Its about an initiative to get Russian speakers outside Russia to phone up Russians 'One on One' and talk about the war. I don't know how effective it will be. It seems that in many cases the Russians just parrot back what State TV has been telling them, for others they know what's happening but too scared to do anything about it. non the less I support it any cracks in the media wall should be tried, perhaps it will have some impact on some.
I don't speak Russian so can not help, but I would encourage anybody who does to give it a try.
He was born and brought up in Macedonia - his father was the conquerer of Greece
A phenomenally ill-informed post. The concept of Greekness had at the time almost zero correlation with what you think you mean by "Greece;" there were undoubted Greeks born and brought up on the Black Sea, Turkish seaboard, North Africa, Sicily, Marseilles...
Nevertheless the reason I made the initial gag which kicked this off is I love how petty and oversensitive the Greeks are about it, and their region of Macedon, to the point their poor neighbours had to change their preferred name or else be kept out of all the cool clubs by a vengeful Greece.
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
Good Tory hold in Seghill and Seaton Delaval in Northumberland. Tories hold their Majority on the council. Well done for Stodge and dixiedean for calling it.
Labour certainly has major issues at a local level in Blyth Valley constituency which was apparent last year. Labour also got 73% in this ward in 2013.
The Budget clearly a disaster in northern red wa...hang on, that can't be right.....
If you think Seghill is the Red Wall you clearly haven't visited recently.
Either way the swing is very clear. Also shows the wobbly thinking there is about what the 'Redwall' means. It was never thousands of benefit claimants, etc suddenly voting Tory. It was more the lower m/c in parts of the north and Midlands voting Tory as their counterparts, in eg, the Medway towns have been doing for the past 10years or so. Of course there has veen some swing back in the past year or so generally and many of the seats could revert to Labour still. I actually doubt if it will be all of them but 2 years out from a GE none of us really know.
As I said yesterday, knowing this area reasonably well, the surprise for me is that this area was staunch labour for so long. Although dixiedean is quite right this is not what you would call archetypal red wall it was still labour a few years back. I expect some seats will swing back to labour but others will keep trending Tory as they have been doing for several elections.
Very much like my home town of Sunderland - almost the whole town went Labour - even the leafiest and poshest wards for several years. Over the past few years slowly they have moved back into the blue camp - as a result in 2019 all 3 Sunderland seats moved back into marginal territory. I should think they are now safe Labour again although Sunderland Central will still have a good Conservative showing. I taught in Dartford for many years - a Labour seat after 1997 but the whole north Kent area is now packed with lower m/c safe blue seats. In many ways much of the north-east is similar outside the urban Newcastle zone and will remain susceptible to the blues if the political climate changes again. Too many on here don't really understand the 'redwall' mentality at all.
Ah, right, I didn’t realise you’re a Mackem. You’re right. People think these red wall seats are all grinding poverty and back to back terraces. Sunderland has some lovely areas which if they were where you are now would be rock solid Tory.
Actually I'm in a small village in SE Spain - relatively wealthy through farming - and the lorry transport of all those tomatoes, etc.. and yes rock solid Tory!
Its about an initiative to get Russian speakers outside Russia to phone up Russians 'One on One' and talk about the war. I don't know how effective it will be. It seems that in many cases the Russians just parrot back what State TV has been telling them, for others they know what's happening but too scared to do anything about it. non the less I support it any cracks in the media wall should be tried, perhaps it will have some impact on some.
I don't speak Russian so can not help, but I would encourage anybody who does to give it a try.
I expect it will be as productive as the Guardian arranging for Brits to phone up Americans telling them to vote for Clinton not Trump?
I have so far managed to avoid it, even when my 11 year old son had it.
You might be one of the 5-10% who are, supposedly, naturally immune and will never get it?
I wouldn't rely on that, tho. My 20-something niece in Falmouth was congratulating herself on this status, even as her husband went down with the lurgy for the Nth time.... and then she caught it, and now she is feeling shite
We will all get it, barring a few genuinely lucky immunological weirdoes
I have a relative who throughout the pandemic wasn't exactly very careful and only got double jabbed, but weirdly became a test-aholic. They dodged it until last week.
I have a load of in personal meetings lined up over the coming months through out the country, so I shall be awaiting my call...
Right now my older daughter, my niece, my niece's husband, my stepmother, and one of my best male friends: all have it (and all of them for the first time)
This wave is mopping up everyone who has avoided it until now, or so it feels. But much better they get it now, when we have mollifying vaccines and when the variant is mild, than some other time
There is no need whatsoever for this complacent approach.
We should continue to be cautious, mitigate its spread and protect the vulnerable.
Otherwise we will continue to cause needless deaths, which doesn't bother capitalists but does concern those of us with a heart and soul.
“Capitalists”? What is this, 1950s Moscow?
No it's 2022 green revolution. People turning their backs on modern life and returning to simpler, greener, truer, more nature-based and off-grid ways of living.
The pandemic has caused some people to recalibrate. I wish it were more and it may yet be.
Simpler, greener, more nature based living means a life expectancy of about 30 and the most common form of death for women being childbirth.
Oh and a world population of at most a tenth of the current one.
As 90%+ of the world lives a life of crowded poverty which you would be unable to tolerate for 10 minutes, and crowds out the 99.99999% of the biosphere which is other things than people, why is that a bad thing? Unless you are a religious nutter and think more people = more souls to praise de lawd, why is bigger, better?
A smaller population is not itself an unworthy goal. In many places it will happen as birth rates decline as they developed. I do think though people are rather bizarrely dismissive of the impacts of that, as though a massive reduction in population could happen swiftly in any non horrific way.
Adjusting to a world with a declining population, even one gently declining, will be difficult. And then most people would aim to bring the population level into stability at some point, which might be even harder.
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
I have so far managed to avoid it, even when my 11 year old son had it.
You might be one of the 5-10% who are, supposedly, naturally immune and will never get it?
I wouldn't rely on that, tho. My 20-something niece in Falmouth was congratulating herself on this status, even as her husband went down with the lurgy for the Nth time.... and then she caught it, and now she is feeling shite
We will all get it, barring a few genuinely lucky immunological weirdoes
I have a relative who throughout the pandemic wasn't exactly very careful and only got double jabbed, but weirdly became a test-aholic. They dodged it until last week.
I have a load of in personal meetings lined up over the coming months through out the country, so I shall be awaiting my call...
Right now my older daughter, my niece, my niece's husband, my stepmother, and one of my best male friends: all have it (and all of them for the first time)
This wave is mopping up everyone who has avoided it until now, or so it feels. But much better they get it now, when we have mollifying vaccines and when the variant is mild, than some other time
There is no need whatsoever for this complacent approach.
We should continue to be cautious, mitigate its spread and protect the vulnerable.
Otherwise we will continue to cause needless deaths, which doesn't bother capitalists but does concern those of us with a heart and soul.
“Capitalists”? What is this, 1950s Moscow?
No it's 2022 green revolution. People turning their backs on modern life and returning to simpler, greener, truer, more nature-based and off-grid ways of living.
The pandemic has caused some people to recalibrate. I wish it were more and it may yet be.
Simpler, greener, more nature based living means a life expectancy of about 30 and the most common form of death for women being childbirth.
Oh and a world population of at most a tenth of the current one.
Agree. Heathener's comment on the merits of doing away with modern life and its encumbrances is being communicated to us by one of the most sophisticated products of modernity, which includes a worldwide highly integrated system of fantastic technical complexity.
People no doubt want to 'recalibrate' but have a marked tendency to do so selectively. The interdependencies of modernity make this an illusion. Like all the wealthy people who want to live in a chocolate box village with a lych gate and a duck pond, just far enough but not too far from the motorway system and an international airport. It's a delusion.
Well said. People have a very skewed idea of what 'back to nature' would look like. Reforming our societies may be the goal perhaps, but that's not returning to some utopic pastoralism.
He was born and brought up in Macedonia - his father was the conquerer of Greece
A phenomenally ill-informed post. The concept of Greekness had at the time almost zero correlation with what you think you mean by "Greece;" there were undoubted Greeks born and brought up on the Black Sea, Turkish seaboard, North Africa, Sicily, Marseilles...
Nevertheless the reason I made the initial gag which kicked this off is I love how petty and oversensitive the Greeks are about it, and their region of Macedon, to the point their poor neighbours had to change their preferred name or else be kept out of all the cool clubs by a vengeful Greece.
That's actually due to the fact that there is a bit inside Greece which is thought of and called Macedonia. So to some Greeks, the neighbouring country calling itself Macedonia sounds like a threatened irredentist land grab.
