that no-one noticed that Borat was just a Yakov Smirnoff tribute act.
This may be a good time to recycle some of those old Cold War jokes.
For example, in 1987 Boris and Ivan are discussing how the Soviet Union works. Boris says, "You know, Ivan, I think this must be the richest country in the world."
"Why do you say that, Boris?"
"Because for seventy years, everyone has been stealing from it, and there is still stuff left to steal."
(More seriously, for a moment: I have a collection of Russian political jokes compiled in 2017 -- and it is disturbing to see how similar many of them are to the jokes told 40 or 50 years ago.)
There is a project to send a man into space. But they need an astronaut.
They approach NASA. "Geez, that's tough. We spend a lot of money to train our guys. We could sell you one - for twenty million."
Next they go to the French. "Ah, ze food in space is 'orrible, nobody really wants to go zere....we could sell you one - for forty million.
Finally, they approach the Russians. "Sure, we can do this. The cost is sixty million. No negotiation."
The project guys are rather taken aback at the cost. "Why so much?"
"Twenty million for me, twenty million for you - and we send the American...."
That's not far off what they did when they committed the Second Classic Blunder.
“Defence chief contradicts Liz Truss over idea of Britons going to fight in Ukraine Sir Tony Radakin says it would be unlawful for individuals to travel to offer military help”
Utter tosh. Liz Truss and the government is right on this, she speaks for the people on this. The people of Ukraine are fighting for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY not just for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe because that’s what President Putin is challenging. And they need real help, not just the rusted unusable junk everyone is praising Germany for sending over. Of course it is something the government in a liberal democracy should trust it’s people to make their own decisions about, they want us to believe in freedom and democracy and that it needs to be fought for or else you lose it don’t they?
Confused mixed messages from military (almost like they want it all over quick) unlike clear message from government. What a proper liberal country is all about isn’t it?
I'm told there are numbers of squaddies having gone AWOL. They know they will get shit when they get back, but, "fuck it, I can go and shoot some Russians!"
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
Factually wrong on almost every point, save the lack of unions for the trading end of financial services firms, and tinge oddity that is TfL (through train driver pay issues are hardly unique to TfL).
Edit - Oh and you object to unions being involved in negotiating members’ salaries in principle then there really is no hope for you.
Oh no, factually correct on everything. In fact you even agreed with my key points on the lack of unions in the financial sector and the RMT domination of pay negotiations for TfL.
I have no objection to unions being involved in pay negotiations but the price of that will always be pay generally moves up at the same rate for everyone not PRP and bonuses which unions are ideologically opposed to as the higher the PRP bonuses for the best performers, the more the pay cuts and job losses for the weakest performers
The problem the Russians always had (back to Soviet times) was not so much technology as production of high technology items. They could hand craft a few awesome machines. But that was it. And their economy has de-industrialised since then, in many crucial areas.
They don't have the productive capacity to make lots and lots of high end weapons.
It does remind me of Bill Hicks on the Gulf War.
Once again though, I was watching the CNN man and they blew it all man, all the anxiety. Remember how it started? They kept talking about the ‘Elite Republican Guard’ in these hushed tones, remember that? Like they where the boogieman, you know; “Yeah, we’re doing well, but we have yet to face… …the ‘Elite Republican Guard’.” Yeah, like these guys are ten feet tall, desert warriors; “NEVER LOST A BATTLE!” “WE SHIT BULLETS!” Well, after two and a half months of continuous carpet bombing and not ONE reaction at all from these fuckers, …they became simply the ‘Republican Guard’, not merely as ‘Elite’ as we may have led you to believe. And after one month of continuous bombing not one reaction AT ALL, they went from the ‘Elite Republican Guard’ to the ‘Republican Guard’ to the ‘Republicans made this shit up about there being guards out there… we hope you enjoyed your firework show.
I saw Bill Hicks late on Channel 4 late one night when I was about 14. Blew me away, thought the man was a genius. Expected to hear a lot more of him.
Which never materialised. In the early internet days it took me a while to learn that Hicks died around the time I turned 16.
Some of his stuff has, inevitably, aged but in so many ways he is still fucking spot on.
Would’ve been good to see Bill eviscerate Trump and contemporary Republicans. I bet he’d have had an interesting take on Woke as well.
My imagination isn't good enough to be able to think of a 'poor' banker.
Bad ones, yes. Poor ones, no.
Bad ones generally don't survive in the industry for very long and yes that includes Fred Goodwin or Dick Fuld who are no longer players of any significance in the banking industry
My imagination isn't good enough to be able to think of a 'poor' banker.
Bad ones, yes. Poor ones, no.
Bad ones generally don't survive in the industry for very long and yes that includes Fred Goodwin or Dick Fuld who are no longer players of any significance in the banking industry
France’s interior minister has accused the British government of showing a “lack of humanity” when it comes to helping the Ukrainian refugees who have fled the Russian invasion and are now waiting in Calais for permission to join their families in the UK.
Hundreds of Ukrainians have come to the northern French port in the last few days in the hope of crossing the Channel so they can be with relatives who are already established in the UK.
According to the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at Calais border crossings in recent days – only for 150 of them to be told to go away and obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.
My imagination isn't good enough to be able to think of a 'poor' banker.
Bad ones, yes. Poor ones, no.
Bad ones generally don't survive in the industry for very long and yes that includes Fred Goodwin or Dick Fuld who are no longer players of any significance in the banking industry
Fred Goodwin survived in banking for 21 years. When you say bad ones don’t survive for very long… is 21 years very long?
