Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
“Everything just works” when lubricated with Russian oil paid for with blood.
Quite a daft post. Stick to the travel writing, which I’ve hugely enjoyed.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
“Everything just works” when lubricated with Russian oil paid for with blood.
How many Iraqis died so we could protect our oil supply? 750,000 I think.
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Our cultural industries are amongst our strongest earners, while don't you often moan about how software pay has stagnated for decades?
I think there are a lot of poor value courses out there, but a well skilled workforce will generate its own job opportunities. Indeed isn't that what productive economic growth looks like?
Yes and no. I really detest the blinkered thinking that doesn’t appreciate the strength (weakened by less EU migration) of the UK’s cultural sector.
But a LOT of kids bounce into “media studies” just “because”. Perhaps media studies is getting a bad rap though. I believe the modern poster boy is “criminology”.
It is genuinely amazing how many young people are studying "criminology" at degree level
It must have a reputation as a really soft touch. I fear for these kids with their useless "criminology" degrees and enormous debts in about 5-10 years
The same thing happened with Psychology decades back
The universities tend to be shit, as well:
Solent University (Southampton) 18 Criminology degrees
I'm trying to think this through. He presumably thinks too many people are currently in the workforce to allow higher productivity. If we exclude most young people from the workforce those still left in it will have to work harder and be more productive?
He surely cannot believe that tertiary education does anything much for our productivity outside STEM and the professions? Surely that theory has been tested to death by now.
Blair is diametrically wrong, again. The last thing the country should be doing, is encouraging more young people to get £50k into debt studying something worthless.
If I had an 18 year old, I’d be either telling them to learn a trade, or to get a white-collar apprenticeship that might result in a sponsored degree a few years down the line.
Doesn't that depend entirely on said 18 year old's interests and aptitude?
My daughter wants be a vet. She knows that involves some serious studying. (But on the positive side, has excellent job prospects on the far side.) I'm not going to try and force her to take an apprenticeship to do something she's not interested in.
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Our cultural industries are amongst our strongest earners, while don't you often moan about how software pay has stagnated for decades?
I think there are a lot of poor value courses out there, but a well skilled workforce will generate its own job opportunities. Indeed isn't that what productive economic growth looks like?
Yes and no. I really detest the blinkered thinking that doesn’t appreciate the strength (weakened by less EU migration) of the UK’s cultural sector.
But a LOT of kids bounce into “media studies” just “because”. Perhaps media studies is getting a bad rap though. I believe the modern poster boy is “criminology”.
It is genuinely amazing how many young people are studying "criminology" at degree level
It must have a reputation as a really soft touch. I fear for these kids with their useless "criminology" degrees and enormous debts in about 5-10 years
The same thing happened with Psychology decades back
The universities tend to be shit, as well:
Solent University (Southampton) 18 Criminology degrees
I hope I'm not alone in thinking that, on balance, the more people who benefit from further/higher education in any nation the better (provided that such education is of a high quality). The benefits of a highly-educated population are not just confined to improved economic performance, although I'm pretty confident that is one of them.
A lot comes down to what counts as education. 3 years of 30-35 weeks term time (not to mention very volatile amounts of hours per week by degree) is far from the best way of learning for most.
Giving people access to more learning opportunities post 18 I think is great, but it should more often be much shorter courses around things like cooking healthy meals, sport, dance, IT skills, languages, starting a business or whatever rather than more 3 year degrees with long breaks between each term.
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
If the state is financing it then its very much the first, if the pupils are finacing it very much more because you want to do it for personal growth. The second however needs to be caveated heavily for those pupils and they need to be stop being told doing a degree will make you better off job's wise. I am sorry there are just not that many jobs that require a degree. Take mine I am a software engineer since back in the late 80's. Never needed a degree back then however you try breaking in as a new start now without a degree and you are pretty much out of luck. Not because you need a degree to do it but because your cv will get auto binned. In fact and heard it said in a few of my workplaces now...first thing they tell a new start from uni is forget what they taught you we will teach you how to do it right.
I've found quite a few people without degrees jobs as entry level software engineers, and there are apprenticeships that aren't just "IT" now. Give it 5 years and all the big SW firms will have twigged that it is cheaper and better to hire talented people into apprenticeships for what is more craft than science in 95% of cases.
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Chicken and egg.
Investors won’t invest because they can’t be confident of a high quality labour pool outside London where cost of living is problematic.
Simple answer....make stem degrees free of fees....charge the ones who want to do media studies.....
I know media studies gets a bad rap, but the British film industry is a real industry that makes money and projects soft power. Star Wars, the James Bond series, Harry Potter, the Marvel films, are all made in part or in whole in Britain. Media degrees feed into all that, not just in the film-making side like writing, editing etc. but also in research, analysis, linked advertising and so on.
I think a lot of times people criticise media studies without actually knowing much about it.
Media Studies is the English Literature of our times, just diversified beyond the dead tree press.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
“Everything just works” when lubricated with Russian oil paid for with blood.
How many Iraqis died so we could protect our oil supply? 750,000 I think.
The war in Iraq was not about protecting our oil supplies. It was to give Iraqi oil assets away to American companies. HTH. Like Russia with the oligarchs but with added fireworks and funerals.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Our cultural industries are amongst our strongest earners, while don't you often moan about how software pay has stagnated for decades?
I think there are a lot of poor value courses out there, but a well skilled workforce will generate its own job opportunities. Indeed isn't that what productive economic growth looks like?
Yes and no. I really detest the blinkered thinking that doesn’t appreciate the strength (weakened by less EU migration) of the UK’s cultural sector.
But a LOT of kids bounce into “media studies” just “because”. Perhaps media studies is getting a bad rap though. I believe the modern poster boy is “criminology”.
It is genuinely amazing how many young people are studying "criminology" at degree level
It must have a reputation as a really soft touch. I fear for these kids with their useless "criminology" degrees and enormous debts in about 5-10 years
The same thing happened with Psychology decades back
The universities tend to be shit, as well:
Solent University (Southampton) 18 Criminology degrees
Three people in my year at school did criminology out of about 120.
I can't really talk having done Economics...
Economics degrees have very high ROI.
I agree, and have a great job as a result, but I'm not convinced there is much more value added in the course itself except a good understanding of incentive and expectation (at least at my uni).
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Chicken and egg.
Investors won’t invest because they can’t be confident of a high quality labour pool outside London where cost of living is problematic.
Simple answer....make stem degrees free of fees....charge the ones who want to do media studies.....
I know media studies gets a bad rap, but the British film industry is a real industry that makes money and projects soft power. Star Wars, the James Bond series, Harry Potter, the Marvel films, are all made in part or in whole in Britain. Media degrees feed into all that, not just in the film-making side like writing, editing etc. but also in research, analysis, linked advertising and so on.
I think a lot of times people criticise media studies without actually knowing much about it.
