There’s an English couple three tables away from me. He has earrings that would fit around my thumbs. She has entirely tattooed thighs and keeps complaining about the cold (put your fucking thighs away then woman). They’re louder than the rest of the clientele put together. Earlier their sons were at the table. The older one, who looked about fourteen, kept loudly declaring “I wanna go and shitfaced”. They gave gave him cash to do just that. I hope they leave soon.
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.
Right, sure they were.
Cost of being an eu member circa 10 billion a year number of tax payers in the country circa 20 million average cost per tax payer there = 500£
number of people wanting to move to the eu about 1 million out of 68 million = 1.4%
Sorry why did all those tax payers have to pay up for your freedom of movement exactly?
Where do you get your number of taxpayers from?
about 40 million adults in the country, about 50% or so percent pay any form of direct taxation yes couldnt be bothered to look up the exact percentage as its close enough. Its above 20 mill by a mill or two but just did a rough sum of 50% as close enough
VAT says hi!
I specifically mentioned direct taxation = income tax and national insurance. Even if you divide by all adults in the uk it is still 250£
What you actually said was "number of tax payers in the country circa 20 million". It is often overlooked that just about every man, woman and child in the UK is a tax payer.
Regarding the EU contributions which you so vehemently objected to - it was your right to object, and now you no longer have to pay them. Whether that makes you any better off is a moot point.
If I knew more about you I could probably identify some of my taxes that benefit you but not me. I could object to those but that would be to miss the point of the nation state, where we all pay our taxes and see them distributed based on the policies and parties the nation as a whole voted for.
And the policy I voted for which was brexit has seen them redirected. Therefore we agree. It was a policy voted for by the country and the policy voted for was enacted. I was merely pointing out to Gardenwalker that his freedom wasn't actually free but was being paid for by a lot of people to whom the freedom had no value so he should stop calling it a freedom and realise that a lot of other people were paying for it.
We can all find things our taxes pay for and we object to. The difference is most of us don't whine incessantly about it like a petulant toddler when people take a democratic vote and say yes we don't want to pay for that anymore.
You won! Get over it!
I actually rarely mention brexit here compared to a lot of people
I'm gonna write a bot to analyse who raises Brexit first in each thread.
Next winter, I'm gonna write it - who wants to be writing code in the spring or summer?
The difficulty will be with the people who don't name it directly, but via a formulation like, "trashed our trading relationship with our largest market," or, "freed ourselves from the burden of European bureaucracy," rather than the horrendous portmanteau itself.
There’s an English couple three tables away from me. He has earrings that would fit around my thumbs. She has entirely tattooed thighs and keeps complaining about the cold (put your fucking thighs away then woman). They’re louder than the rest of the clientele put together. Earlier their sons were at the table. The older one, who looked about fourteen, kept loudly declaring “I wanna go and shitfaced”. They gave gave him cash to do just that. I hope they leave soon.
Before anyone else says it; I bet they voted for brexit.
There’s an English couple three tables away from me. He has earrings that would fit around my thumbs. She has entirely tattooed thighs and keeps complaining about the cold (put your fucking thighs away then woman). They’re louder than the rest of the clientele put together. Earlier their sons were at the table. The older one, who looked about fourteen, kept loudly declaring “I wanna go and shitfaced”. They gave gave him cash to do just that. I hope they leave soon.
See. Five minutes in the South of France and you’re turning into Roger.
There’s an English couple three tables away from me. He has earrings that would fit around my thumbs. She has entirely tattooed thighs and keeps complaining about the cold (put your fucking thighs away then woman). They’re louder than the rest of the clientele put together. Earlier their sons were at the table. The older one, who looked about fourteen, kept loudly declaring “I wanna go and shitfaced”. They gave gave him cash to do just that. I hope they leave soon.
I am convinced tattoo removal business is going to gold mine in 10-15 years time.
There’s an English couple three tables away from me. He has earrings that would fit around my thumbs. She has entirely tattooed thighs and keeps complaining about the cold (put your fucking thighs away then woman). They’re louder than the rest of the clientele put together. Earlier their sons were at the table. The older one, who looked about fourteen, kept loudly declaring “I wanna go and shitfaced”. They gave gave him cash to do just that. I hope they leave soon.