The problem the Russians always had (back to Soviet times) was not so much technology as production of high technology items. They could hand craft a few awesome machines. But that was it. And their economy has de-industrialised since then, in many crucial areas.
They don't have the productive capacity to make lots and lots of high end weapons.
It does remind me of Bill Hicks on the Gulf War.
Once again though, I was watching the CNN man and they blew it all man, all the anxiety. Remember how it started? They kept talking about the ‘Elite Republican Guard’ in these hushed tones, remember that? Like they where the boogieman, you know; “Yeah, we’re doing well, but we have yet to face… …the ‘Elite Republican Guard’.” Yeah, like these guys are ten feet tall, desert warriors; “NEVER LOST A BATTLE!” “WE SHIT BULLETS!” Well, after two and a half months of continuous carpet bombing and not ONE reaction at all from these fuckers, …they became simply the ‘Republican Guard’, not merely as ‘Elite’ as we may have led you to believe. And after one month of continuous bombing not one reaction AT ALL, they went from the ‘Elite Republican Guard’ to the ‘Republican Guard’ to the ‘Republicans made this shit up about there being guards out there… we hope you enjoyed your firework show.
I saw Bill Hicks late on Channel 4 late one night when I was about 14. Blew me away, thought the man was a genius. Expected to hear a lot more of him.
Which never materialised. In the early internet days it took me a while to learn that Hicks died around the time I turned 16.
Some of his stuff has, inevitably, aged but in so many ways he is still fucking spot on.
Would’ve been good to see Bill eviscerate Trump and contemporary Republicans. I bet he’d have had an interesting take on Woke as well.
He was brilliant, as clever as he was funny. Somewhere I have about 4 of his early tour albums on CD, I used to listen to them a lot, my favourite being Arizona Bay which I would recommend to anyone wanting to discover him.
“Defence chief contradicts Liz Truss over idea of Britons going to fight in Ukraine Sir Tony Radakin says it would be unlawful for individuals to travel to offer military help”
Utter tosh. Liz Truss and the government is right on this, she speaks for the people on this. The people of Ukraine are fighting for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY not just for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe because that’s what President Putin is challenging. And they need real help, not just the rusted unusable junk everyone is praising Germany for sending over. Of course it is something the government in a liberal democracy should trust it’s people to make their own decisions about, they want us to believe in freedom and democracy and that it needs to be fought for or else you lose it don’t they?
Confused mixed messages from military (almost like they want it all over quick) unlike clear message from government. What a proper liberal country is all about isn’t it?
Whether something is popular and whether it is lawful are two different things.
For example, it would be very popular to whip Gavin Williamson naked through the streets of Aylesbury, but it would also be indecent exposure and therefore illegal.
In this case, I do not know whether British nationals are permitted to serve in foreign armies without official approval, but if they are not that might be the point he is making.
The Brillo weathervane has spaketh. We're all Carole cat women now.
Are we going to flip on a sixpence from being a centre of excellence for money laundering to being dead against it?
Quite something if so. It would show that Germany isn't the only country that can overturn 30 years worth of deeply ingrained policy in response to what Putin is doing.
It would be another clear-up of the Blair-Cameron era.
Mandelson's announcing that the Labour party was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" summed up the mentality and strategy.
I was never intensely relaxed about him saying that. There was a need to combat the view that Labour were hairshirted sourpusses who couldn't abide the idea of people having a nice meal out now and again, but it wasn't necessary to bend that far on the rhetoric.
Tories: Labour is the party of envy, of jealousy, of levelling down, of spending other people's money, of class hatred, of not letting people enjoy their well-earned riches.
Same Tories: how dare Mandelson say that he is 'intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich'! Shows that Labour isn't the party of ordinary hard-working people at all.
Yep, the old 'Politics of Envy Class Warrior or Champagne Socialist Hypocrite' dichotomy. And if you somehow avoid either you're 'dull'. There is just no type of Labour that quite passes muster. It's amazing we ever win any elections at all really.
Your recent winning form is about as good as mine on hurdle races.
We had 13 Mandy years and communities levelled down. You may never get a majority again from everyone who remembers it.
Fantasy: embrace the glorious advantages of globalisation says Blair! Reality: like a Putin peace mission has visited the place, this sums up Labours last rare visit to power in just 2 sentences.
A rather jaundiced (!) take on New Labour. That government surely grows in stature as we gaze back from these days of Boris "Boris" Johnson.
“ A rather jaundiced (!) take on New Labour.”
Really? 😂. I just explained exactly why you keep losing. New Labours rhetoric and promise didn’t match the reality that was happening to UK communities. People remember that, hence you have lost their vote, probably for the rest of their lives.
My imagination isn't good enough to be able to think of a 'poor' banker.
Bad ones, yes. Poor ones, no.
Bad ones generally don't survive in the industry for very long and yes that includes Fred Goodwin or Dick Fuld who are no longer players of any significance in the banking industry
Fred Goodwin survived in banking for 21 years. When you say bad ones don’t survive for very long… is 21 years very long?
RBS grew to be the biggest bank in the world pre 2008, he did have some success.
Just when the credit crunch came it was clear RBS had overstretched and the bank needed a bailout and Goodwin lost his job.
Lehmans of course was even allowed to go bankrupt when it went bust in 2008 and Fuld also lost his job
My imagination isn't good enough to be able to think of a 'poor' banker.
Bad ones, yes. Poor ones, no.