Media Studies is the English Literature of our times, just diversified beyond the dead tree press.
Well the point of english literature, which always excluded the vast majority of the dead tree press including such works as the prose of for example as jeffrey archer and tom knox. Was to study the rare gems amongst the mulch and analyse what made them so....media studies students probably get to study the complete works of Roger
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Chicken and egg.
Investors won’t invest because they can’t be confident of a high quality labour pool outside London where cost of living is problematic.
Simple answer....make stem degrees free of fees....charge the ones who want to do media studies.....
I know media studies gets a bad rap, but the British film industry is a real industry that makes money and projects soft power. Star Wars, the James Bond series, Harry Potter, the Marvel films, are all made in part or in whole in Britain. Media degrees feed into all that, not just in the film-making side like writing, editing etc. but also in research, analysis, linked advertising and so on.
I think a lot of times people criticise media studies without actually knowing much about it.
Media Studies is the English Literature of our times, just diversified beyond the dead tree press.
Indeed, and a hundred years ago, English degrees were attacked in much the same way as Media Studies now. Novels were the blockbuster films of their day. Why were people wasting time at university reading stories?
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
If the state is financing it then its very much the first, if the pupils are finacing it very much more because you want to do it for personal growth. The second however needs to be caveated heavily for those pupils and they need to be stop being told doing a degree will make you better off job's wise. I am sorry there are just not that many jobs that require a degree. Take mine I am a software engineer since back in the late 80's. Never needed a degree back then however you try breaking in as a new start now without a degree and you are pretty much out of luck. Not because you need a degree to do it but because your cv will get auto binned. In fact and heard it said in a few of my workplaces now...first thing they tell a new start from uni is forget what they taught you we will teach you how to do it right.
I've found quite a few people without degrees jobs as entry level software engineers, and there are apprenticeships that aren't just "IT" now. Give it 5 years and all the big SW firms will have twigged that it is cheaper and better to hire talented people into apprenticeships for what is more craft than science in 95% of cases.
(We are also about to see a massive (relative) collapse in the US software industry. I know several large West Coast businesses who have finally noticed that they are paying unbelievable salaries to average engineers and that they don't need them to be in the office.)
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Sense a person who needs a lift. We're kicking Johnson out in May 24, only 2 years away now. We're over halfway through the stretch. There's this summer and then it'll be Christmas, then spring again, another summer, a final Christmas, then into 24, just a quick Jan and Feb to get through and it'll be the campaign, the campaign and then the vote and it's over. It's over.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The poorest parts of Italy = €17,000, quite a lot lower than €28,800
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The poorest parts of Italy = €17,000, quite a lot lower than €28,800
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The poorest parts of Italy = €17,000, quite a lot lower than €28,800
You said "poorest", I said "poorer"
Adding info just in case you inadvertently mislead anyone
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
But on a like for like comparison with eg Surrey it still looks loads better. We spent today at a water park surrounded by what I assume are regular working class Germans (I'm going off the amount of beer bellies and tattoos on display). The broad-based level of prosperity here is just way higher than Britain, where the equivalent group is probably figuring out where the nearest food bank is right now. Britain is broken, and Brexit is making it worse.
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
A few more jobs on the shortage list to be a skilled worker:
Aerobics instructor Personal trainer Exporter-importer Accounting clerk Buyer Sales agent Park ranger NVQ assessor Health and safety officer Transport clerk Business support manager Secretary Herd manager Gardener Groundsman Sheet metal worker Pipe fitter Welder Metal bench fitter Air conditioning fitter Car mechanic Vehicle assembler Electrician Bricklayer Carpentry joiner Builder Fencer Carpet fitter Knitter Weaver Shoe repairer Hand sewer Wallpaper printer Baker Baker assistant Bar manager Pottery worker Flower arranger Florist Creche worker Air hostess Window dresser Sales team leader Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Our cultural industries are amongst our strongest earners, while don't you often moan about how software pay has stagnated for decades?
I think there are a lot of poor value courses out there, but a well skilled workforce will generate its own job opportunities. Indeed isn't that what productive economic growth looks like?
Yes and no. I really detest the blinkered thinking that doesn’t appreciate the strength (weakened by less EU migration) of the UK’s cultural sector.
But a LOT of kids bounce into “media studies” just “because”. Perhaps media studies is getting a bad rap though. I believe the modern poster boy is “criminology”.
It is genuinely amazing how many young people are studying "criminology" at degree level
It must have a reputation as a really soft touch. I fear for these kids with their useless "criminology" degrees and enormous debts in about 5-10 years
The same thing happened with Psychology decades back
Education for education sake isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I entirely agree. University broadens the mind in multiple ways, not just what you study, but socially, emotionally, culturally, artistically. It is an intrinsically good thing. Ideally everyone should have the chance
BUT it is all so different now: when 3 years at Uni saddles you with a lifetime of debt
It is hard to believe my generation was paid BY THE STATE to go to Uni. And we had all the best drugs and music. We were indeed lucky; I can understand why Boomers are resented by the young
No, our generation, was paid by taxpayers to go to Uni. Not the state. At a time when for many of us it just wasn’t an option.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
I saw a lot more dog shit on the pavements in France than I ever have in England. And they have shit bag dispensers even in tiny French parks. Maybe I live in a posh, dogshitwise, part of England. But still..
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
When you cross the border from Belgium into the Netherlands you notice a similar difference. Belgium is a bit like Britain, the Netherlands is pristine.
"Intriguingly, voters under 35 went first for Mélenchon and then Le Pen, leaving the technocrat Macron in dismal third place among the young. Macron only won decisively among voters over 60."
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The poorest parts of Italy = €17,000, quite a lot lower than €28,800
You said "poorest", I said "poorer"
Adding info just in case you inadvertently mislead anyone
Here are the stats for precision (add a few euros for the dates, these are 2017):
The GDP per cap of the poorest German states are in the lower half of Italian income, by region - somewhere between Marche and Abruzzo, but nowhere near as bad as Calabria or Campania
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
Outside the ghettos, the center of many US cities is noticeably cleaner than London, Birmingham, Manchester.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
Graffiti depresses me. Do we spend less on cleaning it up, or do we just have more vandals? (I'm comparing us with Germany here of course - France is absolutely covered in graffiti.) I would quite happily introduce the death sentence for graffiti. It's just so pointless. Nobody's life is improved; everyone's is made slightly worse.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
Outside the ghettos, the center of many US cities is noticeably cleaner than London, Birmingham, Manchester.
Well cities such as london birmingham and manchester is where left wing people live.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
Graffiti depresses me. Do we spend less on cleaning it up, or do we just have more vandals? (I'm comparing us with Germany here of course - France is absolutely covered in graffiti.) I would quite happily introduce the death sentence for graffiti. It's just so pointless. Nobody's life is improved; everyone's is made slightly worse.