There’s an English couple three tables away from me. He has earrings that would fit around my thumbs. She has entirely tattooed thighs and keeps complaining about the cold (put your fucking thighs away then woman). They’re louder than the rest of the clientele put together. Earlier their sons were at the table. The older one, who looked about fourteen, kept loudly declaring “I wanna go and shitfaced”. They gave gave him cash to do just that. I hope they leave soon.
See. Five minutes in the South of France and you’re turning into Roger.
How can we be sure this group doesn't contain Roger?
There’s an English couple three tables away from me. He has earrings that would fit around my thumbs. She has entirely tattooed thighs and keeps complaining about the cold (put your fucking thighs away then woman). They’re louder than the rest of the clientele put together. Earlier their sons were at the table. The older one, who looked about fourteen, kept loudly declaring “I wanna go and shitfaced”. They gave gave him cash to do just that. I hope they leave soon.
Before anyone else says it; I bet they voted for brexit.
Or they didn’t vote.
I sometimes feel we don’t give enough regard to those who couldn’t be bothered to vote in the referendum. Who were they? Which way would they have voted if they had been forced to make a choice?
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.
Right, sure they were.
Cost of being an eu member circa 10 billion a year number of tax payers in the country circa 20 million average cost per tax payer there = 500£
number of people wanting to move to the eu about 1 million out of 68 million = 1.4%
Sorry why did all those tax payers have to pay up for your freedom of movement exactly?
Where do you get your number of taxpayers from?
about 40 million adults in the country, about 50% or so percent pay any form of direct taxation yes couldnt be bothered to look up the exact percentage as its close enough. Its above 20 mill by a mill or two but just did a rough sum of 50% as close enough
VAT says hi!
I specifically mentioned direct taxation = income tax and national insurance. Even if you divide by all adults in the uk it is still 250£
What you actually said was "number of tax payers in the country circa 20 million". It is often overlooked that just about every man, woman and child in the UK is a tax payer.
Regarding the EU contributions which you so vehemently objected to - it was your right to object, and now you no longer have to pay them. Whether that makes you any better off is a moot point.
If I knew more about you I could probably identify some of my taxes that benefit you but not me. I could object to those but that would be to miss the point of the nation state, where we all pay our taxes and see them distributed based on the policies and parties the nation as a whole voted for.
And the policy I voted for which was brexit has seen them redirected. Therefore we agree. It was a policy voted for by the country and the policy voted for was enacted. I was merely pointing out to Gardenwalker that his freedom wasn't actually free but was being paid for by a lot of people to whom the freedom had no value so he should stop calling it a freedom and realise that a lot of other people were paying for it.
We can all find things our taxes pay for and we object to. The difference is most of us don't whine incessantly about it like a petulant toddler when people take a democratic vote and say yes we don't want to pay for that anymore.
You won! Get over it!
I actually rarely mention brexit here compared to a lot of people
You’ve done little but rant angrily about it for the last hour.
Whereas you have ranted angrily about Brexit for the last six years
In the absence of this 'who mentions Brexit first' bot I'm gonna write (next winter when it's too dark and miserable to do anything else), I can't refute your suggestion.
Maybe Remainers do still rant about Brexit, because we're sad at the futility and damage of it all.
But the question is: why to Leavers still rant about it? You won ffs!
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
So keen she’d even date you?
😳
Looking back, I now realise she understood me better than I understood myself at the time
She kept asking me to tie her up, but I was so young and naive I just thought “well we’re already having wild sex all over london, on Ecstasy, why would I want to do THAT?”
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
About 800 000 UK citizens living and working in the EU prior to Brexit plus far more on temporary work visits. Less than the other way but not a small number. A relative was a orchestra player whose employers were the orchestras of Europe. Brexit has been a career-ending event for her. A niche profession, but there are others.
Eliminating our Freedom of Moivement to Europe doesn't give us any more freedom to move to Australia and America. It just means we are less free than before.
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
EU transfers are entirely consumed by additional UK spending without directly matching the EU expenditure lines, per the ONS. ie losing the direct costs of EU membership is at best fiscally neutral. There is no direct tax saving from dropping the EU membership fee. There is however a much larger revenue hit due to GDP falling short after Brexit. Bottom line the recent NI increases were made necessary by Brexit.