Good Tory hold in Seghill and Seaton Delaval in Northumberland. Tories hold their Majority on the council. Well done for Stodge and dixiedean for calling it.
Labour certainly has major issues at a local level in Blyth Valley constituency which was apparent last year. Labour also got 73% in this ward in 2013.
The Budget clearly a disaster in northern red wa...hang on, that can't be right.....
If you think Seghill is the Red Wall you clearly haven't visited recently.
Either way the swing is very clear. Also shows the wobbly thinking there is about what the 'Redwall' means. It was never thousands of benefit claimants, etc suddenly voting Tory. It was more the lower m/c in parts of the north and Midlands voting Tory as their counterparts, in eg, the Medway towns have been doing for the past 10years or so. Of course there has veen some swing back in the past year or so generally and many of the seats could revert to Labour still. I actually doubt if it will be all of them but 2 years out from a GE none of us really know.
As I said yesterday, knowing this area reasonably well, the surprise for me is that this area was staunch labour for so long. Although dixiedean is quite right this is not what you would call archetypal red wall it was still labour a few years back. I expect some seats will swing back to labour but others will keep trending Tory as they have been doing for several elections.
Very much like my home town of Sunderland - almost the whole town went Labour - even the leafiest and poshest wards for several years. Over the past few years slowly they have moved back into the blue camp - as a result in 2019 all 3 Sunderland seats moved back into marginal territory. I should think they are now safe Labour again although Sunderland Central will still have a good Conservative showing. I taught in Dartford for many years - a Labour seat after 1997 but the whole north Kent area is now packed with lower m/c safe blue seats. In many ways much of the north-east is similar outside the urban Newcastle zone and will remain susceptible to the blues if the political climate changes again. Too many on here don't really understand the 'redwall' mentality at all.
Ah, right, I didn’t realise you’re a Mackem. You’re right. People think these red wall seats are all grinding poverty and back to back terraces. Sunderland has some lovely areas which if they were where you are now would be rock solid Tory.
Fulwell, and other areas North of Roker, if memory serves.
Yes, they are. Parts of Washington and Houghton are nice too. Penshaw is nice.
The run up from Roker to South Shields is lovely along the coast. We are going to Roker tomorrow and will walk up the coast to Latimers, have a cuppa grab some fish for dinner and walk back.
My family - originally from a Ford estate council house have lived many years in St Michael's ward - the most prosperous bit of the town which has almost always been Tory to my recollection.
Its about an initiative to get Russian speakers outside Russia to phone up Russians 'One on One' and talk about the war. I don't know how effective it will be. It seems that in many cases the Russians just parrot back what State TV has been telling them, for others they know what's happening but too scared to do anything about it. non the less I support it any cracks in the media wall should be tried, perhaps it will have some impact on some.
I don't speak Russian so can not help, but I would encourage anybody who does to give it a try.
I expect it will be as productive as the Guardian arranging for Brits to phone up Americans telling them to vote for Clinton not Trump?
Did they actually happen? I recall similar stories around the time of Bush.
Good Tory hold in Seghill and Seaton Delaval in Northumberland. Tories hold their Majority on the council. Well done for Stodge and dixiedean for calling it.
Labour certainly has major issues at a local level in Blyth Valley constituency which was apparent last year. Labour also got 73% in this ward in 2013.
The Budget clearly a disaster in northern red wa...hang on, that can't be right.....
If you think Seghill is the Red Wall you clearly haven't visited recently.
Either way the swing is very clear. Also shows the wobbly thinking there is about what the 'Redwall' means. It was never thousands of benefit claimants, etc suddenly voting Tory. It was more the lower m/c in parts of the north and Midlands voting Tory as their counterparts, in eg, the Medway towns have been doing for the past 10years or so. Of course there has veen some swing back in the past year or so generally and many of the seats could revert to Labour still. I actually doubt if it will be all of them but 2 years out from a GE none of us really know.
As I said yesterday, knowing this area reasonably well, the surprise for me is that this area was staunch labour for so long. Although dixiedean is quite right this is not what you would call archetypal red wall it was still labour a few years back. I expect some seats will swing back to labour but others will keep trending Tory as they have been doing for several elections.
Very much like my home town of Sunderland - almost the whole town went Labour - even the leafiest and poshest wards for several years. Over the past few years slowly they have moved back into the blue camp - as a result in 2019 all 3 Sunderland seats moved back into marginal territory. I should think they are now safe Labour again although Sunderland Central will still have a good Conservative showing. I taught in Dartford for many years - a Labour seat after 1997 but the whole north Kent area is now packed with lower m/c safe blue seats. In many ways much of the north-east is similar outside the urban Newcastle zone and will remain susceptible to the blues if the political climate changes again. Too many on here don't really understand the 'redwall' mentality at all.
Plenty of skilled working class voters voting Tory too.
In 2019 remember 38% of the North East voted Conservative while only 32% of London voted Conservative. London is now the Tories worst region in England and Wales, not the North.
Whereas 30 years ago London was the key swing region along with the Midlands and the North was largely safe Labour
Home ownership is a major driver of this. I think Boris realises this band has tried to make some changes to allow for more but it is not happening.
Yes but the Tories also won their biggest majority since 1987 in 2019 under Boris, so losing London not that big a worry for them given the Tory gains in the North and Midlands and Wales where more own homes.
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
I assume the same with cruise ships?
Cruise ships T&Cs aren't covered by UK employment law. Part of the reason why Cunard, rather quietly, dropped its tradition of registering its ships in the UK, not that long after it was acquired by Carnival.
He was born and brought up in Macedonia - his father was the conquerer of Greece
A phenomenally ill-informed post. The concept of Greekness had at the time almost zero correlation with what you think you mean by "Greece;" there were undoubted Greeks born and brought up on the Black Sea, Turkish seaboard, North Africa, Sicily, Marseilles...
Nevertheless the reason I made the initial gag which kicked this off is I love how petty and oversensitive the Greeks are about it, and their region of Macedon, to the point their poor neighbours had to change their preferred name or else be kept out of all the cool clubs by a vengeful Greece.
That's actually due to the fact that there is a bit inside Greece which is thought of and called Macedonia. So to some Greeks, the neighbouring country calling itself Macedonia sounds like a threatened irredentist land grab.
I have so far managed to avoid it, even when my 11 year old son had it.
You might be one of the 5-10% who are, supposedly, naturally immune and will never get it?
I wouldn't rely on that, tho. My 20-something niece in Falmouth was congratulating herself on this status, even as her husband went down with the lurgy for the Nth time.... and then she caught it, and now she is feeling shite
We will all get it, barring a few genuinely lucky immunological weirdoes
I have a relative who throughout the pandemic wasn't exactly very careful and only got double jabbed, but weirdly became a test-aholic. They dodged it until last week.
I have a load of in personal meetings lined up over the coming months through out the country, so I shall be awaiting my call...
Right now my older daughter, my niece, my niece's husband, my stepmother, and one of my best male friends: all have it (and all of them for the first time)
This wave is mopping up everyone who has avoided it until now, or so it feels. But much better they get it now, when we have mollifying vaccines and when the variant is mild, than some other time
There is no need whatsoever for this complacent approach.
We should continue to be cautious, mitigate its spread and protect the vulnerable.
Otherwise we will continue to cause needless deaths, which doesn't bother capitalists but does concern those of us with a heart and soul.
“Capitalists”? What is this, 1950s Moscow?
No it's 2022 green revolution. People turning their backs on modern life and returning to simpler, greener, truer, more nature-based and off-grid ways of living.
The pandemic has caused some people to recalibrate. I wish it were more and it may yet be.
Simpler, greener, more nature based living means a life expectancy of about 30 and the most common form of death for women being childbirth.
Oh and a world population of at most a tenth of the current one.
As 90%+ of the world lives a life of crowded poverty which you would be unable to tolerate for 10 minutes, and crowds out the 99.99999% of the biosphere which is other things than people, why is that a bad thing? Unless you are a religious nutter and think more people = more souls to praise de lawd, why is bigger, better?
A smaller population is not itself an unworthy goal. In many places it will happen as birth rates decline as they developed. I do think though people are rather bizarrely dismissive of the impacts of that, as though a massive reduction in population could happen swiftly in any non horrific way.
Adjusting to a world with a declining population, even one gently declining, will be difficult. And then most people would aim to bring the population level into stability at some point, which might be even harder.
Of course, the big plann of the bad guy in the marvel movies was that cutting the population magically solved all problems. Granted he was mad.