Bad ones generally don't survive in the industry for very long and yes that includes Fred Goodwin or Dick Fuld who are no longer players of any significance in the banking industry
Fred the Shred managed 21 years. If that's not 'very long' you and I have different definitions of the phrase.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
Factually wrong on almost every point, save the lack of unions for the trading end of financial services firms, and tinge oddity that is TfL (through train driver pay issues are hardly unique to TfL).
Edit - Oh and you object to unions being involved in negotiating members’ salaries in principle then there really is no hope for you.
Oh no, factually correct on everything. In fact you even agreed with my key points on the lack of unions in the financial sector and the RMT domination of pay negotiations for TfL.
I have no objection to unions being involved in pay negotiations but the price of that will always be pay generally moves up at the same rate for everyone not PRP and bonuses which unions are ideologically opposed to as the higher the PRP bonuses for the best performers, the more the pay cuts and job losses for the weakest performers
Pay in TfL isn’t a problem. Pay of train drivers is, and the market failure is driven by privatisation and a string of poor decisions. Plus, as ever, good luck to a union and it’s members taking what they can get.
You don’t understand public sector pay on any level, or how it relates to the wider economy. But then you are a Tory and the ones who have been in Government for ten years don’t either. Not deluded enough to think Labour would be much better but at least Starmer has some personal experience.
My imagination isn't good enough to be able to think of a 'poor' banker.
Bad ones, yes. Poor ones, no.
Bad ones generally don't survive in the industry for very long and yes that includes Fred Goodwin or Dick Fuld who are no longer players of any significance in the banking industry
Yes, after only 30 years, a knighthood, and many millions, Goodwin was found out.
“Defence chief contradicts Liz Truss over idea of Britons going to fight in Ukraine Sir Tony Radakin says it would be unlawful for individuals to travel to offer military help”
Utter tosh. Liz Truss and the government is right on this, she speaks for the people on this. The people of Ukraine are fighting for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY not just for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe because that’s what President Putin is challenging. And they need real help, not just the rusted unusable junk everyone is praising Germany for sending over. Of course it is something the government in a liberal democracy should trust it’s people to make their own decisions about, they want us to believe in freedom and democracy and that it needs to be fought for or else you lose it don’t they?
Confused mixed messages from military (almost like they want it all over quick) unlike clear message from government. What a proper liberal country is all about isn’t it?
It's a crime. Foreign Enlistment Act 1870.
Plus Radakins point was non military personnel fancying themselves as George Orwell are going to be of negative use anyway
My imagination isn't good enough to be able to think of a 'poor' banker.
Bad ones, yes. Poor ones, no.
Bad ones generally don't survive in the industry for very long and yes that includes Fred Goodwin or Dick Fuld who are no longer players of any significance in the banking industry
Fred Goodwin survived in banking for 21 years. When you say bad ones don’t survive for very long… is 21 years very long?
RBS grew to be the biggest bank in the world pre 2008, he did have some success.
Just when the credit crunch came it was clear RBS had overstretched and the bank needed a bailout and Goodwin lost his job.
Lehmans of course was even allowed to go bankrupt when it went bust in 2008 and Fuld also lost his job
Fred the Shred was also quite the player at RBS, apparently...
The Brillo weathervane has spaketh. We're all Carole cat women now.
Are we going to flip on a sixpence from being a centre of excellence for money laundering to being dead against it?
Quite something if so. It would show that Germany isn't the only country that can overturn 30 years worth of deeply ingrained policy in response to what Putin is doing.
It would be another clear-up of the Blair-Cameron era.
Mandelson's announcing that the Labour party was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" summed up the mentality and strategy.
I was never intensely relaxed about him saying that. There was a need to combat the view that Labour were hairshirted sourpusses who couldn't abide the idea of people having a nice meal out now and again, but it wasn't necessary to bend that far on the rhetoric.
I'd say that the fundamental issue is between 'earned' and 'unearned' money.
Now getting lots of money by earning it - whether that's through employment or having a business or investment choices - isn't easy and almost always involves a lot of hard work and intrinsic ability.
But unearned money can be different if it is acquired through dishonest, criminal, malignant means.
Now I don't know how many people are willing to engage in dishonest, criminal or malignant methods to acquire unearned money.
But I'm pretty sure that there are proportionally more of such people in politics and parts of the financial sector - and both with much more scope to do so.
Think about Mandelson's full quote - "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes" and exchange 'filthy rich' for 'dirty money'.
Doesn't that sum up British government mentality on this issue ?
I'd say there was a bargain struck during the long financial bubble which popped in 08, the essence of which was to let the City - and those enabled by the City - run wild & free in exchange for the gdp and tax revenue generated.
I can remember Ed "No" Balls trying to claim that people who were raising questions about the bubble in the derivatives market were "talking Britain down" and being "unpatriotic"
That's rarely an acceptable response. But tbf it was a juggernaut of political and cultural consensus. "They know what they're doing and they pay a lot of tax, so let them be." Almost everyone was bought in or just chose not to think too deeply about it. Only a PM/CoE outside the box - somebody like Corbyn and McDonnell - might have rejected the model.
“Defence chief contradicts Liz Truss over idea of Britons going to fight in Ukraine Sir Tony Radakin says it would be unlawful for individuals to travel to offer military help”
Utter tosh. Liz Truss and the government is right on this, she speaks for the people on this. The people of Ukraine are fighting for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY not just for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe because that’s what President Putin is challenging. And they need real help, not just the rusted unusable junk everyone is praising Germany for sending over. Of course it is something the government in a liberal democracy should trust it’s people to make their own decisions about, they want us to believe in freedom and democracy and that it needs to be fought for or else you lose it don’t they?