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
So you want to prove that wealth is inversely correlated to tax rates, and to do that you want to exclude low-wealth countries.
Does... does anyone else see the problem here?
When did I ever say that?
It is correlated with average IQ of the nation and lower tax rates.
Developed nations all have average IQs above the global average, hence it is tax rates that largely determines average gdp per capita for them
Aaand we're back to the thickie-Africans "discussion". Fucking wonderful.
Average Ashkenazi Jewish IQ is 115. Fully one standard deviation above the “human average”
Meanwhile American Jews are at least twice as rich, on average, as non Jewish Americans
“Much of the Jewish American community lead middle class lifestyles.[130] While the median household net worth of the typical American family is $99,500, among American Jews the figure is $443,000.[131][132] In addition, the median Jewish American income is estimated to be in the range of $97,000 to $98,000, nearly twice as high the American national median.”
Forget Africa, are you honestly claiming there is no link between these two facts?
Re: income & wealth of Jewish Americans, one factor contributing to their above-national-average performance, is lower percentage of recent immigrants, indeed since WW1 and post-war US immigration quotas cut off flow of Jewish & other immigrants from eastern Europe.
Certain NOT sole factor, but (my guess is) quite significant.
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.
Right, sure they were.
Cost of being an eu member circa 10 billion a year number of tax payers in the country circa 20 million average cost per tax payer there = 500£
number of people wanting to move to the eu about 1 million out of 68 million = 1.4%
Sorry why did all those tax payers have to pay up for your freedom of movement exactly?
Where do you get your number of taxpayers from?
about 40 million adults in the country, about 50% or so percent pay any form of direct taxation yes couldnt be bothered to look up the exact percentage as its close enough. Its above 20 mill by a mill or two but just did a rough sum of 50% as close enough
VAT says hi!
I specifically mentioned direct taxation = income tax and national insurance. Even if you divide by all adults in the uk it is still 250£
What you actually said was "number of tax payers in the country circa 20 million". It is often overlooked that just about every man, woman and child in the UK is a tax payer.
Regarding the EU contributions which you so vehemently objected to - it was your right to object, and now you no longer have to pay them. Whether that makes you any better off is a moot point.
If I knew more about you I could probably identify some of my taxes that benefit you but not me. I could object to those but that would be to miss the point of the nation state, where we all pay our taxes and see them distributed based on the policies and parties the nation as a whole voted for.
And the policy I voted for which was brexit has seen them redirected. Therefore we agree. It was a policy voted for by the country and the policy voted for was enacted. I was merely pointing out to Gardenwalker that his freedom wasn't actually free but was being paid for by a lot of people to whom the freedom had no value so he should stop calling it a freedom and realise that a lot of other people were paying for it.
We can all find things our taxes pay for and we object to. The difference is most of us don't whine incessantly about it like a petulant toddler when people take a democratic vote and say yes we don't want to pay for that anymore.
You won! Get over it!
I actually rarely mention brexit here compared to a lot of people
You’ve done little but rant angrily about it for the last hour.
Whereas you have ranted angrily about Brexit for the last six years
In the absence of this 'who mentions Brexit first' bot I'm gonna write (next winter when it's too dark and miserable to do anything else), I can't refute your suggestion.
Maybe Remainers do still rant about Brexit, because we're sad at the futility and damage of it all.
But the question is: why to Leavers still rant about it? You won ffs!
Combination of:
1 This isn't the fantasy Brexit that I had, therefore Brexit can't have happened yet, so who is to blame for that?
2 I expected everyone to cheer me to the rafters for liberating the nation, like in 1945, so why aren't the ungrateful sods cheering?
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
Would it be too complex to ask why, if they are making it Cumberland, and Westmorland and Furness, didn't they just make it Cumberland? And not put a significant area around Penrith into the other one? Or would that have been too easy?
I’m furious they didn’t split it into Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness.
The new split is ahistorical crap.
I suppose they wanted to lump 3 councils together each into the new authorities even though Penrith was in the historical Cumberland.
I can't seem to find details of the new boundary boundaries.
There’s an English couple three tables away from me. He has earrings that would fit around my thumbs. She has entirely tattooed thighs and keeps complaining about the cold (put your fucking thighs away then woman). They’re louder than the rest of the clientele put together. Earlier their sons were at the table. The older one, who looked about fourteen, kept loudly declaring “I wanna go and shitfaced”. They gave gave him cash to do just that. I hope they leave soon.