Unless you're some posh t*** from Bristol, in which case everyone thinks it's art and you become a millionaire.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
The left (well, New Labour) spent loads of money on this stuff and most places looked way better by 2010 than they did in 1997. But the coalition's austerity fell disproportionately (indeed almost wholly) on local government, the people who actually maintain our public realm. That is why everywhere looks so filthy and impoverished now.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
When you cross the border from Belgium into the Netherlands you notice a similar difference. Belgium is a bit like Britain, the Netherlands is pristine.
This is easier to explain.
Belgium is quite dysfunctional from a governance perspective. Britain doesn’t really have this excuse. Or perhaps it’s dysfunctional in a different way.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
OTOH my overriding memory of Clermont-Ferrand is the unbelievable amount of dog shit on the pavements.
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Our cultural industries are amongst our strongest earners, while don't you often moan about how software pay has stagnated for decades?
I think there are a lot of poor value courses out there, but a well skilled workforce will generate its own job opportunities. Indeed isn't that what productive economic growth looks like?
Yes and no. I really detest the blinkered thinking that doesn’t appreciate the strength (weakened by less EU migration) of the UK’s cultural sector.
But a LOT of kids bounce into “media studies” just “because”. Perhaps media studies is getting a bad rap though. I believe the modern poster boy is “criminology”.
It is genuinely amazing how many young people are studying "criminology" at degree level
It must have a reputation as a really soft touch. I fear for these kids with their useless "criminology" degrees and enormous debts in about 5-10 years
The same thing happened with Psychology decades back
The universities tend to be shit, as well:
Solent University (Southampton) 18 Criminology degrees
Three people in my year at school did criminology out of about 120.
I can't really talk having done Economics...
There is an administrator at a legal company I have been dealing with whose email signature proudly declares that she has a BA in criminology and sociology. This doesn't engender the confidence she perhaps thinks it does.
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
A few more jobs on the shortage list to be a skilled worker:
Aerobics instructor Personal trainer Exporter-importer Accounting clerk Buyer Sales agent Park ranger NVQ assessor Health and safety officer Transport clerk Business support manager Secretary Herd manager Gardener Groundsman Sheet metal worker Pipe fitter Welder Metal bench fitter Air conditioning fitter Car mechanic Vehicle assembler Electrician Bricklayer Carpentry joiner Builder Fencer Carpet fitter Knitter Weaver Shoe repairer Hand sewer Wallpaper printer Baker Baker assistant Bar manager Pottery worker Flower arranger Florist Creche worker Air hostess Window dresser Sales team leader Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
Of course. The government repeatedly lie and tell people what they want to hear, especially on subjects of immigration because the realities and perceptions don't match.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
When you cross the border from Belgium into the Netherlands you notice a similar difference. Belgium is a bit like Britain, the Netherlands is pristine.
This is easier to explain.
Belgium is quite dysfunctional from a governance perspective. Britain doesn’t really have this excuse. Or perhaps it’s dysfunctional in a different way.
Surely it's more a municipal level issue, so national difficulties shouldn't come into it.
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
I think you're falling into a common trap that 'tertiary education' == university degree. There are other potential types of tertiary education outside degrees, such as much more vocational courses.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
Outside the ghettos, the center of many US cities is noticeably cleaner than London, Birmingham, Manchester.
Because states and cities raise their own taxation. Rich areas, especially those that can levy serious property taxes, can afford to keep themselves clean. New York is an obvious exception, it is utterly filthy.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
The left (well, New Labour) spent loads of money on this stuff and most places looked way better by 2010 than they did in 1997. But the coalition's austerity fell disproportionately (indeed almost wholly) on local government, the people who actually maintain our public realm. That is why everywhere looks so filthy and impoverished now.
This is true, mostly. London looked amazingly better by 2010 than it did when I arrived in 2000, when I’d actually been quite shocked by the squalor.
Although there’s a particular form of PPI architecture which looks cheap and tatty and which became popular in the Blair years.
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
The government has realised that the economy doesn’t work at all without foreign labour, and that the tertiary ed sector is also fucked without foreign students.
In effect, we’ve replaced EU migrants with South Asian, West African and Filipino ones.
Funny how the right wing press avoid talking about this . So Brits have lost their freedom of movement rights so that more people can come from other non EU countries . Countries that don’t offer reciprocal rights and even if they did hardly any Brit would want to move to anyway .
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Our cultural industries are amongst our strongest earners, while don't you often moan about how software pay has stagnated for decades?
I think there are a lot of poor value courses out there, but a well skilled workforce will generate its own job opportunities. Indeed isn't that what productive economic growth looks like?
Yes and no. I really detest the blinkered thinking that doesn’t appreciate the strength (weakened by less EU migration) of the UK’s cultural sector.
But a LOT of kids bounce into “media studies” just “because”. Perhaps media studies is getting a bad rap though. I believe the modern poster boy is “criminology”.
It is genuinely amazing how many young people are studying "criminology" at degree level
It must have a reputation as a really soft touch. I fear for these kids with their useless "criminology" degrees and enormous debts in about 5-10 years
The same thing happened with Psychology decades back
The universities tend to be shit, as well:
Solent University (Southampton) 18 Criminology degrees
"Intriguingly, voters under 35 went first for Mélenchon and then Le Pen, leaving the technocrat Macron in dismal third place among the young. Macron only won decisively among voters over 60."
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Chicken and egg.
Investors won’t invest because they can’t be confident of a high quality labour pool outside London where cost of living is problematic.
Simple answer....make stem degrees free of fees....charge the ones who want to do media studies.....
I know media studies gets a bad rap, but the British film industry is a real industry that makes money and projects soft power. Star Wars, the James Bond series, Harry Potter, the Marvel films, are all made in part or in whole in Britain. Media degrees feed into all that, not just in the film-making side like writing, editing etc. but also in research, analysis, linked advertising and so on.
I think a lot of times people criticise media studies without actually knowing much about it.
Media Studies is the English Literature of our times, just diversified beyond the dead tree press.
Well the point of english literature, which always excluded the vast majority of the dead tree press including such works as the prose of for example as jeffrey archer and tom knox. Was to study the rare gems amongst the mulch and analyse what made them so....media studies students probably get to study the complete works of Roger
So you are saying they are studying the works of a productive advertising guru? No wonder they out perform you for those marketing jobs.
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Our cultural industries are amongst our strongest earners, while don't you often moan about how software pay has stagnated for decades?
I think there are a lot of poor value courses out there, but a well skilled workforce will generate its own job opportunities. Indeed isn't that what productive economic growth looks like?
Yes and no. I really detest the blinkered thinking that doesn’t appreciate the strength (weakened by less EU migration) of the UK’s cultural sector.
But a LOT of kids bounce into “media studies” just “because”. Perhaps media studies is getting a bad rap though. I believe the modern poster boy is “criminology”.