Confused mixed messages from military (almost like they want it all over quick) unlike clear message from government. What a proper liberal country is all about isn’t it?
Whether something is popular and whether it is lawful are two different things.
For example, it would be very popular to whip Gavin Williamson naked through the streets of Aylesbury, but it would also be indecent exposure and therefore illegal.
In this case, I do not know whether British nationals are permitted to serve in foreign armies without official approval, but if they are not that might be the point he is making.
Completely off topic but for those of you who don't read The North West Mail Weekend edition bringing you all the news you could possibly want from South Lakeland, a proud Mama wants to show off - even if it is the end of one achievement and time for something new....
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
Factually wrong on almost every point, save the lack of unions for the trading end of financial services firms, and tinge oddity that is TfL (through train driver pay issues are hardly unique to TfL).
Edit - Oh and you object to unions being involved in negotiating members’ salaries in principle then there really is no hope for you.
Oh no, factually correct on everything. In fact you even agreed with my key points on the lack of unions in the financial sector and the RMT domination of pay negotiations for TfL.
I have no objection to unions being involved in pay negotiations but the price of that will always be pay generally moves up at the same rate for everyone not PRP and bonuses which unions are ideologically opposed to as the higher the PRP bonuses for the best performers, the more the pay cuts and job losses for the weakest performers
Pay in TfL isn’t a problem. Pay of train drivers is, and the market failure is driven by privatisation and a string of poor decisions. Plus, as ever, good luck to a union and it’s members taking what they can get.
You don’t understand public sector pay on any level, or how it relates to the wider economy. But then you are a Tory and the ones who have been in Government for ten years don’t either. Not deluded enough to think Labour would be much better but at least Starmer has some personal experience.
Pay in TFL *is* a problem, judging by the incredible early retirement offers they were making quite recently.
The problems in TFL are:
1 - Institutionally it does not really have decent supervision - outside the Government domain, and only responsible to weak Mayors of London. 2 - As you say (or hint) Rail Unions, and their undue influence.
When I was in London, they were striking over the wrong type of kettle iirc, egged on by Ken the (choose your word).
“Defence chief contradicts Liz Truss over idea of Britons going to fight in Ukraine Sir Tony Radakin says it would be unlawful for individuals to travel to offer military help”
Utter tosh. Liz Truss and the government is right on this, she speaks for the people on this. The people of Ukraine are fighting for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY not just for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe because that’s what President Putin is challenging. And they need real help, not just the rusted unusable junk everyone is praising Germany for sending over. Of course it is something the government in a liberal democracy should trust it’s people to make their own decisions about, they want us to believe in freedom and democracy and that it needs to be fought for or else you lose it don’t they?
Confused mixed messages from military (almost like they want it all over quick) unlike clear message from government. What a proper liberal country is all about isn’t it?
Whether something is popular and whether it is lawful are two different things.
For example, it would be very popular to whip Gavin Williamson naked through the streets of Aylesbury, but it would also be indecent exposure and therefore illegal.
In this case, I do not know whether British nationals are permitted to serve in foreign armies without official approval, but if they are not that might be the point he is making.
I was curious and found this from ITV: Former Brexit Secretary David Davis said on LBC: "I think actually it's illegal to go and fight in a foreign war these days". He pointed to the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870 which bans Britons from fighting in the "military or naval service of any foreign state" that is at war with a country that the UK is "at peace" with. "There are certainly laws restricting who you can go and fight for already," he told the radio show. However, he added: "People fought on various sides of the Spanish Civil war without being penalised when they came back".
Hot royal poop, which the likes of Witchell will no doubt find delicious and nourishing.
They had to renovate Windsor Castle after the fire. I wonder whether they put lifts in then, and this is something as simple as her not being able to manage the stairs at Buckingham Palace.
France’s interior minister has accused the British government of showing a “lack of humanity” when it comes to helping the Ukrainian refugees who have fled the Russian invasion and are now waiting in Calais for permission to join their families in the UK.
Hundreds of Ukrainians have come to the northern French port in the last few days in the hope of crossing the Channel so they can be with relatives who are already established in the UK.
According to the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at Calais border crossings in recent days – only for 150 of them to be told to go away and obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.
Our politicians need to hand their heads in shame, but also let’s not allow the idiotic jobsworth who said this to them in Calais off the hook. Inhuman.
Anyone want to hear Donald Trump's plan for the war.?
According to reports from a fundraiser in New Orleans he thinks the US should paint their F 22 in Chinese colours, bomb Russia and then sit back and watch them fight each other.
France’s interior minister has accused the British government of showing a “lack of humanity” when it comes to helping the Ukrainian refugees who have fled the Russian invasion and are now waiting in Calais for permission to join their families in the UK.
Hundreds of Ukrainians have come to the northern French port in the last few days in the hope of crossing the Channel so they can be with relatives who are already established in the UK.
According to the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at Calais border crossings in recent days – only for 150 of them to be told to go away and obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.
I thought the whole problem was that it was only limited to those with families in the UK? If they all had relatives established in the UK they should have been admitted.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
Factually wrong on almost every point, save the lack of unions for the trading end of financial services firms, and tinge oddity that is TfL (through train driver pay issues are hardly unique to TfL).
Edit - Oh and you object to unions being involved in negotiating members’ salaries in principle then there really is no hope for you.