He was born and brought up in Macedonia - his father was the conquerer of Greece
A phenomenally ill-informed post. The concept of Greekness had at the time almost zero correlation with what you think you mean by "Greece;" there were undoubted Greeks born and brought up on the Black Sea, Turkish seaboard, North Africa, Sicily, Marseilles...
Nevertheless the reason I made the initial gag which kicked this off is I love how petty and oversensitive the Greeks are about it, and their region of Macedon, to the point their poor neighbours had to change their preferred name or else be kept out of all the cool clubs by a vengeful Greece.
To quote Wikipedia: "Alexander III of Macedon (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great,[a] was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon"
Seems reasonable to give Alexander the Great the credit for North Macedonia's football successes, even if he was also Greek. I mean England has St George (also Greek).
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
I assume the same with cruise ships?
Cruise ships T&Cs aren't covered by UK employment law. Part of the reason why Cunard, rather quietly, dropped its tradition of registering its ships in the UK, not that long after it was acquired by Carnival.
But I read this as Shapps proposing a change in the law (from flag state control to port state control). Which might indeed catch cruise ships.
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
I assume the same with cruise ships?
Cruise ships T&Cs aren't covered by UK employment law. Part of the reason why Cunard, rather quietly, dropped its tradition of registering its ships in the UK, not that long after it was acquired by Carnival.
Southampton hosting so many cruise ships would have serious issues if all cruise ships departing had to pay UK minimum wages
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
I assume the same with cruise ships?
Cruise ships T&Cs aren't covered by UK employment law. Part of the reason why Cunard, rather quietly, dropped its tradition of registering its ships in the UK, not that long after it was acquired by Carnival.
But I read this as Shapps proposing a change in the law (from flag state control to port state control). Which might indeed catch cruise ships.
If he knew the discussions with the unions would be met by a refusal of the terms and that the only acceptable terms would be ones that put the company out of business or running at a loss then despite the hoo-hah he did what he could. The unions can't force a business to run at a loss, better to cease operations.
As for minimum wage requirements, ports, filipinos, etc - that is one for the government to unpick. Enforce the laws that are relevant and create new laws if it so wishes to force the behaviour it wants.
Good Tory hold in Seghill and Seaton Delaval in Northumberland. Tories hold their Majority on the council. Well done for Stodge and dixiedean for calling it.
Labour certainly has major issues at a local level in Blyth Valley constituency which was apparent last year. Labour also got 73% in this ward in 2013.
The Budget clearly a disaster in northern red wa...hang on, that can't be right.....
If you think Seghill is the Red Wall you clearly haven't visited recently.
Either way the swing is very clear. Also shows the wobbly thinking there is about what the 'Redwall' means. It was never thousands of benefit claimants, etc suddenly voting Tory. It was more the lower m/c in parts of the north and Midlands voting Tory as their counterparts, in eg, the Medway towns have been doing for the past 10years or so. Of course there has veen some swing back in the past year or so generally and many of the seats could revert to Labour still. I actually doubt if it will be all of them but 2 years out from a GE none of us really know.
As I said yesterday, knowing this area reasonably well, the surprise for me is that this area was staunch labour for so long. Although dixiedean is quite right this is not what you would call archetypal red wall it was still labour a few years back. I expect some seats will swing back to labour but others will keep trending Tory as they have been doing for several elections.
Very much like my home town of Sunderland - almost the whole town went Labour - even the leafiest and poshest wards for several years. Over the past few years slowly they have moved back into the blue camp - as a result in 2019 all 3 Sunderland seats moved back into marginal territory. I should think they are now safe Labour again although Sunderland Central will still have a good Conservative showing. I taught in Dartford for many years - a Labour seat after 1997 but the whole north Kent area is now packed with lower m/c safe blue seats. In many ways much of the north-east is similar outside the urban Newcastle zone and will remain susceptible to the blues if the political climate changes again. Too many on here don't really understand the 'redwall' mentality at all.
Ah, right, I didn’t realise you’re a Mackem. You’re right. People think these red wall seats are all grinding poverty and back to back terraces. Sunderland has some lovely areas which if they were where you are now would be rock solid Tory.
Actually I'm in a small village in SE Spain - relatively wealthy through farming - and the lorry transport of all those tomatoes, etc.. and yes rock solid Tory!
I reckon they (some at least) may be closet LibDems.
No Conservatives. Who'd have thunk that the City of London is part of the red wall? Just rejoice at that news.
I see Ben Murphy was elected in the Corporation elections and was a Conservative Councillor and Mayor of Epping. So not true
According to the results linked to within this subthread, Murphy was elected as an Independent. With 78 Independents, 10 TFFs, 7 CBIs and 5 Lab, the City of London is a Conservative-free zone. Remarkable!
I'd like us to return to local communities living closer to the land and off-grid. I only keep my car because of my son. Otherwise I'd walk everywhere or use public transport. A lot of people can work from home but companies like to control people and their thoughts.
We can grow our own food stuffs and power our homes through solar, wind and/or geothermal.
Money is a means of control: a way of subjugating the masses and enchaining them.
I recognise that most people on here will hoot with derision but it's a point of view I happen to believe in passionately which is why I often seem to left-field and alternative. (That of course is another example of control: if someone is that alternative they are ostracised and accused of being a troll. Anything to stop them challenging the status quo.)
The world has entered a dystopian nightmare but some of us are getting off the conveyor belt.
p.s. Well worth watching Ben Fogle's New Lives in the Wild. Lots of fabulous examples.
You are calling for a massive depopulation of the UK and other developed countries on the basis of an entertainment program. A poor one at that.
I met a crofter in a remote village on the west coast of Scotland. Every month, they made a trip to Fort Bill to fill up with groceries; every six months they would go to Inverness or Glasgow. They grew a lot of food, but nowhere near enough. And they *heavily* relied on public services - from memory a neighbour's kid went to state boarding school. 'off-the-grid' living is a lifestyle that often leeches off others, whilst pretending to be 'independent'.
We are a society, and we are all massively interdependent.
Your view of the world is the dystopian nightmare.
Mr. Kamski, I'd be wary of taking Wikipedia as an authority on contentious matters. Preceding the Battle of Chaeronea, Demosthenes sought to unify Greek cities in opposition to Macedon (which was not a city state unlike Sparta, Corinth, Athens, etc) and derided the Macedonians as barbarians (non-Greek foreigners).
Plus, Eumenes of Cardia was diplomatically hamstrung in the Diadochi era because he was not Macedonian, but Greek.
Against that, apparently Macedonians could participate in the Olympic Games.
I reckon they (some at least) may be closet LibDems.
No Conservatives. Who'd have thunk that the City of London is part of the red wall? Just rejoice at that news.
I see Ben Murphy was elected in the Corporation elections and was a Conservative Councillor and Mayor of Epping. So not true
According to the results linked to within this subthread, Murphy was elected as an Independent. With 78 Independents, 10 TFFs, 7 CBIs and 5 Lab, the City of London is a Conservative-free zone. Remarkable!
I miss the days it was all independents. Made an already ridiculous system funner somehow.
Should go like (I think) Nebraska, which is officially non partisan even though it's the same parties in reality.
Mr. Kamski, I'd be wary of taking Wikipedia as an authority on contentious matters. Preceding the Battle of Chaeronea, Demosthenes sought to unify Greek cities in opposition to Macedon (which was not a city state unlike Sparta, Corinth, Athens, etc) and derided the Macedonians as barbarians (non-Greek foreigners).
Plus, Eumenes of Cardia was diplomatically hamstrung in the Diadochi era because he was not Macedonian, but Greek.
Against that, apparently Macedonians could participate in the Olympic Games.
Thanks for the tip about Wikipedia - how come nobody warned me about this before?
I'm still reasonably happy with the idea that Alexander the Great was broadly "Greek", but also really couldn't give a monkey's.
I'd like us to return to local communities living closer to the land and off-grid. I only keep my car because of my son. Otherwise I'd walk everywhere or use public transport. A lot of people can work from home but companies like to control people and their thoughts.
We can grow our own food stuffs and power our homes through solar, wind and/or geothermal.
Money is a means of control: a way of subjugating the masses and enchaining them.
I recognise that most people on here will hoot with derision but it's a point of view I happen to believe in passionately which is why I often seem to left-field and alternative. (That of course is another example of control: if someone is that alternative they are ostracised and accused of being a troll. Anything to stop them challenging the status quo.)
The world has entered a dystopian nightmare but some of us are getting off the conveyor belt.
p.s. Well worth watching Ben Fogle's New Lives in the Wild. Lots of fabulous examples.
You are calling for a massive depopulation of the UK and other developed countries on the basis of an entertainment program. A poor one at that.