It is genuinely amazing how many young people are studying "criminology" at degree level
It must have a reputation as a really soft touch. I fear for these kids with their useless "criminology" degrees and enormous debts in about 5-10 years
The same thing happened with Psychology decades back
The universities tend to be shit, as well:
Solent University (Southampton) 18 Criminology degrees
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
The left (well, New Labour) spent loads of money on this stuff and most places looked way better by 2010 than they did in 1997. But the coalition's austerity fell disproportionately (indeed almost wholly) on local government, the people who actually maintain our public realm. That is why everywhere looks so filthy and impoverished now.
This is true, mostly. London looked amazingly better by 2010 than it did when I arrived in 2000, when I’d actually been quite shocked by the squalor.
Although there’s a particular form of PPI architecture which looks cheap and tatty and which became popular in the Blair years.
Agree on your caveat. Another obvious difference in Germany is that they either have better building codes or more skilled construction workers than we do, or most likely both.
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
The government has realised that the economy doesn’t work at all without foreign labour, and that the tertiary ed sector is also fucked without foreign students.
In effect, we’ve replaced EU migrants with South Asian, West African and Filipino ones.
Funny how the right wing press avoid talking about this . So Brits have lost their freedom of movement rights so that more people can come from other non EU countries . Countries that don’t offer reciprocal rights and even if they did hardly any Brit would want to move anyway .
Pretty much no one wanted to move to the EU in the first place, I believe australia and america were both more popular than the EU and especially if you take out those not moving for work purposes. Pretty much the majority of those moving to the eu were retirees and John Thaw
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
When you cross the border from Belgium into the Netherlands you notice a similar difference. Belgium is a bit like Britain, the Netherlands is pristine.
This is easier to explain.
Belgium is quite dysfunctional from a governance perspective. Britain doesn’t really have this excuse. Or perhaps it’s dysfunctional in a different way.
Surely it's more a municipal level issue, so national difficulties shouldn't come into it.
Well Belgium has such a hotchpotch of overlapping authorities that it’s often confusing to figure out who is responsible for what.
That’s direct from my brother, who lived in Brussels for 10 years.
Britain’s problem - as OnlyLivingBoy points out - is that local government is so grotesquely underfunded that it is almost unique by global standards.
What money local government does get is siphoned into a bottomless pit of adult and children’s social care (which of course needs funding but necessarily skews the entire ethos of local government away from attracting enterprise and public realm development).
The Germans pay higher taxes and spend more on public services, including keeping their towns tidy.
The British maximise their utility by paying less tax, keeping their public spaces in squalor, and buying tat from abroad.
The Swiss pay less taxes than both and also have a higher gdp per capita than both and top public services
Denmark has higher taxes and a higher GDP per capita. Saudi Arabia has lower taxes and lower GDP per capita.
Monaco and Luxembourg and Bermuda and Ireland and Switzerland have lower taxes than both and higher gdp per capita than both
One thing worth noting is that the UK has really slipped down the GDP per capita rankings in the last 10 years. Even NZ looks ready to over-take.
The countries above it have a full range of tax regimes from very high (Denmark) to quite low.
And yet I feel richer, and the country looks richer, than it did in 2012. Is it just that we have imported vast numbers of people - so GDP up by GDP per capita down?
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
When and why did we start littering? I hate it
I remember when Britain seemed notably cleaner than much of western Europe. That is not true any more. We also have more graffiti
One has to ask if migration is playing a part in the UK's degradation. Not that foreigners are more likely to litter, just that when you crush people together too much, you inevitably get squalor
Put three people in a one bed flat, it will become a toilet very quickly, however hard you try. See our failing sewage system, now polluting our rivers. Just too many people eating too many chickens producing too much shit of the human and chicken variety?
I've said it before on PB: a party that promised to fix this small stuff, repair the broken windows of our nation, would get a lot of votes. It may not be as exciting as trans issues, but it would please the average person a lot more. Clean the country. Hose it down. Make our cities beautiful again
"Intriguingly, voters under 35 went first for Mélenchon and then Le Pen, leaving the technocrat Macron in dismal third place among the young. Macron only won decisively among voters over 60."
There was a good article looking at this the other day, by an analyst who is a Labour councillor. Well worth the read. It isnt the culturecwar stuff that Le Pen is winning the young with, it is redistributive polcies by age.
The Germans pay higher taxes and spend more on public services, including keeping their towns tidy.
The British maximise their utility by paying less tax, keeping their public spaces in squalor, and buying tat from abroad.
The Swiss pay less taxes than both and also have a higher gdp per capita than both and top public services
Denmark has higher taxes and a higher GDP per capita. Saudi Arabia has lower taxes and lower GDP per capita.
Monaco and Luxembourg and Bermuda and Ireland and Switzerland have lower taxes than both and higher gdp per capita than both
One thing worth noting is that the UK has really slipped down the GDP per capita rankings in the last 10 years. Even NZ looks ready to over-take.
The countries above it have a full range of tax regimes from very high (Denmark) to quite low.
And yet I feel richer, and the country looks richer, than it did in 2012. Is it just that we have imported vast numbers of people - so GDP up by GDP per capita down?
You might feel richer, but other countries have become richer still.
Importing “vast numbers” has maintained prosperity if anything.
Haven't read much on some of the new local council boundaries, I've probably only noticed the Cumbria one as it affects me. Are there any other quite substantial boundary changes in the locals that may affect how things change around total numbers of controlled councils? And do people think it will affect Boris' defence against his upcoming dethroning (hopefully)? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-61098347.amp
We cant put even the perecentage of graduates we have currently in degree level jobs. Most are doing jobs that used to require a levels or even o levels. Why doesnt the twat just fuck off
Blair and New Labour had thirteen years to sort tertiary education out, and stonking big majorities with which to do it. I am far from convinced they did any good, and suspect they did a great deal of harm.
Now a policy which said we will pitch university places at a few percentage over graduate jobs available would have made sense then if the theory more graduates meant more graduate level jobs then the level would have risen naturally.
However all he managed to do was make it almost mandatory to goto university for any non manual job as even working for example in insurance and just filling out forms for customers you rang....doesn't need a degree as its hardly rocket science but they will still ask for one
A question: what is the main point of tertiary education from the state's point of view? Is it to make young people feel like they've achieved something, to train young people up for good jobs, to provide skills the country needs, or something else?
IMO that question needs answering before the form of tertiary education can start to be considered.
I think we need to consider where economically productive jobs come from, and whether these take a skilled, intelligent workforce.
If we look at international competitors then rates of Tertiary education are similar to our own, with Germany and Italy the exception. South Korea has a 70% rate for example.
It seems that there is a PB consensus that Britons are less suited for degree level education than other countries, particularly with other peoples children/grandchildren in mind. I disagree, the problem of British Tertiary education is more the nature and quality of the courses than that of the applicants.