Oh no, factually correct on everything. In fact you even agreed with my key points on the lack of unions in the financial sector and the RMT domination of pay negotiations for TfL.
I have no objection to unions being involved in pay negotiations but the price of that will always be pay generally moves up at the same rate for everyone not PRP and bonuses which unions are ideologically opposed to as the higher the PRP bonuses for the best performers, the more the pay cuts and job losses for the weakest performers
Pay in TfL isn’t a problem. Pay of train drivers is, and the market failure is driven by privatisation and a string of poor decisions. Plus, as ever, good luck to a union and it’s members taking what they can get.
You don’t understand public sector pay on any level, or how it relates to the wider economy. But then you are a Tory and the ones who have been in Government for ten years don’t either. Not deluded enough to think Labour would be much better but at least Starmer has some personal experience.
I do. Public sector pay is largely based on average increases for all, private sector pay, especially in the City is much more performance and bonus based. If you make money for your firm then you get a hefty bonus, if you don't you don't and if you continually fail to deliver you lose your job too.
High stakes, high reward but high risk too, that is the City of London and Canary Wharf. If you want to make the big bucks that is generally the best place to go but with the proviso you get less job security
France’s interior minister has accused the British government of showing a “lack of humanity” when it comes to helping the Ukrainian refugees who have fled the Russian invasion and are now waiting in Calais for permission to join their families in the UK.
Hundreds of Ukrainians have come to the northern French port in the last few days in the hope of crossing the Channel so they can be with relatives who are already established in the UK.
According to the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at Calais border crossings in recent days – only for 150 of them to be told to go away and obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.
Admittedly, the UK government, slow on these things in the past, can move quickly here and redeem themselves.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
Factually wrong on almost every point, save the lack of unions for the trading end of financial services firms, and tinge oddity that is TfL (through train driver pay issues are hardly unique to TfL).
Edit - Oh and you object to unions being involved in negotiating members’ salaries in principle then there really is no hope for you.
Oh no, factually correct on everything. In fact you even agreed with my key points on the lack of unions in the financial sector and the RMT domination of pay negotiations for TfL.
I have no objection to unions being involved in pay negotiations but the price of that will always be pay generally moves up at the same rate for everyone not PRP and bonuses which unions are ideologically opposed to as the higher the PRP bonuses for the best performers, the more the pay cuts and job losses for the weakest performers
Pay in TfL isn’t a problem. Pay of train drivers is, and the market failure is driven by privatisation and a string of poor decisions. Plus, as ever, good luck to a union and it’s members taking what they can get.
You don’t understand public sector pay on any level, or how it relates to the wider economy. But then you are a Tory and the ones who have been in Government for ten years don’t either. Not deluded enough to think Labour would be much better but at least Starmer has some personal experience.
Pay in TFL *is* a problem, judging by the incredible early retirement offers they were making quite recently.
The problems in TFL are:
1 - Institutionally it does not really have decent supervision - outside the Government domain, and only responsible to weak Mayors of London. 2 - As you say (or hint) Rail Unions, and their undue influence.
Oh I don’t disagree - just with his thesis that it’s a “public sector” issue. It’s not, it’s a railway industry problem - e.g. TFL being in public ownership isn’t relevant, there’s clearly a structural issue on supply/demand for drivers.
France’s interior minister has accused the British government of showing a “lack of humanity” when it comes to helping the Ukrainian refugees who have fled the Russian invasion and are now waiting in Calais for permission to join their families in the UK.
Hundreds of Ukrainians have come to the northern French port in the last few days in the hope of crossing the Channel so they can be with relatives who are already established in the UK.
According to the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at Calais border crossings in recent days – only for 150 of them to be told to go away and obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.
Admittedly, the UK government, slow on these things in the past, can move quickly here and redeem themselves.
France’s interior minister has accused the British government of showing a “lack of humanity” when it comes to helping the Ukrainian refugees who have fled the Russian invasion and are now waiting in Calais for permission to join their families in the UK.
Hundreds of Ukrainians have come to the northern French port in the last few days in the hope of crossing the Channel so they can be with relatives who are already established in the UK.
According to the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at Calais border crossings in recent days – only for 150 of them to be told to go away and obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.
I thought the whole problem was that it was only limited to those with families in the UK? If they all had relatives established in the UK they should have been admitted.
They still need to get a visa, having proved that they have relatives in the UK, paid the relevant fees and had their biometrics scanned.
A bureaucratic nightmare was created in the before times for the purpose of making it as hard as possible for people to obtain visas, and ministers haven't been able or willing to cut through all the crap to let people get here as simply and easily as possible.
Doctors get paid more than the average person because they contribute more than the average person to things that matter - its simple really
This doesn't really account for the financial services 'industry' who are handsomely renumerated while being a malignantly destructive to society.
They invest in business which help them to grow, they are pivotal to the economy. Financial services is also high risk, high reward. If you make a lot of money for your firm you get paid a lot in return, if you don't you are out
You must have worked in a different financial services sector to the one I worked in, Hyufd.
I haven't but my father did for about 50 years.
You can make a lot of money in financial services and as a stockbroker or banker if you in turn pull in money. However you are also more likely to lose your job if you don't.
Hence while the average City worker is paid more than the average public sector worker, their job is generally less secure.