I met a crofter in a remote village on the west coast of Scotland. Every month, they made a trip to Fort Bill to fill up with groceries; every six months they would go to Inverness or Glasgow. They grew a lot of food, but nowhere near enough. And they *heavily* relied on public services - from memory a neighbour's kid went to state boarding school. 'off-the-grid' living is a lifestyle that often leeches off others, whilst pretending to be 'independent'.
We are a society, and we are all massively interdependent.
Your view of the world is the dystopian nightmare.
The funny bit is that such a vision strangely intersects with that of people who build bunkers in Idaho.
Ben Fogle is notorious for staying in high end hotels, when doing his "back to nature" productions. Apparently they have to be nicer than the basic stuff for the crew, being the talent and all.
I reckon they (some at least) may be closet LibDems.
No Conservatives. Who'd have thunk that the City of London is part of the red wall? Just rejoice at that news.
I see Ben Murphy was elected in the Corporation elections and was a Conservative Councillor and Mayor of Epping. So not true
According to the results linked to within this subthread, Murphy was elected as an Independent. With 78 Independents, 10 TFFs, 7 CBIs and 5 Lab, the City of London is a Conservative-free zone. Remarkable!
I miss the days it was all independents. Made an already ridiculous system funner somehow.
Should go like (I think) Nebraska, which is officially non partisan even though it's the same parties in reality.
Well the "I" in "CBI" stands for "Independents". Only the 5 Lab stand in party colours - and several more failed in their bids. I guess you could argue that an alliance of independents means they aren't independents, but that's different to a national party platform.
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
Someone will have to though. Our companies will still buy things. In the end it would presumably just increase the price of importing to the U.K., and make ships sailing to/from the U.K. the ones every mariner wants to work on. That’s a choice we could make, albeit I see that it’s not compatible with wanting to have a larger merchant fleet.
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
Someone will have to though. Our companies will still buy things. In the end it would presumably just increase the price of importing to the U.K., and make ships sailing to/from the U.K. the ones every mariner wants to work on. That’s a choice we could make, albeit I see that it’s not compatible with wanting to have a larger merchant fleet.
I rarely agree with Gordon Brown but he is absolutely correct to say that Rishi cannot continue to ignore those suffering from poverty caused by the cost of living crisis
He can.
It's OK, no political damage done, they don't vote.
I reckon they (some at least) may be closet LibDems.
No Conservatives. Who'd have thunk that the City of London is part of the red wall? Just rejoice at that news.
I see Ben Murphy was elected in the Corporation elections and was a Conservative Councillor and Mayor of Epping. So not true
According to the results linked to within this subthread, Murphy was elected as an Independent. With 78 Independents, 10 TFFs, 7 CBIs and 5 Lab, the City of London is a Conservative-free zone. Remarkable!
I miss the days it was all independents. Made an already ridiculous system funner somehow.
Should go like (I think) Nebraska, which is officially non partisan even though it's the same parties in reality.
Well the "I" in "CBI" stands for "Independents". Only the 5 Lab stand in party colours - and several more failed in their bids. I guess you could argue that an alliance of independents means they aren't independents, but that's different to a national party platform.
Mr. Kamski, I'd be wary of taking Wikipedia as an authority on contentious matters. Preceding the Battle of Chaeronea, Demosthenes sought to unify Greek cities in opposition to Macedon (which was not a city state unlike Sparta, Corinth, Athens, etc) and derided the Macedonians as barbarians (non-Greek foreigners).
Plus, Eumenes of Cardia was diplomatically hamstrung in the Diadochi era because he was not Macedonian, but Greek.
Against that, apparently Macedonians could participate in the Olympic Games.
Thanks for the tip about Wikipedia - how come nobody warned me about this before?
I'm still reasonably happy with the idea that Alexander the Great was broadly "Greek", but also really couldn't give a monkey's.
Well, in general, the Ancient Greek attitude to the Macedonians seems to have been something like - they're the slightly primitive hick cousins from the hills.
Wait till you get to Cleopatra... you can be cancelled for getting the answer "wrong" on that one....
Good Tory hold in Seghill and Seaton Delaval in Northumberland. Tories hold their Majority on the council. Well done for Stodge and dixiedean for calling it.
Labour certainly has major issues at a local level in Blyth Valley constituency which was apparent last year. Labour also got 73% in this ward in 2013.
The Budget clearly a disaster in northern red wa...hang on, that can't be right.....
If you think Seghill is the Red Wall you clearly haven't visited recently.
Either way the swing is very clear. Also shows the wobbly thinking there is about what the 'Redwall' means. It was never thousands of benefit claimants, etc suddenly voting Tory. It was more the lower m/c in parts of the north and Midlands voting Tory as their counterparts, in eg, the Medway towns have been doing for the past 10years or so. Of course there has veen some swing back in the past year or so generally and many of the seats could revert to Labour still. I actually doubt if it will be all of them but 2 years out from a GE none of us really know.
As I said yesterday, knowing this area reasonably well, the surprise for me is that this area was staunch labour for so long. Although dixiedean is quite right this is not what you would call archetypal red wall it was still labour a few years back. I expect some seats will swing back to labour but others will keep trending Tory as they have been doing for several elections.
Very much like my home town of Sunderland - almost the whole town went Labour - even the leafiest and poshest wards for several years. Over the past few years slowly they have moved back into the blue camp - as a result in 2019 all 3 Sunderland seats moved back into marginal territory. I should think they are now safe Labour again although Sunderland Central will still have a good Conservative showing. I taught in Dartford for many years - a Labour seat after 1997 but the whole north Kent area is now packed with lower m/c safe blue seats. In many ways much of the north-east is similar outside the urban Newcastle zone and will remain susceptible to the blues if the political climate changes again. Too many on here don't really understand the 'redwall' mentality at all.
Ah, right, I didn’t realise you’re a Mackem. You’re right. People think these red wall seats are all grinding poverty and back to back terraces. Sunderland has some lovely areas which if they were where you are now would be rock solid Tory.
Actually I'm in a small village in SE Spain - relatively wealthy through farming - and the lorry transport of all those tomatoes, etc.. and yes rock solid Tory!
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
Someone will have to though. Our companies will still buy things. In the end it would presumably just increase the price of importing to the U.K., and make ships sailing to/from the U.K. the ones every mariner wants to work on. That’s a choice we could make, albeit I see that it’s not compatible with wanting to have a larger merchant fleet.
Or cheap goods at Tesco/Argos.
Yeah but we’ve made that choice. We did so when we left the EU, and also in deciding to have standards on stuff like modern slavery. And, indeed we should be affirming that choice by working to be less reliant in China.
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
Someone will have to though. Our companies will still buy things. In the end it would presumably just increase the price of importing to the U.K., and make ships sailing to/from the U.K. the ones every mariner wants to work on. That’s a choice we could make, albeit I see that it’s not compatible with wanting to have a larger merchant fleet.
And then we will have the joy where everyone complains about costs rising and the only option is to subsidise shipping companies which is then met with complaints about giving tax-payers’ money to foreign multi-nationals…
I rarely agree with Gordon Brown but he is absolutely correct to say that Rishi cannot continue to ignore those suffering from poverty caused by the cost of living crisis
He can.
It's OK, no political damage done, they don't vote.
Indeed, and the loyal Tories who express concern for it mid term, will still be voting blue whatever come the GE.
If he knew the discussions with the unions would be met by a refusal of the terms and that the only acceptable terms would be ones that put the company out of business or running at a loss then despite the hoo-hah he did what he could. The unions can't force a business to run at a loss, better to cease operations....
No, he could still have consulted. It's a 30 day process, so unless the company is already effectively insolvent, they should have done so. And by not doing so, they risk an unlimited fine, which the law in this case provides.
As he admitted in the select committee that the company did have this obligation, challenging any such penalty might be difficult.
Basically the management are scofflaws and idiots.
I have so far managed to avoid it, even when my 11 year old son had it.
You might be one of the 5-10% who are, supposedly, naturally immune and will never get it?
I wouldn't rely on that, tho. My 20-something niece in Falmouth was congratulating herself on this status, even as her husband went down with the lurgy for the Nth time.... and then she caught it, and now she is feeling shite
We will all get it, barring a few genuinely lucky immunological weirdoes
I have a relative who throughout the pandemic wasn't exactly very careful and only got double jabbed, but weirdly became a test-aholic. They dodged it until last week.
I have a load of in personal meetings lined up over the coming months through out the country, so I shall be awaiting my call...
Right now my older daughter, my niece, my niece's husband, my stepmother, and one of my best male friends: all have it (and all of them for the first time)
This wave is mopping up everyone who has avoided it until now, or so it feels. But much better they get it now, when we have mollifying vaccines and when the variant is mild, than some other time
There is no need whatsoever for this complacent approach.