The problem is not of the suitability of the british for tertiary education. The problem is the lack of jobs that actually really require a degree level education. South Korea for example has a lot of high tech jobs and I suspect a lot of their graduates aren't doing media studies and other such bollocks courses
Chicken and egg.
Investors won’t invest because they can’t be confident of a high quality labour pool outside London where cost of living is problematic.
Simple answer....make stem degrees free of fees....charge the ones who want to do media studies.....
I know media studies gets a bad rap, but the British film industry is a real industry that makes money and projects soft power. Star Wars, the James Bond series, Harry Potter, the Marvel films, are all made in part or in whole in Britain. Media degrees feed into all that, not just in the film-making side like writing, editing etc. but also in research, analysis, linked advertising and so on.
I think a lot of times people criticise media studies without actually knowing much about it.
Media Studies is the English Literature of our times, just diversified beyond the dead tree press.
Well the point of english literature, which always excluded the vast majority of the dead tree press including such works as the prose of for example as jeffrey archer and tom knox. Was to study the rare gems amongst the mulch and analyse what made them so....media studies students probably get to study the complete works of Roger
So you are saying they are studying the works of a productive advertising guru? No wonder they out perform you for those marketing jobs.
A) I have no interest in a marketing job so would be hard to outpeform me for a job I have neither ever wanted or tried
You are assuming Roger is productive when you only have his word for it. I agree he might make ad's but we have no way of knowing if they actually boost the finances of the companies for which he makes his adverts
C) Adverts of the form Roger makes in any case are on the way out because people watching media in a form that includes those sort of adverts or who will sit through them are dying. Its sort of like learning the art of making woodcuts in an age of JPG's
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
The government has realised that the economy doesn’t work at all without foreign labour, and that the tertiary ed sector is also fucked without foreign students.
In effect, we’ve replaced EU migrants with South Asian, West African and Filipino ones.
Funny how the right wing press avoid talking about this . So Brits have lost their freedom of movement rights so that more people can come from other non EU countries . Countries that don’t offer reciprocal rights and even if they did hardly any Brit would want to move anyway .
Pretty much no one wanted to move to the EU in the first place, I believe australia and america were both more popular than the EU and especially if you take out those not moving for work purposes. Pretty much the majority of those moving to the eu were retirees and John Thaw
As I said, South Asia, West Africa and the Philippines.
Most of those countries are playing a game only small nations can partake in - providing tax incentives to filter off wealth. They are, basically, parasites.
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Hmm
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
The French do it well, and GDP per capita is essentially the same as the UK.
I don’t know why this is. When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful. The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
I saw a lot more dog shit on the pavements in France than I ever have in England. And they have shit bag dispensers even in tiny French parks. Maybe I live in a posh, dogshitwise, part of England. But still..
Everywhere in France has loads of dog shit on the pavements. It is another reason France is too good for the French.
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
A few more jobs on the shortage list to be a skilled worker:
Aerobics instructor Personal trainer Exporter-importer Accounting clerk Buyer Sales agent Park ranger NVQ assessor Health and safety officer Transport clerk Business support manager Secretary Herd manager Gardener Groundsman Sheet metal worker Pipe fitter Welder Metal bench fitter Air conditioning fitter Car mechanic Vehicle assembler Electrician Bricklayer Carpentry joiner Builder Fencer Carpet fitter Knitter Weaver Shoe repairer Hand sewer Wallpaper printer Baker Baker assistant Bar manager Pottery worker Flower arranger Florist Creche worker Air hostess Window dresser Sales team leader Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
Of course. The government repeatedly lie and tell people what they want to hear, especially on subjects of immigration because the realities and perceptions don't match.
This has actually really annoyed me now I have seen the detail. Why the hell are phone researchers and gardeners getting skilled worker visas??
Political trivia for Boris's next lockdown zoom quiz:-
but was eventually chosen – from more than 200 male candidates – following the sudden death of Dame Edith Pitt, the MP for Edgbaston, the leafy Birmingham suburban constituency, shortly before the 1966 general election.
She held the seat until retirement in 1997, when the constituents chose another woman, this time Labour’s Gisela Stuart, to succeed her. The seat, once Neville Chamberlain’s, is the only one in the country to have chosen four successive female MPs, the current incumbent being Labour’s Preet Gill.
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
A few more jobs on the shortage list to be a skilled worker:
Aerobics instructor Personal trainer Exporter-importer Accounting clerk Buyer Sales agent Park ranger NVQ assessor Health and safety officer Transport clerk Business support manager Secretary Herd manager Gardener Groundsman Sheet metal worker Pipe fitter Welder Metal bench fitter Air conditioning fitter Car mechanic Vehicle assembler Electrician Bricklayer Carpentry joiner Builder Fencer Carpet fitter Knitter Weaver Shoe repairer Hand sewer Wallpaper printer Baker Baker assistant Bar manager Pottery worker Flower arranger Florist Creche worker Air hostess Window dresser Sales team leader Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
Of course. The government repeatedly lie and tell people what they want to hear, especially on subjects of immigration because the realities and perceptions don't match.
This has actually really annoyed me now I have seen the detail. Why the hell are phone researchers and gardeners getting skilled worker visas??
Going home tomorrow after an excellent family holiday in Baden-Wurttenberg. It's been helped by spectacularly good weather, but I have to say that Germany is an incredible place. Everything just works, everything is clean and well-organised, there's a palpable aura of efficiency and prosperity everywhere. Something has gone very wrong in Britain that we have fallen so far behind, our public spaces look so shabby and broken by comparison. And while Germany sits at the heart of a market of hundreds of millions of people, with trade and travel across open borders, we have shut ourselves off, growing poorer and ever more mean-spirited, led by an incompetent liar. It doesn't feel great to be British right now.
Sense a person who needs a lift. We're kicking Johnson out in May 24, only 2 years away now. We're over halfway through the stretch. There's this summer and then it'll be Christmas, then spring again, another summer, a final Christmas, then into 24, just a quick Jan and Feb to get through and it'll be the campaign, the campaign and then the vote and it's over. It's over.
At my age and my wife's that is a long time !!!!!!!!
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
The government has realised that the economy doesn’t work at all without foreign labour, and that the tertiary ed sector is also fucked without foreign students.
In effect, we’ve replaced EU migrants with South Asian, West African and Filipino ones.
Funny how the right wing press avoid talking about this . So Brits have lost their freedom of movement rights so that more people can come from other non EU countries . Countries that don’t offer reciprocal rights and even if they did hardly any Brit would want to move anyway .
Pretty much no one wanted to move to the EU in the first place, I believe australia and america were both more popular than the EU and especially if you take out those not moving for work purposes. Pretty much the majority of those moving to the eu were retirees and John Thaw
As I said, South Asia, West Africa and the Philippines.
Not Australia or, very much, the US.
I believe america and australia are still very much prime emigration targets for uk people
I wonder if Tory MPs take note? I.e time to ignore the cabinet, who are, quite frankly, total shit
Tory MPs are waiting for the local election results. Confusingly, ElectoralCalculus is predicting they won't lose control of any councils, (while losing 800 councillors).