I am convinced tattoo removal business is going to gold mine in 10-15 years time.
Massive business opportunity. What’s with all the 20s and 30s women who suddenly have arms full of totally random scribbling?
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.
Right, sure they were.
Cost of being an eu member circa 10 billion a year number of tax payers in the country circa 20 million average cost per tax payer there = 500£
number of people wanting to move to the eu about 1 million out of 68 million = 1.4%
Sorry why did all those tax payers have to pay up for your freedom of movement exactly?
Where do you get your number of taxpayers from?
about 40 million adults in the country, about 50% or so percent pay any form of direct taxation yes couldnt be bothered to look up the exact percentage as its close enough. Its above 20 mill by a mill or two but just did a rough sum of 50% as close enough
VAT says hi!
I specifically mentioned direct taxation = income tax and national insurance. Even if you divide by all adults in the uk it is still 250£
What you actually said was "number of tax payers in the country circa 20 million". It is often overlooked that just about every man, woman and child in the UK is a tax payer.
Regarding the EU contributions which you so vehemently objected to - it was your right to object, and now you no longer have to pay them. Whether that makes you any better off is a moot point.
If I knew more about you I could probably identify some of my taxes that benefit you but not me. I could object to those but that would be to miss the point of the nation state, where we all pay our taxes and see them distributed based on the policies and parties the nation as a whole voted for.
And the policy I voted for which was brexit has seen them redirected. Therefore we agree. It was a policy voted for by the country and the policy voted for was enacted. I was merely pointing out to Gardenwalker that his freedom wasn't actually free but was being paid for by a lot of people to whom the freedom had no value so he should stop calling it a freedom and realise that a lot of other people were paying for it.
We can all find things our taxes pay for and we object to. The difference is most of us don't whine incessantly about it like a petulant toddler when people take a democratic vote and say yes we don't want to pay for that anymore.
You won! Get over it!
I actually rarely mention brexit here compared to a lot of people
You’ve done little but rant angrily about it for the last hour.
Whereas you have ranted angrily about Brexit for the last six years
In the absence of this 'who mentions Brexit first' bot I'm gonna write (next winter when it's too dark and miserable to do anything else), I can't refute your suggestion.
Maybe Remainers do still rant about Brexit, because we're sad at the futility and damage of it all.
But the question is: why to Leavers still rant about it? You won ffs!
Combination of:
1 This isn't the fantasy Brexit that I had, therefore Brexit can't have happened yet, so who is to blame for that?
2 I expected everyone to cheer me to the rafters for liberating the nation, like in 1945, so why aren't the ungrateful sods cheering?
3 Some other stuff I haven't thought of.
4 I haven’t had sex with a lady since 1974, and all those homosexual West Indians in London are to blame.
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in Stoke if they could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna Ibiza or Palma just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in stoke if you could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
Is this the geographic version of "let them eat cake"?
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in stoke if they could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna Ibiza or Palma just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
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.
Of course, there are certain professions (medicine, engineering, academia etc.) which absolutely require the degree. There’s also an awful lot of white collar jobs, including accounting, law, IT and software, that really don’t require the degree and can be entered at 18 with a pathway to future qualifications, without the £50k debt around your neck aged 21.
The advice is to think carefully, rather than assume that stundying away from home for a three year degree aged 18 is automatically the way to go, given the finances now involved in the decision. It was a different calculation for our generation two or three decades ago.
Vet is not a great career choice if your daughter unless it is a vocation.
PM if you want to chat about it
Why not?
They are not going to stop making animals in the short to medium term, and there's stacks of insurance around so you can pretty much literally charge £20k for triple bypass surgery on somebody's hamster
And in 97%+ of cases it is a vocation thing anyway
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
And yet weirdly it gets literally millions of tourists - or did. Whether they will go back now the council have shut all the museums is another question.
Parts of Stoke are alright. The station is impressive, as is the university campus.
But I must admit my favourite sight in Stoke is a big green sign that says 'Uttoxeter A50.'
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
And yet weirdly it gets literally millions of tourists - or did. Whether they will go back now the council have shut all the museums is another question.