We should continue to be cautious, mitigate its spread and protect the vulnerable.
Otherwise we will continue to cause needless deaths, which doesn't bother capitalists but does concern those of us with a heart and soul.
“Capitalists”? What is this, 1950s Moscow?
No it's 2022 green revolution. People turning their backs on modern life and returning to simpler, greener, truer, more nature-based and off-grid ways of living.
The pandemic has caused some people to recalibrate. I wish it were more and it may yet be.
Simpler, greener, more nature based living means a life expectancy of about 30 and the most common form of death for women being childbirth.
Oh and a world population of at most a tenth of the current one.
Agree. Heathener's comment on the merits of doing away with modern life and its encumbrances is being communicated to us by one of the most sophisticated products of modernity, which includes a worldwide highly integrated system of fantastic technical complexity.
People no doubt want to 'recalibrate' but have a marked tendency to do so selectively. The interdependencies of modernity make this an illusion. Like all the wealthy people who want to live in a chocolate box village with a lych gate and a duck pond, just far enough but not too far from the motorway system and an international airport. It's a delusion.
Well said. People have a very skewed idea of what 'back to nature' would look like. Reforming our societies may be the goal perhaps, but that's not returning to some utopic pastoralism.
Yes, most of us would not wish to live like medieval agricultural labourers.
There's a natural tendency when looking at the past, to imagine ourselves as aristocrats, but most of us would not have been.
Its about an initiative to get Russian speakers outside Russia to phone up Russians 'One on One' and talk about the war. I don't know how effective it will be. It seems that in many cases the Russians just parrot back what State TV has been telling them, for others they know what's happening but too scared to do anything about it. non the less I support it any cracks in the media wall should be tried, perhaps it will have some impact on some.
I don't speak Russian so can not help, but I would encourage anybody who does to give it a try.
My wife has this problem with half her family in Russia. There’s been years of media brainwashing, most outside sources of news are now blocked in Russia, and the state media is still going on about Nazis, chemical factories, and liberating the Donbass. No mention of the bombs raining on Kiev and Mariopol.
If he knew the discussions with the unions would be met by a refusal of the terms and that the only acceptable terms would be ones that put the company out of business or running at a loss then despite the hoo-hah he did what he could. The unions can't force a business to run at a loss, better to cease operations.
As for minimum wage requirements, ports, filipinos, etc - that is one for the government to unpick. Enforce the laws that are relevant and create new laws if it so wishes to force the behaviour it wants.
Consultation is not just about the company's plans and whether they go ahead. It can also include the level of compensation payable, offering help to find other jobs or, indeed, giving some of those sacked the opportunity to be rehired on worse terms if they want this. From what I have read the redundancy payments are not at all generous and barely, if at all, above the legal minimum. The employees have been deprived of the opportunity to discuss this.
I am the Chair of Trustees of a school and we have just gone through a consultation re pensions. We did an informal one first, revised our plans then went through a formal one and made some further changes and have now got agreement from everyone on those. It was very time-consuming and involved a lot of hard work, meetings, explanations etc., and I hope earned us some credit with the staff in how we approached it. One of the questions was about firing and rehiring because some other local schools have got themselves into trouble. (One is facing a teachers' strike.) I was heavily involved as Chair. All of us trustees are volunteers and we managed to get this done properly. And we too face the same financial storms as everyone else in this difficult economic environment.
If volunteers can make the effort to follow the law then senior executives paid a shedload can bloody well do so as well.
In reality we have the law for the little people and 2 fingers to it from the so-called high and mighty.
I am getting hugely pissed off with this. We're going to need our own revolution at this rate to teach those who are taking the piss a lesson they won't forget for a very long time.
Pointing out that Electric Autos cost less per month than Fossil-fueled.
Yep.
Road Fund License going up next year, then...
Was listening to his interview and wished he’d been asked to clarify something he said.
He said that maritime companies couldn’t rely on work in international zones to evade paying their staff minimum wage and that because they had to go between countries they must pay the minimum wage.
Absolutely agree, except whose minimum wage?
He can’t demand they pay the UK minimum wage because they dock in UK as they also dock in France so should it be the French minimum wage? So therefore are they paid the minimum wage where they are employed (Jersey in this case is £9.22 currently higher than UK)?
There is clearly a problem but surely the only options are the current situation which encourages gouging people on low maritime wages or there has to be law introduced in combination with all countries where the employees have to be paid the highest minimum wage of where they sail between or where they are employed (i imagine this would make the routes to Norway very attractive!)
It’s not as simple as just “they have to be paid the minimum wage at least”.
He needs to be careful. UK -UK ferries are subjefct to minimum wage, it is obviously right that UK - France should get the min wage of 1 or the other, but if every container ship that docks at Felixstowe starts to have to pay its filippinos UK minimum, they will stop docking at Felixstowe.
Someone will have to though. Our companies will still buy things. In the end it would presumably just increase the price of importing to the U.K., and make ships sailing to/from the U.K. the ones every mariner wants to work on. That’s a choice we could make, albeit I see that it’s not compatible with wanting to have a larger merchant fleet.
Worst case (if we do this and EU doesn't) they'll unload at rotterdam onto high wage UK- Holland shuttle services
If he knew the discussions with the unions would be met by a refusal of the terms and that the only acceptable terms would be ones that put the company out of business or running at a loss then despite the hoo-hah he did what he could. The unions can't force a business to run at a loss, better to cease operations....
No, he could still have consulted. It's a 30 day process, so unless the company is already effectively insolvent, they should have done so. And by not doing so, they risk an unlimited fine, which the law in this case provides.
As he admitted in the select committee that the company did have this obligation, challenging any such penalty might be difficult.
Basically the management are scofflaws and idiots.
Yeah maybe but maybe also he had had discussions with the unions who indicated their terms. We don't know. To take that kind of a risk without, it appears, a great deal of regret and a pledge that they would do it again, indicates that this wasn't something they decided to do on the spur of the moment.
I'd like us to return to local communities living closer to the land and off-grid. I only keep my car because of my son. Otherwise I'd walk everywhere or use public transport. A lot of people can work from home but companies like to control people and their thoughts.
We can grow our own food stuffs and power our homes through solar, wind and/or geothermal.
Money is a means of control: a way of subjugating the masses and enchaining them.
I recognise that most people on here will hoot with derision but it's a point of view I happen to believe in passionately which is why I often seem to left-field and alternative. (That of course is another example of control: if someone is that alternative they are ostracised and accused of being a troll. Anything to stop them challenging the status quo.)
The world has entered a dystopian nightmare but some of us are getting off the conveyor belt.
p.s. Well worth watching Ben Fogle's New Lives in the Wild. Lots of fabulous examples.
You are calling for a massive depopulation of the UK and other developed countries on the basis of an entertainment program. A poor one at that.
I met a crofter in a remote village on the west coast of Scotland. Every month, they made a trip to Fort Bill to fill up with groceries; every six months they would go to Inverness or Glasgow. They grew a lot of food, but nowhere near enough. And they *heavily* relied on public services - from memory a neighbour's kid went to state boarding school. 'off-the-grid' living is a lifestyle that often leeches off others, whilst pretending to be 'independent'.
We are a society, and we are all massively interdependent.
Your view of the world is the dystopian nightmare.
Bet all these people living off grid didn't make their own solar panels.
I've sometimes tried to think about how large a minimally viable society would need to be to maintain current technology levels - consider the idea of having a self-supporting population on Mars. How large would it need to be to be able to replace all its computer chips, produce all its medicines, etc.
P&O ferries question: Am I right in thinking that the UK to UK ferries have to apply UK minimum wages? Does that mean that the UK - Ireland route can pay 3rd world rates?
Good Tory hold in Seghill and Seaton Delaval in Northumberland. Tories hold their Majority on the council. Well done for Stodge and dixiedean for calling it.
Labour certainly has major issues at a local level in Blyth Valley constituency which was apparent last year. Labour also got 73% in this ward in 2013.
The Budget clearly a disaster in northern red wa...hang on, that can't be right.....
If you think Seghill is the Red Wall you clearly haven't visited recently.
Either way the swing is very clear. Also shows the wobbly thinking there is about what the 'Redwall' means. It was never thousands of benefit claimants, etc suddenly voting Tory. It was more the lower m/c in parts of the north and Midlands voting Tory as their counterparts, in eg, the Medway towns have been doing for the past 10years or so. Of course there has veen some swing back in the past year or so generally and many of the seats could revert to Labour still. I actually doubt if it will be all of them but 2 years out from a GE none of us really know.