There was discussion of GPs pay earlier. Plenty of GPs also make 6 figure salaries like those in financial services but they have more job security as well (albeit they have to do a lot of study and training to get their jobs in the first place)
Ah, so if job security makes the difference I’ll do a deal with you. Most public sector employees would love to get rid of the 20% who are crap at their jobs, but this Government has shown no interest in doing so (every public sector reform since 2010 has been excellent at making good people leave and doing nothing to crap people). If we introduce such a system, can public sector workers get FS pay?
No as by definition the public sector is always taxpayer funded and less prone to the growth or decline of businesses and the market economy as financial services is.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
You realise, of course, that automatic pay profession has gone outside of the NHS (and schools?) and “performance related pay” (bonuses too small to motivate but big enough to irritate when badly used) are now the status quo in the public sector? People stuck on the lowest salary point with no prospect of profession so they leave? And your understanding of unions and their relative power is clearly based entirely on Tory party slogans rather than negotiating with them.
It hasn't really for the civil service and much of the NHS and schools and TfL etc they still get annual pay deals with unions involved in negotiations. If unions don't get the pay deals they want for their members they still often go on strike, see especially the RMT and London Underground.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
Factually wrong on almost every point, save the lack of unions for the trading end of financial services firms, and tinge oddity that is TfL (through train driver pay issues are hardly unique to TfL).
Edit - Oh and you object to unions being involved in negotiating members’ salaries in principle then there really is no hope for you.
Oh no, factually correct on everything. In fact you even agreed with my key points on the lack of unions in the financial sector and the RMT domination of pay negotiations for TfL.
I have no objection to unions being involved in pay negotiations but the price of that will always be pay generally moves up at the same rate for everyone not PRP and bonuses which unions are ideologically opposed to as the higher the PRP bonuses for the best performers, the more the pay cuts and job losses for the weakest performers
Pay in TfL isn’t a problem. Pay of train drivers is, and the market failure is driven by privatisation and a string of poor decisions. Plus, as ever, good luck to a union and it’s members taking what they can get.
You don’t understand public sector pay on any level, or how it relates to the wider economy. But then you are a Tory and the ones who have been in Government for ten years don’t either. Not deluded enough to think Labour would be much better but at least Starmer has some personal experience.
I do. Public sector pay is largely based on average increases for all, private sector pay, especially in the City is much more performance and bonus based. If you make money for your firm then you get a hefty bonus, if you don't you don't and if you continually fail to deliver you lose your job too.
High stakes, high reward but high risk too, that is the City of London and Canary Wharf. If you want to make the big bucks that is generally the best place to go but with the proviso you get less job security
Sigh…. no it isn’t. Outside of one or two hold outs, public sector pay is based on an occasional below inflation hike to the baseline and no way for staff to get off that baseline.
I mean, even your concept of City pay is quite flakey. Outside of a narrow range of roles (which are basically variants of telesales) it pays much like anyone else, even if everyone is a Vice President of something.
Apparently Putin has spent another 1h45m on the phone with Macron.
Putin still at it like a dog with a bone.
"So he writes Ho-Ho-Ho now I have a machine gun. So what? I have a machine gun with me at all times, that does not make me Santa. No fucking way is it a Christmas movie...."
The Brillo weathervane has spaketh. We're all Carole cat women now.
Are we going to flip on a sixpence from being a centre of excellence for money laundering to being dead against it?
Quite something if so. It would show that Germany isn't the only country that can overturn 30 years worth of deeply ingrained policy in response to what Putin is doing.
It would be another clear-up of the Blair-Cameron era.
Mandelson's announcing that the Labour party was "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" summed up the mentality and strategy.
I was never intensely relaxed about him saying that. There was a need to combat the view that Labour were hairshirted sourpusses who couldn't abide the idea of people having a nice meal out now and again, but it wasn't necessary to bend that far on the rhetoric.
Tories: Labour is the party of envy, of jealousy, of levelling down, of spending other people's money, of class hatred, of not letting people enjoy their well-earned riches.
Same Tories: how dare Mandelson say that he is 'intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich'! Shows that Labour isn't the party of ordinary hard-working people at all.
Yep, the old 'Politics of Envy Class Warrior or Champagne Socialist Hypocrite' dichotomy. And if you somehow avoid either you're 'dull'. There is just no type of Labour that quite passes muster. It's amazing we ever win any elections at all really.
Your recent winning form is about as good as mine on hurdle races.
We had 13 Mandy years and communities levelled down. You may never get a majority again from everyone who remembers it.
Fantasy: embrace the glorious advantages of globalisation says Blair! Reality: like a Putin peace mission has visited the place, this sums up Labours last rare visit to power in just 2 sentences.
A rather jaundiced (!) take on New Labour. That government surely grows in stature as we gaze back from these days of Boris "Boris" Johnson.
“ A rather jaundiced (!) take on New Labour.”
Really? 😂. I just explained exactly why you keep losing. New Labours rhetoric and promise didn’t match the reality that was happening to UK communities. People remember that, hence you have lost their vote, probably for the rest of their lives.
Well it never matches up, does it. I mean, look at this bunch of chancers in office now - aka the Tories. They were supposed to be "unleashing Britain's potential" and "spreading wealth and opportunity throughout the country". Something a touch stronger than LOL is needed to describe how that's going. So I don't know where this leaves the electorate. Last Labour government disappointed. Latest Tory one a joke. Could they even be desperate enough to vote Lib Dem in large numbers?
Betting post here. It might be worthwhile putting a few quid on laying Trump for next GOP nominee for 2024 and / or putting some money on other contenders such as DeSantis. Not so much for the rights or wrongs of whether he hasn’t condemned Putin enough, more for the stupidity of his comment that Putin was a “genius”. I think that comment is going to come back to haunt him, ahem, ‘bigly’ in the nomination race, especially if someone takes him on aggressively. DYOR.