"Intriguingly, voters under 35 went first for Mélenchon and then Le Pen, leaving the technocrat Macron in dismal third place among the young. Macron only won decisively among voters over 60."
There was a good article looking at this the other day, by an analyst who is a Labour councillor. Well worth the read. It isnt the culturecwar stuff that Le Pen is winning the young with, it is redistributive polcies by age.
She is spot on with regards to policies targeted at young non-graduates. The problem for the left is that their defining feature now is based on cultural values, rather than economic, and so these voters are seen as, to many bien pensants, scum.
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
The government has realised that the economy doesn’t work at all without foreign labour, and that the tertiary ed sector is also fucked without foreign students.
In effect, we’ve replaced EU migrants with South Asian, West African and Filipino ones.
Funny how the right wing press avoid talking about this . So Brits have lost their freedom of movement rights so that more people can come from other non EU countries . Countries that don’t offer reciprocal rights and even if they did hardly any Brit would want to move anyway .
Pretty much no one wanted to move to the EU in the first place, I believe australia and america were both more popular than the EU and especially if you take out those not moving for work purposes. Pretty much the majority of those moving to the eu were retirees and John Thaw
As I said, South Asia, West Africa and the Philippines.
Not Australia or, very much, the US.
I believe america and australia are still very much prime emigration targets for uk people
The point made was that Britain has essentially exchanged migration from countries with which it enjoyed a reciprocal right to FOM (the EU) with those it doesn’t.
The fact that people want to migrate to Australia doesn’t change that.
The Germans pay higher taxes and spend more on public services, including keeping their towns tidy.
The British maximise their utility by paying less tax, keeping their public spaces in squalor, and buying tat from abroad.
The Swiss pay less taxes than both and also have a higher gdp per capita than both and top public services
Denmark has higher taxes and a higher GDP per capita. Saudi Arabia has lower taxes and lower GDP per capita.
Monaco and Luxembourg and Bermuda and Ireland and Switzerland have lower taxes than both and higher gdp per capita than both
One thing worth noting is that the UK has really slipped down the GDP per capita rankings in the last 10 years. Even NZ looks ready to over-take.
The countries above it have a full range of tax regimes from very high (Denmark) to quite low.
And yet I feel richer, and the country looks richer, than it did in 2012. Is it just that we have imported vast numbers of people - so GDP up by GDP per capita down?
That, in a nutshell, would be it - if you import large numbers of people to do lowly paid, service level jobs, guess what - GDP per capita goes down.
Funnily enough, corporate profitability has been going up over the same period. Guess who has been winning from the trade off?
All but one of the BOTTOM 10 for which we have figures has lower taxes than the UK.
So what, they are not developed nations so that is not comparing like with like. Of developed nations like the UK those with the lowest taxes generally have higher gdp per capita than those with the highest taxes
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
A few more jobs on the shortage list to be a skilled worker:
Aerobics instructor Personal trainer Exporter-importer Accounting clerk Buyer Sales agent Park ranger NVQ assessor Health and safety officer Transport clerk Business support manager Secretary Herd manager Gardener Groundsman Sheet metal worker Pipe fitter Welder Metal bench fitter Air conditioning fitter Car mechanic Vehicle assembler Electrician Bricklayer Carpentry joiner Builder Fencer Carpet fitter Knitter Weaver Shoe repairer Hand sewer Wallpaper printer Baker Baker assistant Bar manager Pottery worker Flower arranger Florist Creche worker Air hostess Window dresser Sales team leader Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
Of course. The government repeatedly lie and tell people what they want to hear, especially on subjects of immigration because the realities and perceptions don't match.
This has actually really annoyed me now I have seen the detail. Why the hell are phone researchers and gardeners getting skilled worker visas??
If you voted leave you voted for this ! Leavers must feel a bit silly now seeing as all the government has done is replace Europeans with non Europeans and at the same time robbed Brits of their freedom to live and work in 27 countries .
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
The government has realised that the economy doesn’t work at all without foreign labour, and that the tertiary ed sector is also fucked without foreign students.
In effect, we’ve replaced EU migrants with South Asian, West African and Filipino ones.
Funny how the right wing press avoid talking about this . So Brits have lost their freedom of movement rights so that more people can come from other non EU countries . Countries that don’t offer reciprocal rights and even if they did hardly any Brit would want to move anyway .
Pretty much no one wanted to move to the EU in the first place, I believe australia and america were both more popular than the EU and especially if you take out those not moving for work purposes. Pretty much the majority of those moving to the eu were retirees and John Thaw
As I said, South Asia, West Africa and the Philippines.
Not Australia or, very much, the US.
I believe america and australia are still very much prime emigration targets for uk people
In fact if you add up the numbers more people have emigrated to australia from the uk than the sum total of all 4 eu destinations in that list. Perhaps says freedom of movement even when in the eu wasnt something we placed a great deal of worth on when we had it
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
A few more jobs on the shortage list to be a skilled worker:
Aerobics instructor Personal trainer Exporter-importer Accounting clerk Buyer Sales agent Park ranger NVQ assessor Health and safety officer Transport clerk Business support manager Secretary Herd manager Gardener Groundsman Sheet metal worker Pipe fitter Welder Metal bench fitter Air conditioning fitter Car mechanic Vehicle assembler Electrician Bricklayer Carpentry joiner Builder Fencer Carpet fitter Knitter Weaver Shoe repairer Hand sewer Wallpaper printer Baker Baker assistant Bar manager Pottery worker Flower arranger Florist Creche worker Air hostess Window dresser Sales team leader Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
Of course. The government repeatedly lie and tell people what they want to hear, especially on subjects of immigration because the realities and perceptions don't match.
This has actually really annoyed me now I have seen the detail. Why the hell are phone researchers and gardeners getting skilled worker visas??
Because the whole economy is suffering from a crippling shortage of workers now that we have left the EU and with unemployment at under 4% there isn't a ready supply of domestic labour?
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
A few more jobs on the shortage list to be a skilled worker:
Aerobics instructor Personal trainer Exporter-importer Accounting clerk Buyer Sales agent Park ranger NVQ assessor Health and safety officer Transport clerk Business support manager Secretary Herd manager Gardener Groundsman Sheet metal worker Pipe fitter Welder Metal bench fitter Air conditioning fitter Car mechanic Vehicle assembler Electrician Bricklayer Carpentry joiner Builder Fencer Carpet fitter Knitter Weaver Shoe repairer Hand sewer Wallpaper printer Baker Baker assistant Bar manager Pottery worker Flower arranger Florist Creche worker Air hostess Window dresser Sales team leader Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
Of course. The government repeatedly lie and tell people what they want to hear, especially on subjects of immigration because the realities and perceptions don't match.