As I said yesterday, knowing this area reasonably well, the surprise for me is that this area was staunch labour for so long. Although dixiedean is quite right this is not what you would call archetypal red wall it was still labour a few years back. I expect some seats will swing back to labour but others will keep trending Tory as they have been doing for several elections.
Very much like my home town of Sunderland - almost the whole town went Labour - even the leafiest and poshest wards for several years. Over the past few years slowly they have moved back into the blue camp - as a result in 2019 all 3 Sunderland seats moved back into marginal territory. I should think they are now safe Labour again although Sunderland Central will still have a good Conservative showing. I taught in Dartford for many years - a Labour seat after 1997 but the whole north Kent area is now packed with lower m/c safe blue seats. In many ways much of the north-east is similar outside the urban Newcastle zone and will remain susceptible to the blues if the political climate changes again. Too many on here don't really understand the 'redwall' mentality at all.
Ah, right, I didn’t realise you’re a Mackem. You’re right. People think these red wall seats are all grinding poverty and back to back terraces. Sunderland has some lovely areas which if they were where you are now would be rock solid Tory.
Actually I'm in a small village in SE Spain - relatively wealthy through farming - and the lorry transport of all those tomatoes, etc.. and yes rock solid Tory!
Sounds like Pennywell.
Lol - if Pennywell has views like this:
Is that where they’re building the new housing estate 😉
Mr. Kamski, I'd be wary of taking Wikipedia as an authority on contentious matters. Preceding the Battle of Chaeronea, Demosthenes sought to unify Greek cities in opposition to Macedon (which was not a city state unlike Sparta, Corinth, Athens, etc) and derided the Macedonians as barbarians (non-Greek foreigners).
Plus, Eumenes of Cardia was diplomatically hamstrung in the Diadochi era because he was not Macedonian, but Greek.
Against that, apparently Macedonians could participate in the Olympic Games.
Demosthenes was a nasty little racist. You may say the claim is anachronistic, but he said Macedonians were people he "wouldn't even own as slaves" and I can't think offhand of an equally nasty slur anywhere else in the literature. The Olympics is quite a good test, same as in much of the US you can tell whether someone is Jewish by whether they belong to the country club.
I have so far managed to avoid it, even when my 11 year old son had it.
You might be one of the 5-10% who are, supposedly, naturally immune and will never get it?
I wouldn't rely on that, tho. My 20-something niece in Falmouth was congratulating herself on this status, even as her husband went down with the lurgy for the Nth time.... and then she caught it, and now she is feeling shite
We will all get it, barring a few genuinely lucky immunological weirdoes
I have a relative who throughout the pandemic wasn't exactly very careful and only got double jabbed, but weirdly became a test-aholic. They dodged it until last week.
I have a load of in personal meetings lined up over the coming months through out the country, so I shall be awaiting my call...
Right now my older daughter, my niece, my niece's husband, my stepmother, and one of my best male friends: all have it (and all of them for the first time)
This wave is mopping up everyone who has avoided it until now, or so it feels. But much better they get it now, when we have mollifying vaccines and when the variant is mild, than some other time
There is no need whatsoever for this complacent approach.
We should continue to be cautious, mitigate its spread and protect the vulnerable.
Otherwise we will continue to cause needless deaths, which doesn't bother capitalists but does concern those of us with a heart and soul.
“Capitalists”? What is this, 1950s Moscow?
No it's 2022 green revolution. People turning their backs on modern life and returning to simpler, greener, truer, more nature-based and off-grid ways of living.
The pandemic has caused some people to recalibrate. I wish it were more and it may yet be.
Simpler, greener, more nature based living means a life expectancy of about 30 and the most common form of death for women being childbirth.
Oh and a world population of at most a tenth of the current one.
Agree. Heathener's comment on the merits of doing away with modern life and its encumbrances is being communicated to us by one of the most sophisticated products of modernity, which includes a worldwide highly integrated system of fantastic technical complexity.
People no doubt want to 'recalibrate' but have a marked tendency to do so selectively. The interdependencies of modernity make this an illusion. Like all the wealthy people who want to live in a chocolate box village with a lych gate and a duck pond, just far enough but not too far from the motorway system and an international airport. It's a delusion.
Well said. People have a very skewed idea of what 'back to nature' would look like. Reforming our societies may be the goal perhaps, but that's not returning to some utopic pastoralism.
Yes, most of us would not wish to live like medieval agricultural labourers.
There's a natural tendency when looking at the past, to imagine ourselves as aristocrats, but most of us would not have been.
Most of us wouldn’t want to live as 1930s industrial workers, even less so as same in the 1830s. In fact I’m pretty sure most PBers (including me) wouldn’t want to live as 2020s industrial workers.
I rarely agree with Gordon Brown but he is absolutely correct to say that Rishi cannot continue to ignore those suffering from poverty caused by the cost of living crisis
He can.
It's OK, no political damage done, they don't vote.
P&O ferries question: Am I right in thinking that the UK to UK ferries have to apply UK minimum wages? Does that mean that the UK - Ireland route can pay 3rd world rates?
I believe the law is now, basically, if your time is predominantly spent in British waters, you must be paid NMW. Therefore most UK-UK sailings are covered, but I assume you can arrange your UK-ROI ferries to avoid this (e.g. https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/members-updates/irish-ferries-update240621/)
If he knew the discussions with the unions would be met by a refusal of the terms and that the only acceptable terms would be ones that put the company out of business or running at a loss then despite the hoo-hah he did what he could. The unions can't force a business to run at a loss, better to cease operations.
As for minimum wage requirements, ports, filipinos, etc - that is one for the government to unpick. Enforce the laws that are relevant and create new laws if it so wishes to force the behaviour it wants.
Consultation is not just about the company's plans and whether they go ahead. It can also include the level of compensation payable, offering help to find other jobs or, indeed, giving some of those sacked the opportunity to be rehired on worse terms if they want this. From what I have read the redundancy payments are not at all generous and barely, if at all, above the legal minimum. The employees have been deprived of the opportunity to discuss this.
I am the Chair of Trustees of a school and we have just gone through a consultation re pensions. We did an informal one first, revised our plans then went through a formal one and made some further changes and have now got agreement from everyone on those. It was very time-consuming and involved a lot of hard work, meetings, explanations etc., and I hope earned us some credit with the staff in how we approached it. One of the questions was about firing and rehiring because some other local schools have got themselves into trouble. (One is facing a teachers' strike.) I was heavily involved as Chair. All of us trustees are volunteers and we managed to get this done properly. And we too face the same financial storms as everyone else in this difficult economic environment.
If volunteers can make the effort to follow the law then senior executives paid a shedload can bloody well do so as well.
In reality we have the law for the little people and 2 fingers to it from the so-called high and mighty.
I am getting hugely pissed off with this. We're going to need our own revolution at this rate to teach those who are taking the piss a lesson they won't forget for a very long time.
You have answered your own question, despite weasel words such as "barely, if at all, above the legal minimum". It is either legal and at or above the legal minimum or it is not. If they have broken the law then let them feel the full force of that law to hold them to account.
If they have just behaved like dicks then people will make up their own minds as to how much they want to travel with P&O (my guess - if the price is right then a lot).
Unions are vital in protecting the workers' interests and I have no idea what informal consultations were conducted prior to this action. However, P&O have been making losses since pre-pandemic so I can't believe there was much wiggle room. Perhaps the bosses thought they had nothing to lose; do this and see if they can stay afloat (boom boom) or continue as is and go out of business.
I have so far managed to avoid it, even when my 11 year old son had it.
You might be one of the 5-10% who are, supposedly, naturally immune and will never get it?
I wouldn't rely on that, tho. My 20-something niece in Falmouth was congratulating herself on this status, even as her husband went down with the lurgy for the Nth time.... and then she caught it, and now she is feeling shite
We will all get it, barring a few genuinely lucky immunological weirdoes
I have a relative who throughout the pandemic wasn't exactly very careful and only got double jabbed, but weirdly became a test-aholic. They dodged it until last week.
I have a load of in personal meetings lined up over the coming months through out the country, so I shall be awaiting my call...
Right now my older daughter, my niece, my niece's husband, my stepmother, and one of my best male friends: all have it (and all of them for the first time)
This wave is mopping up everyone who has avoided it until now, or so it feels. But much better they get it now, when we have mollifying vaccines and when the variant is mild, than some other time
There is no need whatsoever for this complacent approach.
We should continue to be cautious, mitigate its spread and protect the vulnerable.