I won't because I already have a big (underwater) short on him but I do agree. Trump 2.0 is feeling less and less likely to me.
His rivals need to really piss him off with a Trump style nickname.
“Defence chief contradicts Liz Truss over idea of Britons going to fight in Ukraine Sir Tony Radakin says it would be unlawful for individuals to travel to offer military help”
Utter tosh. Liz Truss and the government is right on this, she speaks for the people on this. The people of Ukraine are fighting for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY not just for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe because that’s what President Putin is challenging. And they need real help, not just the rusted unusable junk everyone is praising Germany for sending over. Of course it is something the government in a liberal democracy should trust it’s people to make their own decisions about, they want us to believe in freedom and democracy and that it needs to be fought for or else you lose it don’t they?
Confused mixed messages from military (almost like they want it all over quick) unlike clear message from government. What a proper liberal country is all about isn’t it?
Whether something is popular and whether it is lawful are two different things.
For example, it would be very popular to whip Gavin Williamson naked through the streets of Aylesbury, but it would also be indecent exposure and therefore illegal.
In this case, I do not know whether British nationals are permitted to serve in foreign armies without official approval, but if they are not that might be the point he is making.
That makes my point for me. If a naked Gavin Williamson is illegal, put a fig leaf on it and carry on whipping.
Going back to my boring original away from your delicious metaphor, UK head of armed forces says that despite knowing, as MarkyMarq pointed out, he knows his own troops are in Ukraine fighting for the right cause alongside trained troops from all over the world - so it’s unfair and naive to give Liz Truss and government stick over their “wink wink nudge nudge. GET OVER THERE” messaging.
Comments
Only a few weeks ago you could find endless comments about how the anti-tank weapons the West has sent would not be effective against modern Russian tanks and their explosive reactive armour, and the grills being fitted to defeat top-attack weapons.
It's actually staggering to see how badly the Russian military is performing. Whatever happens to Ukraine, and Russia can still choose to kill vast numbers of people and declare victory, there will have to be a complete reassessment of the Russian military.
There might be a case for some performance related pay and bonuses in the public sector like financial services in the private sector and an annual cull of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs but generally unions are opposed to them wanting pay to rise equally for all. As unions are much stronger in the public than private sector now it therefore rarely happens
I'm wondering what happens if the unthinkable happens - What if Ukraine pushes Russia back, at least in the North West ?
We had 13 Mandy years and communities levelled down. You may never get a majority again from everyone who remembers it.
Fantasy: embrace the glorious advantages of globalisation says Blair!
Reality: like a Putin peace mission has visited the place, this sums up Labours last rare visit to power in just 2 sentences.
Moscow Donnie?
Comrade Trump?
Mini-Putin?
Agent Orange?
Which may be encouraging.
Unions oppose performance related pay on the whole and unions also oppose virtually every job cut. There are no unions in the financial sector however of any real significance, hence pay is more based on performance and bonuses with annual culls of the weakest performers a la Goldman Sachs
This also applies to sanctions: if they are too effective Putin will tell the Russian public they are an act of war justifying a nuclear response. And they probably will be too effective. And pig dog's supporters will tell us that we should have accepted his light touch approach to corruption among his immediate circle.
It's not impossible, nor unthinkable, at least for a limited time.
One more possible escalation. Certainly by accident or reckless enthusiasm.
You also need a question mark (which looks like this "?") at the end of your last sentence. But we're all really proud of the great strides you're making. A cogent sentence is only a matter of time.
How can you mediate between one side wanting to remain independent, and the other wanting to annex them?
Once a lot of people have died, and both sides have realised they won't get everything they want by fighting, then mediation is possible. Or one side might win everything they want by fighting before that point.
For example, in 1987 Boris and Ivan are discussing how the Soviet Union works. Boris says, "You know, Ivan, I think this must be the richest country in the world."
"Why do you say that, Boris?"
"Because for seventy years, everyone has been stealing from it, and there is still stuff left to steal."
(More seriously, for a moment: I have a collection of Russian political jokes compiled in 2017 -- and it is disturbing to see how similar many of them are to the jokes told 40 or 50 years ago.)
"Mariupol evacuation halted for a second day - International Red Cross
The evacuation of civilians from the besieged south-eastern city of Mariupol has been halted, the International Committee of the Red Cross says.
Ukrainian and Russian forces blamed each other for failing to observe a ceasefire to allow local people to escape, after a similar agreement fell apart yesterday."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60635927
They don't have the productive capacity to make lots and lots of high end weapons.
My branch of the Civil Service also introduced Instant Recognition Awards for pieces of outstanding work. These were even more modest - a £30 voucher to spend in Cafe Rouge, M&S or somewhere similar. They had no discernible impact on staff retention, unsurprisingly.
Bad ones, yes. Poor ones, no.
Edit - Oh and you object to unions being involved in negotiating members’ salaries in principle then there really is no hope for you.
We are still holding our breath in Tallinn, and the Putinists are still very far from collapse, but certainly the Ukrainians have had a much better 24 hours. On the other hand the martyrdom of Mariupol is turning into a massive humanitarian catastrophe.
Edit: Sunninghill was, and may for all I know still be, the Civil Service College.
https://twitter.com/sarahrainsford/status/1500468214312148996?t=TeQfxFiy4h4UMK97pjrdpw&s=19
I then left shortly afterwards, unsurprisingly.