This has actually really annoyed me now I have seen the detail. Why the hell are phone researchers and gardeners getting skilled worker visas??
If you voted leave you voted for this ! Leavers must feel a bit silly now seeing as all the government has done is replace Europeans with non Europeans and at the same time robbed Brits of their freedom to live and work in 27 countries .
Congratulations!
It does, indeed, seem like a massive bait and switch operation.
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
The government has realised that the economy doesn’t work at all without foreign labour, and that the tertiary ed sector is also fucked without foreign students.
In effect, we’ve replaced EU migrants with South Asian, West African and Filipino ones.
Funny how the right wing press avoid talking about this . So Brits have lost their freedom of movement rights so that more people can come from other non EU countries . Countries that don’t offer reciprocal rights and even if they did hardly any Brit would want to move anyway .
Pretty much no one wanted to move to the EU in the first place, I believe australia and america were both more popular than the EU and especially if you take out those not moving for work purposes. Pretty much the majority of those moving to the eu were retirees and John Thaw
As I said, South Asia, West Africa and the Philippines.
Not Australia or, very much, the US.
I believe america and australia are still very much prime emigration targets for uk people
The point made was that Britain has essentially exchanged migration from countries with which it enjoyed a reciprocal right to FOM (the EU) with those it doesn’t.
The fact that people want to migrate to Australia doesn’t change that.
The fact is not a lot of people ever made use of their freedom to move and every taxpayer was paying through the nose for something only a few gave two shits about.
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
The government has realised that the economy doesn’t work at all without foreign labour, and that the tertiary ed sector is also fucked without foreign students.
In effect, we’ve replaced EU migrants with South Asian, West African and Filipino ones.
Funny how the right wing press avoid talking about this . So Brits have lost their freedom of movement rights so that more people can come from other non EU countries . Countries that don’t offer reciprocal rights and even if they did hardly any Brit would want to move anyway .
Pretty much no one wanted to move to the EU in the first place, I believe australia and america were both more popular than the EU and especially if you take out those not moving for work purposes. Pretty much the majority of those moving to the eu were retirees and John Thaw
As I said, South Asia, West Africa and the Philippines.
Not Australia or, very much, the US.
I believe america and australia are still very much prime emigration targets for uk people
The point made was that Britain has essentially exchanged migration from countries with which it enjoyed a reciprocal right to FOM (the EU) with those it doesn’t.
The fact that people want to migrate to Australia doesn’t change that.
The fact is not a lot of people ever made use of their freedom to move and every taxpayer was paying through the nose for something only a few gave two shits about.
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
A few more jobs on the shortage list to be a skilled worker:
Aerobics instructor Personal trainer Exporter-importer Accounting clerk Buyer Sales agent Park ranger NVQ assessor Health and safety officer Transport clerk Business support manager Secretary Herd manager Gardener Groundsman Sheet metal worker Pipe fitter Welder Metal bench fitter Air conditioning fitter Car mechanic Vehicle assembler Electrician Bricklayer Carpentry joiner Builder Fencer Carpet fitter Knitter Weaver Shoe repairer Hand sewer Wallpaper printer Baker Baker assistant Bar manager Pottery worker Flower arranger Florist Creche worker Air hostess Window dresser Sales team leader Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
Of course. The government repeatedly lie and tell people what they want to hear, especially on subjects of immigration because the realities and perceptions don't match.
This has actually really annoyed me now I have seen the detail. Why the hell are phone researchers and gardeners getting skilled worker visas??
Because the whole economy is suffering from a crippling shortage of workers now that we have left the EU and with unemployment at under 4% there isn't a ready supply of domestic labour?
They’re not being honest about it, though, are they?
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
A few more jobs on the shortage list to be a skilled worker:
Aerobics instructor Personal trainer Exporter-importer Accounting clerk Buyer Sales agent Park ranger NVQ assessor Health and safety officer Transport clerk Business support manager Secretary Herd manager Gardener Groundsman Sheet metal worker Pipe fitter Welder Metal bench fitter Air conditioning fitter Car mechanic Vehicle assembler Electrician Bricklayer Carpentry joiner Builder Fencer Carpet fitter Knitter Weaver Shoe repairer Hand sewer Wallpaper printer Baker Baker assistant Bar manager Pottery worker Flower arranger Florist Creche worker Air hostess Window dresser Sales team leader Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
Of course. The government repeatedly lie and tell people what they want to hear, especially on subjects of immigration because the realities and perceptions don't match.
This has actually really annoyed me now I have seen the detail. Why the hell are phone researchers and gardeners getting skilled worker visas??
Tory donors struggling to find sufficient gardeners?
Massive spikes in immigration. Feels like Boris overshot with liberalizing work visas. I am fine with a bunch of lower paid NHS and social care workers coming, but seems like we have lowered the salary level too much outside this:
Meanwhile according to the woke, eg @kinabalu, Britain is "not pulling its weight with migrants"
We have huge amounts of net inward migration and a highly liberal points system. But it is never enough. Never
If you drill into the detail, you’ll see that while immigration has gone up significantly, the approach to asylum seekers is to basically fuck off.
Clearly Patel (and or Johnson) have decided that this is what voters want.
I think they have almost got the voters views right, but the occupation list for "skilled" immigration seems off. Are shopkeepers really a shortage profession that can not be filled by UK workers trained up? Administrative workers at universities? Day nursery managers? Youth workers? Copywriters?
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
A few more jobs on the shortage list to be a skilled worker:
Aerobics instructor Personal trainer Exporter-importer Accounting clerk Buyer Sales agent Park ranger NVQ assessor Health and safety officer Transport clerk Business support manager Secretary Herd manager Gardener Groundsman Sheet metal worker Pipe fitter Welder Metal bench fitter Air conditioning fitter Car mechanic Vehicle assembler Electrician Bricklayer Carpentry joiner Builder Fencer Carpet fitter Knitter Weaver Shoe repairer Hand sewer Wallpaper printer Baker Baker assistant Bar manager Pottery worker Flower arranger Florist Creche worker Air hostess Window dresser Sales team leader Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
Of course. The government repeatedly lie and tell people what they want to hear, especially on subjects of immigration because the realities and perceptions don't match.
This has actually really annoyed me now I have seen the detail. Why the hell are phone researchers and gardeners getting skilled worker visas??
If you voted leave you voted for this ! Leavers must feel a bit silly now seeing as all the government has done is replace Europeans with non Europeans and at the same time robbed Brits of their freedom to live and work in 27 countries .
Congratulations!
Robbed the few that wanted the right to have the freedom to live and work of their freedom to move while saving the 98% of people that didnt care about it a lot of tax
"Intriguingly, voters under 35 went first for Mélenchon and then Le Pen, leaving the technocrat Macron in dismal third place among the young. Macron only won decisively among voters over 60."
There was a good article looking at this the other day, by an analyst who is a Labour councillor. Well worth the read. It isnt the culturecwar stuff that Le Pen is winning the young with, it is redistributive polcies by age.