Otherwise we will continue to cause needless deaths, which doesn't bother capitalists but does concern those of us with a heart and soul.
“Capitalists”? What is this, 1950s Moscow?
No it's 2022 green revolution. People turning their backs on modern life and returning to simpler, greener, truer, more nature-based and off-grid ways of living.
The pandemic has caused some people to recalibrate. I wish it were more and it may yet be.
Simpler, greener, more nature based living means a life expectancy of about 30 and the most common form of death for women being childbirth.
Oh and a world population of at most a tenth of the current one.
Agree. Heathener's comment on the merits of doing away with modern life and its encumbrances is being communicated to us by one of the most sophisticated products of modernity, which includes a worldwide highly integrated system of fantastic technical complexity.
People no doubt want to 'recalibrate' but have a marked tendency to do so selectively. The interdependencies of modernity make this an illusion. Like all the wealthy people who want to live in a chocolate box village with a lych gate and a duck pond, just far enough but not too far from the motorway system and an international airport. It's a delusion.
Well said. People have a very skewed idea of what 'back to nature' would look like. Reforming our societies may be the goal perhaps, but that's not returning to some utopic pastoralism.
Yes, most of us would not wish to live like medieval agricultural labourers.
There's a natural tendency when looking at the past, to imagine ourselves as aristocrats, but most of us would not have been.
Speak for yourself peasant!
For most of history, here anyway, even aristocrats would need to shit in a pot, so even then a rough ask.
P&O ferries question: Am I right in thinking that the UK to UK ferries have to apply UK minimum wages? Does that mean that the UK - Ireland route can pay 3rd world rates?
Larne to Stranraer doesn't appear to be doing so as of now. Dunno if that is legal or not.
P&O ferries question: Am I right in thinking that the UK to UK ferries have to apply UK minimum wages? Does that mean that the UK - Ireland route can pay 3rd world rates?
Why not make it so that any passenger vessel docking in UK port (Ferries and cruises) has to pay at least UK min wage ? Freight's a different matter, but for instance on land we differentiate agricultural and regular diesel duty for obvious reasons.
Our Ukrainians have finally arrived. I'm in charge of teaching them English and teaching them to drive. Who better?
My brother's just taken in two in Amsterdam. It's very easy there and he says they're very nice and learning how to cycle. Such a great city if you live in the centre. I told him they'll never want to leave
Our Ukrainians have finally arrived. I'm in charge of teaching them English and teaching them to drive. Who better?
Happy to watch from 500km away...
"If a policeman stops you when you were driving at 150 mph, what we usually say in Britain is 'Fuck off, you jumped-up wanker, think this is a police state?''
I'd like us to return to local communities living closer to the land and off-grid. I only keep my car because of my son. Otherwise I'd walk everywhere or use public transport. A lot of people can work from home but companies like to control people and their thoughts.
We can grow our own food stuffs and power our homes through solar, wind and/or geothermal.
Money is a means of control: a way of subjugating the masses and enchaining them.
I recognise that most people on here will hoot with derision but it's a point of view I happen to believe in passionately which is why I often seem to left-field and alternative. (That of course is another example of control: if someone is that alternative they are ostracised and accused of being a troll. Anything to stop them challenging the status quo.)
The world has entered a dystopian nightmare but some of us are getting off the conveyor belt.
p.s. Well worth watching Ben Fogle's New Lives in the Wild. Lots of fabulous examples.
You are calling for a massive depopulation of the UK and other developed countries on the basis of an entertainment program. A poor one at that.
I met a crofter in a remote village on the west coast of Scotland. Every month, they made a trip to Fort Bill to fill up with groceries; every six months they would go to Inverness or Glasgow. They grew a lot of food, but nowhere near enough. And they *heavily* relied on public services - from memory a neighbour's kid went to state boarding school. 'off-the-grid' living is a lifestyle that often leeches off others, whilst pretending to be 'independent'.
We are a society, and we are all massively interdependent.
Your view of the world is the dystopian nightmare.
Bet all these people living off grid didn't make their own solar panels.
I've sometimes tried to think about how large a minimally viable society would need to be to maintain current technology levels - consider the idea of having a self-supporting population on Mars. How large would it need to be to be able to replace all its computer chips, produce all its medicines, etc.
Really damn large I reckon.
Things like computer chips will be imported for decades. The costs of making a fab are huge, including the resources required (heck, they require vast amounts of water). Yet the end-products are very small, so are easy to transport. The limited resources would be better spent elsewhere.
A chip we did was (from memory) made in China. The wafers were then flown to AMS in Austria for packaging (putting them into the case with connectors), sent to the US for testing, from where they were then sent to the UK and China.
Its about an initiative to get Russian speakers outside Russia to phone up Russians 'One on One' and talk about the war. I don't know how effective it will be. It seems that in many cases the Russians just parrot back what State TV has been telling them, for others they know what's happening but too scared to do anything about it. non the less I support it any cracks in the media wall should be tried, perhaps it will have some impact on some.
I don't speak Russian so can not help, but I would encourage anybody who does to give it a try.
My wife has this problem with half her family in Russia. There’s been years of media brainwashing, most outside sources of news are now blocked in Russia, and the state media is still going on about Nazis, chemical factories, and liberating the Donbass. No mention of the bombs raining on Kiev and Mariopol.
Thanks for sharing that, so so sad, its only at times like this when we realise how impotent Freedom of Speech/Free Press are.
Do you mind me asking has there been any change in Her family's opinion over the courses of the war? as in has anything your wife's been saying sunk in? or is it just rejected out of hand?
Our Ukrainians have finally arrived. I'm in charge of teaching them English and teaching them to drive. Who better?
Happy to watch from 500km away...
"If a policeman stops you when you were driving at 150 mph, what we usually say in Britain is 'Fuck off, you jumped-up wanker, think this is a police state?''
Why only 150mph? Surely @Dura_Ace will teach them about not driving with the hand brake on?
If he knew the discussions with the unions would be met by a refusal of the terms and that the only acceptable terms would be ones that put the company out of business or running at a loss then despite the hoo-hah he did what he could. The unions can't force a business to run at a loss, better to cease operations.
As for minimum wage requirements, ports, filipinos, etc - that is one for the government to unpick. Enforce the laws that are relevant and create new laws if it so wishes to force the behaviour it wants.
Consultation is not just about the company's plans and whether they go ahead. It can also include the level of compensation payable, offering help to find other jobs or, indeed, giving some of those sacked the opportunity to be rehired on worse terms if they want this. From what I have read the redundancy payments are not at all generous and barely, if at all, above the legal minimum. The employees have been deprived of the opportunity to discuss this.
I am the Chair of Trustees of a school and we have just gone through a consultation re pensions. We did an informal one first, revised our plans then went through a formal one and made some further changes and have now got agreement from everyone on those. It was very time-consuming and involved a lot of hard work, meetings, explanations etc., and I hope earned us some credit with the staff in how we approached it. One of the questions was about firing and rehiring because some other local schools have got themselves into trouble. (One is facing a teachers' strike.) I was heavily involved as Chair. All of us trustees are volunteers and we managed to get this done properly. And we too face the same financial storms as everyone else in this difficult economic environment.
If volunteers can make the effort to follow the law then senior executives paid a shedload can bloody well do so as well.
In reality we have the law for the little people and 2 fingers to it from the so-called high and mighty.
I am getting hugely pissed off with this. We're going to need our own revolution at this rate to teach those who are taking the piss a lesson they won't forget for a very long time.
You have answered your own question, despite weasel words such as "barely, if at all, above the legal minimum". It is either legal and at or above the legal minimum or it is not. If they have broken the law then let them feel the full force of that law to hold them to account.
If they have just behaved like dicks then people will make up their own minds as to how much they want to travel with P&O (my guess - if the price is right then a lot).
Unions are vital in protecting the workers' interests and I have no idea what informal consultations were conducted prior to this action. However, P&O have been making losses since pre-pandemic so I can't believe there was much wiggle room. Perhaps the bosses thought they had nothing to lose; do this and see if they can stay afloat (boom boom) or continue as is and go out of business.
Which would be better for the Unions? No idea.
You are missing the point. I have been through a number of restructuring and in all cases compensation was well above the legal minimum. That is one thing that can be discussed in a consultation. So the company gets its plan through but the employees get more than the legal minimum of compensation. So, no, they are not weasel words. The company deprived the employees of their chance to argue for and get better compensation terms. That is why a consultation period exists.
"According to Reuters, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has said this morning that India and China agreed on the importance of an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, after he held talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
Both China and India have so far held back from strongly condemning Russia’s invasion."
Our Ukrainians have finally arrived. I'm in charge of teaching them English and teaching them to drive. Who better?