Except for the small fact that they forgot about productivity - a very good case can be made that jobs in "high cost" locations can *cost less* per unit of actual work done. In fact, once you take productivity into account, quite a lot of low cost locations - aren't.
When offshoring failed to deliver the goods (ha) the next step was on-shoring the offshore workers. Who would work cheaply, in your highly productive economy. For a time. After as while they tend to demand something fascist, like a pay rise. But they could be replaced....
They approach NASA. "Geez, that's tough. We spend a lot of money to train our guys. We could sell you one - for twenty million."
Next they go to the French. "Ah, ze food in space is 'orrible, nobody really wants to go zere....we could sell you one - for forty million.
Finally, they approach the Russians. "Sure, we can do this. The cost is sixty million. No negotiation."
The project guys are rather taken aback at the cost. "Why so much?"
"Twenty million for me, twenty million for you - and we send the American...."
Sir Tony Radakin says it would be unlawful for individuals to travel to offer military help”
Utter tosh. Liz Truss and the government is right on this, she speaks for the people on this. The people of Ukraine are fighting for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY not just for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe because that’s what President Putin is challenging. And they need real help, not just the rusted unusable junk everyone is praising Germany for sending over. Of course it is something the government in a liberal democracy should trust it’s people to make their own decisions about, they want us to believe in freedom and democracy and that it needs to be fought for or else you lose it don’t they?
Confused mixed messages from military (almost like they want it all over quick) unlike clear message from government. What a proper liberal country is all about isn’t it?
In America, you have American Express... "Don't leave home without it!". In Russia, you have Russian Express... "Don't leave home."
It still amazes me that no-one noticed that Borat was just a Yakov Smirnoff tribute act.
This may be more of a concern.
I have no objection to unions being involved in pay negotiations but the price of that will always be pay generally moves up at the same rate for everyone not PRP and bonuses which unions are ideologically opposed to as the higher the PRP bonuses for the best performers, the more the pay cuts and job losses for the weakest performers
Which never materialised. In the early internet days it took me a while to learn that Hicks died around the time I turned 16.
Some of his stuff has, inevitably, aged but in so many ways he is still fucking spot on.
Would’ve been good to see Bill eviscerate Trump and contemporary Republicans. I bet he’d have had an interesting take on Woke as well.
Hundreds of Ukrainians have come to the northern French port in the last few days in the hope of crossing the Channel so they can be with relatives who are already established in the UK.
According to the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at Calais border crossings in recent days – only for 150 of them to be told to go away and obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.
For example, it would be very popular to whip Gavin Williamson naked through the streets of Aylesbury, but it would also be indecent exposure and therefore illegal.
In this case, I do not know whether British nationals are permitted to serve in foreign armies without official approval, but if they are not that might be the point he is making.
Really? 😂. I just explained exactly why you keep losing. New Labours rhetoric and promise didn’t match the reality that was happening to UK communities. People remember that, hence you have lost their vote, probably for the rest of their lives.
Just when the credit crunch came it was clear RBS had overstretched and the bank needed a bailout and Goodwin lost his job.
Lehmans of course was even allowed to go bankrupt when it went bust in 2008 and Fuld also lost his job
ETA I see @bondegezou beat me to it.
You don’t understand public sector pay on any level, or how it relates to the wider economy. But then you are a Tory and the ones who have been in Government for ten years don’t either. Not deluded enough to think Labour would be much better but at least Starmer has some personal experience.
Plus Radakins point was non military personnel fancying themselves as George Orwell are going to be of negative use anyway
The problems in TFL are:
1 - Institutionally it does not really have decent supervision - outside the Government domain, and only responsible to weak Mayors of London.
2 - As you say (or hint) Rail Unions, and their undue influence.
When I was in London, they were striking over the wrong type of kettle iirc, egged on by Ken the (choose your word).
Former Brexit Secretary David Davis said on LBC: "I think actually it's illegal to go and fight in a foreign war these days".
He pointed to the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870 which bans Britons from fighting in the "military or naval service of any foreign state" that is at war with a country that the UK is "at peace" with.
"There are certainly laws restricting who you can go and fight for already," he told the radio show.
However, he added: "People fought on various sides of the Spanish Civil war without being penalised when they came back".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/03/05/conservative-partys-new-mp-selection-chief-promises-choose-people/
According to reports from a fundraiser in New Orleans he thinks the US should paint their F 22 in Chinese colours, bomb Russia and then sit back and watch them fight each other.
High stakes, high reward but high risk too, that is the City of London and Canary Wharf. If you want to make the big bucks that is generally the best place to go but with the proviso you get less job security
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60623502
A bureaucratic nightmare was created in the before times for the purpose of making it as hard as possible for people to obtain visas, and ministers haven't been able or willing to cut through all the crap to let people get here as simply and easily as possible.
I mean, even your concept of City pay is quite flakey. Outside of a narrow range of roles (which are basically variants of telesales) it pays much like anyone else, even if everyone is a Vice President of something.
"So he writes Ho-Ho-Ho now I have a machine gun. So what? I have a machine gun with me at all times, that does not make me Santa. No fucking way is it a Christmas movie...."
Going back to my boring original away from your delicious metaphor, UK head of armed forces says that despite knowing, as MarkyMarq pointed out, he knows his own troops are in Ukraine fighting for the right cause alongside trained troops from all over the world - so it’s unfair and naive to give Liz Truss and government stick over their “wink wink nudge nudge. GET OVER THERE” messaging.