Comments
Stick to the travel writing, which I’ve hugely enjoyed.
I can't really talk having done Economics...
My daughter wants be a vet. She knows that involves some serious studying. (But on the positive side, has excellent job prospects on the far side.) I'm not going to try and force her to take an apprenticeship to do something she's not interested in.
The British maximise their utility by paying less tax, keeping their public spaces in squalor, and buying tat from abroad.
Giving people access to more learning opportunities post 18 I think is great, but it should more often be much shorter courses around things like cooking healthy meals, sport, dance, IT skills, languages, starting a business or whatever rather than more 3 year degrees with long breaks between each term.
Another reason he is the least fit person for the job, apart from Mme Le Pen.
Bye Boris
Bye Boris
Germany is definitely a fine country with much to admire, but you were in Baden Wurttenburg? It is one of the wealthiest parts of a wealthy nation, the third richest German state, with a GDP per cap of €47k - equivalent to Australia
You might have come back with a different view if you had taken your hols in a state like
Saxony Anhalt, GDP per cap €28,800, or Mecklenburg, GDP per cap €28,940 - more like a poorer part of Italy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP_per_capita
However I agree that western mainland Europe generally maintain the public realm better than the UK. It boils my piss that we degrade our city centres. We are not poor. We can afford nice places, we can afford to keep them well maintained
I would vote for a party that promised to fix this. Start by getting rid of the fucking filthy phone kiosks. How hard is that??!
I got loads from the clubs & societies though.
It feels like every business lobby group has got their job on the "shortage" list. Combined with the low salary level (26k), you can see why immigration has spiked.
Saudi Arabia has lower taxes and lower GDP per capita.
I don’t know why this is.
When one drives from the poor but pretty enough Pas de Calais into Kent, one is struck first by the level of litter on the highways.
I think Anglo countries (inc US, Australia, NZ) have a cultural aversion to public realm infrastructure stuff.
The right think it is wasteful.
The left think it is bourgeois decadence.
We spent today at a water park surrounded by what I assume are regular working class Germans (I'm going off the amount of beer bellies and tattoos on display). The broad-based level of prosperity here is just way higher than Britain, where the equivalent group is probably figuring out where the nearest food bank is right now. Britain is broken, and Brexit is making it worse.
Aerobics instructor
Personal trainer
Exporter-importer
Accounting clerk
Buyer
Sales agent
Park ranger
NVQ assessor
Health and safety officer
Transport clerk
Business support manager
Secretary
Herd manager
Gardener
Groundsman
Sheet metal worker
Pipe fitter
Welder
Metal bench fitter
Air conditioning fitter
Car mechanic
Vehicle assembler
Electrician
Bricklayer
Carpentry joiner
Builder
Fencer
Carpet fitter
Knitter
Weaver
Shoe repairer
Hand sewer
Wallpaper printer
Baker
Baker assistant
Bar manager
Pottery worker
Flower arranger
Florist
Creche worker
Air hostess
Window dresser
Sales team leader
Telephone researcher
They are clearly taking the piss with this "skilled worker" branding.
The countries above it have a full range of tax regimes from very high (Denmark) to quite low.
https://twitter.com/Macron2022/status/1516045565058072585
It was a fraction of what it is today.
"Intriguingly, voters under 35 went first for Mélenchon and then Le Pen, leaving the technocrat Macron in dismal third place among the young. Macron only won decisively among voters over 60."
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/04/18/the-working-classes-are-a-volcano-waiting-to-erupt/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Italian_regions_by_GDP
The GDP per cap of the poorest German states are in the lower half of Italian income, by region - somewhere between Marche and Abruzzo, but nowhere near as bad as Calabria or Campania
So my "poorer" is exactly right. Not "poorest"
I would quite happily introduce the death sentence for graffiti. It's just so pointless. Nobody's life is improved; everyone's is made slightly worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/18/jill-knight-lady-knight-of-collingtree-obituary?
Belgium is quite dysfunctional from a governance perspective. Britain doesn’t really have this excuse. Or perhaps it’s dysfunctional in a different way.
As does all but 1 of the top 10, Norway which has vast oil reserves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
Although there’s a particular form of PPI architecture which looks cheap and tatty and which became popular in the Blair years.
Most of Fillon's voters were pensioners which partly explains it
That’s direct from my brother, who lived in Brussels for 10 years.
Britain’s problem - as OnlyLivingBoy points out - is that local government is so grotesquely underfunded that it is almost unique by global standards.
What money local government does get is siphoned into a bottomless pit of adult and children’s social care (which of course needs funding but necessarily skews the entire ethos of local government away from attracting enterprise and public realm development).
I remember when Britain seemed notably cleaner than much of western Europe. That is not true any more. We also have more graffiti
One has to ask if migration is playing a part in the UK's degradation. Not that foreigners are more likely to litter, just that when you crush people together too much, you inevitably get squalor
Put three people in a one bed flat, it will become a toilet very quickly, however hard you try. See our failing sewage system, now polluting our rivers. Just too many people eating too many chickens producing too much shit of the human and chicken variety?
I've said it before on PB: a party that promised to fix this small stuff, repair the broken windows of our nation, would get a lot of votes. It may not be as exciting as trans issues, but it would please the average person a lot more. Clean the country. Hose it down. Make our cities beautiful again
https://twitter.com/ChristabelCoops/status/1515624147925319686?t=bye6uViQFTFmGAyIhnTCRg&s=19
Importing “vast numbers” has maintained prosperity if anything.
And do people think it will affect Boris' defence against his upcoming dethroning (hopefully)?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-61098347.amp
C) Adverts of the form Roger makes in any case are on the way out because people watching media in a form that includes those sort of adverts or who will sit through them are dying. Its sort of like learning the art of making woodcuts in an age of JPG's
Not Australia or, very much, the US.
Simon Jenkins
Justin Welby’s invocation of the Almighty only confuses the forces that need mustering against Boris Johnson’s cruel policy"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/18/rwanda-plan-refugees-welby-god-boris-johnson-policy
but was eventually chosen – from more than 200 male candidates – following the sudden death of Dame Edith Pitt, the MP for Edgbaston, the leafy Birmingham suburban constituency, shortly before the 1966 general election.
She held the seat until retirement in 1997, when the constituents chose another woman, this time Labour’s Gisela Stuart, to succeed her. The seat, once Neville Chamberlain’s, is the only one in the country to have chosen four successive female MPs, the current incumbent being Labour’s Preet Gill.
https://www.movehub.com/blog/top-10-countries-brits-choose/
The fact that people want to migrate to Australia doesn’t change that.
Funnily enough, corporate profitability has been going up over the same period. Guess who has been winning from the trade off?
Congratulations!
Macron however could easily have been in Cameron's Cabinet or an Orange Book LD. It is not that surprising