Happy to watch from 500km away...
"If a policeman stops you when you were driving at 150 mph, what we usually say in Britain is 'Fuck off, you jumped-up wanker, think this is a police state?''
Unless you've robbed a bank the Old Bill generally don't pursue at three digit speeds. They just nab your plate off CCTV and come round to your house for a session of patronising sarcasm and threats.
There's always a nostalgic view about the past, usually from those who live quite well now. Think of the lack of stress?
No, the stress was different. Having enough to eat day by day. Oh goody, turnips again. Or enough to drink without it killing you. Then, disease was far more likely to take you off before you reached five years of age.
Smallpox didn't always kill you but it made a mess of your cute tattoos. Consumption? That's a nasty cough you've got there. As for syphillis, it could manifest as anything. We are currently living in the Panglossian world. Be grateful.
Its about an initiative to get Russian speakers outside Russia to phone up Russians 'One on One' and talk about the war. I don't know how effective it will be. It seems that in many cases the Russians just parrot back what State TV has been telling them, for others they know what's happening but too scared to do anything about it. non the less I support it any cracks in the media wall should be tried, perhaps it will have some impact on some.
I don't speak Russian so can not help, but I would encourage anybody who does to give it a try.
My wife has this problem with half her family in Russia. There’s been years of media brainwashing, most outside sources of news are now blocked in Russia, and the state media is still going on about Nazis, chemical factories, and liberating the Donbass. No mention of the bombs raining on Kiev and Mariopol.
Thanks for sharing that, so so sad, its only at times like this when we realise how impotent Freedom of Speech/Free Press are.
Do you mind me asking has there been any change in Her family's opinion over the courses of the war? as in has anything your wife's been saying sunk in? or is it just rejected out of hand?
My step mother is having the same problem.
She thinks that it will be very interesting if/when the war fails. Bit like how the Japanese civilians were told they were winning right up until the "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage" speach.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1s9PKkpXXc
Its about an initiative to get Russian speakers outside Russia to phone up Russians 'One on One' and talk about the war. I don't know how effective it will be. It seems that in many cases the Russians just parrot back what State TV has been telling them, for others they know what's happening but too scared to do anything about it. non the less I support it any cracks in the media wall should be tried, perhaps it will have some impact on some.
I don't speak Russian so can not help, but I would encourage anybody who does to give it a try.
Brexit too a factor of course
"Alexander III of Macedon (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great,[a] was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon"
Seems reasonable to give Alexander the Great the credit for North Macedonia's football successes, even if he was also Greek. I mean England has St George (also Greek).
https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1507115099777081350?s=21
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lansky-Sharpeners-Ps-Med01-Outdoor-available/dp/B0085PPSIQ
That is the only one I have which can do a wavy blade well.
I also have a large steel, and a sharpening block (which does not get much use).
As for minimum wage requirements, ports, filipinos, etc - that is one for the government to unpick. Enforce the laws that are relevant and create new laws if it so wishes to force the behaviour it wants.
I met a crofter in a remote village on the west coast of Scotland. Every month, they made a trip to Fort Bill to fill up with groceries; every six months they would go to Inverness or Glasgow. They grew a lot of food, but nowhere near enough. And they *heavily* relied on public services - from memory a neighbour's kid went to state boarding school. 'off-the-grid' living is a lifestyle that often leeches off others, whilst pretending to be 'independent'.
We are a society, and we are all massively interdependent.
Your view of the world is the dystopian nightmare.
Preceding the Battle of Chaeronea, Demosthenes sought to unify Greek cities in opposition to Macedon (which was not a city state unlike Sparta, Corinth, Athens, etc) and derided the Macedonians as barbarians (non-Greek foreigners).
Plus, Eumenes of Cardia was diplomatically hamstrung in the Diadochi era because he was not Macedonian, but Greek.
Against that, apparently Macedonians could participate in the Olympic Games.
As to the TFF (TFT surely) - how does one tell a Lib Dem on a local level? Particularly in London?
Should go like (I think) Nebraska, which is officially non partisan even though it's the same parties in reality.
I'm still reasonably happy with the idea that Alexander the Great was broadly "Greek", but also really couldn't give a monkey's.
Ben Fogle is notorious for staying in high end hotels, when doing his "back to nature" productions. Apparently they have to be nicer than the basic stuff for the crew, being the talent and all.
https://twitter.com/he_maritime/status/1507270856178868225?s=21
It's OK, no political damage done, they don't vote.
Wait till you get to Cleopatra... you can be cancelled for getting the answer "wrong" on that one....
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/shocking-moment-four-russian-helicopters-shot-down-in-ukraine/ar-AAVrvN0?OCID=IE11FRENTP
Of err......
Arma III..
And by not doing so, they risk an unlimited fine, which the law in this case provides.
As he admitted in the select committee that the company did have this obligation, challenging any such penalty might be difficult.
Basically the management are scofflaws and idiots.
There's a natural tendency when looking at the past, to imagine ourselves as aristocrats, but most of us would not have been.
I am the Chair of Trustees of a school and we have just gone through a consultation re pensions. We did an informal one first, revised our plans then went through a formal one and made some further changes and have now got agreement from everyone on those. It was very time-consuming and involved a lot of hard work, meetings, explanations etc., and I hope earned us some credit with the staff in how we approached it. One of the questions was about firing and rehiring because some other local schools have got themselves into trouble. (One is facing a teachers' strike.) I was heavily involved as Chair. All of us trustees are volunteers and we managed to get this done properly. And we too face the same financial storms as everyone else in this difficult economic environment.
If volunteers can make the effort to follow the law then senior executives paid a shedload can bloody well do so as well.
In reality we have the law for the little people and 2 fingers to it from the so-called high and mighty.
I am getting hugely pissed off with this. We're going to need our own revolution at this rate to teach those who are taking the piss a lesson they won't forget for a very long time.
Tonight on Question Time...
https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/1507123854778503170
Info of those signing up to be soldiers leaked, as sources finger Capita-run system
https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/24/ministry_of_defence/?td=rt-3a
I've sometimes tried to think about how large a minimally viable society would need to be to maintain current technology levels - consider the idea of having a self-supporting population on Mars. How large would it need to be to be able to replace all its computer chips, produce all its medicines, etc.
Really damn large I reckon.
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1507255497291878408
Leon's favoured supplier includes knives at £700 a pop. Obviously targeted at the oligarch/flint-knapper market.
Seriously - thumbs up.
Its videos like this that make me think the Ukrainian estimates for the number of aeroplanes/helicopters shot down are probably broadly accurate!
Do we know what type of weapon was being fired at the helicopters? Man portable Anti Air missiles or something bigger?
If they have just behaved like dicks then people will make up their own minds as to how much they want to travel with P&O (my guess - if the price is right then a lot).
Unions are vital in protecting the workers' interests and I have no idea what informal consultations were conducted prior to this action. However, P&O have been making losses since pre-pandemic so I can't believe there was much wiggle room. Perhaps the bosses thought they had nothing to lose; do this and see if they can stay afloat (boom boom) or continue as is and go out of business.
Which would be better for the Unions? No idea.
For most of history, here anyway, even aristocrats would need to shit in a pot, so even then a rough ask.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0015kzx
Dunno if that is legal or not.
This is from today which seems to imply this.
https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/union-chief-tells-of-safety-fears-as-he-joins-protest-at-larne-port-41485682.html
I'm happy to watch teh driving lessons from 500km away...
I mean, have you seen what's going on elsewhere? Putin? Assad? Lukashenko? etc, etc.
https://www.intellinews.com/fpri-bmb-ukraine-russian-military-assault-on-ukraine-going-to-plan-b-239305/?source=ukraine
A chip we did was (from memory) made in China. The wafers were then flown to AMS in Austria for packaging (putting them into the case with connectors), sent to the US for testing, from where they were then sent to the UK and China.
Do you mind me asking has there been any change in Her family's opinion over the courses of the war? as in has anything your wife's been saying sunk in? or is it just rejected out of hand?
Both China and India have so far held back from strongly condemning Russia’s invasion."
Think of the lack of stress?
No, the stress was different. Having enough to eat day by day. Oh goody, turnips again. Or enough to drink without it killing you. Then, disease was far more likely to take you off before you reached five years of age.
Smallpox didn't always kill you but it made a mess of your cute tattoos. Consumption? That's a nasty cough you've got there. As for syphillis, it could manifest as anything. We are currently living in the Panglossian world. Be grateful.
She thinks that it will be very interesting if/when the war fails. Bit like how the Japanese civilians were told they were winning right up until the "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage" speach.