Parts of Stoke are alright. The station is impressive, as is the university campus.
But I must admit my favourite sight in Stoke is a big green sign that says 'Uttoxeter A50.'
The council closing all the museums - which had the finest collection of ceramics in the country (better than the V&A) - tells us a lot of places like Stoke.
Both the place itself, and how it is treated by the rest of the country.
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
Would it be too complex to ask why, if they are making it Cumberland, and Westmorland and Furness, didn't they just make it Cumberland? And not put a significant area around Penrith into the other one? Or would that have been too easy?
I’m furious they didn’t split it into Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness.
The new split is ahistorical crap.
I suppose they wanted to lump 3 councils together each into the new authorities even though Penrith was in the historical Cumberland.
I can't seem to find details of the new boundary boundaries.
As it involves Cumbria and line drawing there is zero chance of making everyone happy.
The idea of Penrith not being in Cumberland, and looking to Barrow rather than Carlisle as HQ is a bit odd.
At the risk of extending the moaning, I object to Furness, too. That is the peninsula. The exclave of Lancashire which was part of Cumbria has been called Lonsdale for centuries, very happily.
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??
Businesses have decided that they need people to do these jobs, and Brits are either doing other jobs, in education, or have decided to take early retirement? Look at the labour market stats; there is hardly anyone who wants to work and is capable of working who doesn't have a job (or is about to get one in pretty quick order).
So either we import workers, or viable businesses close for lack of staff.
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in stoke if they could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna Ibiza or Palma just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
Stoke-on-Trent isn't that bad.
It gave me Helen From Stoke, with her demands to be handcuffed
I won’t hear a word against it
She was the Potteries version of the woman from the famous Berryman stanzas
Filling her compact & delicious body with chicken páprika, she glanced at me twice. Fainting with interest, I hungered back and only the fact of her husband & four other people kept me from springing on her
or falling at her little feet and crying 'You are the hottest one for years of night Henry's dazed eyes have enjoyed, Brilliance.' I advanced upon (despairing) my spumoni.—Sir Bones: is stuffed, de world, wif feeding girls.
Except: there was no husband, and, reader, this feeding girl was Yes
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in stoke if they could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna Ibiza or Palma just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
Stoke-on-Trent isn't that bad.
Compared to what? The bubonic plague? I mean, there's worse things than let's say stale cheese and onion Pringles, but they are still not great.
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
Sorry.
Are you really pretending that Monaco is a proper country that can be compared to - say - the UK?
Switzerland and Ireland and Australia and the USA certainly can. All have higher average gdp per capita than the UK and lower average taxes
Sure, those are real countries.
But at the same time, it's important to normalise between countries with government provided health care, and where it is compulsory by not provided by taxes.
Because your average Swiss worker is also paying health insurance.
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in stoke if they could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna Ibiza or Palma just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
Stoke-on-Trent isn't that bad.
It gave me Helen From Stoke, with her demands to be handcuffed
I won’t hear a word against it
She was the Potteries version of the woman from the famous Berryman stanza
Filling her compact & delicious body with chicken páprika, she glanced at me twice. Fainting with interest, I hungered back and only the fact of her husband & four other people kept me from springing on her
or falling at her little feet and crying 'You are the hottest one for years of night Henry's dazed eyes have enjoyed, Brilliance.' I advanced upon (despairing) my spumoni.—Sir Bones: is stuffed, de world, wif feeding girls.
Except: there was no husband, and, reader, this feeding girl was Yes
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).
I got loads from the clubs & societies though.
The first page of a great economics book described the whole field thus:
People respond to incentives. The rest is filler.
I thought the first page was
"Welcome to economics, the science of explaining why the predictions you made in the past did not come true."
I know the former Chief Economist of Uber (he's an investor in my insurance business). If you don't think economics has real world relevence, then you are a fool.
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in stoke if they could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna Ibiza or Palma just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
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.
Of course, there are certain professions (medicine, engineering, academia etc.) which absolutely require the degree. There’s also an awful lot of white collar jobs, including accounting, law, IT and software, that really don’t require the degree and can be entered at 18 with a pathway to future qualifications, without the £50k debt around your neck aged 21.
The advice is to think carefully, rather than assume that stundying away from home for a three year degree aged 18 is automatically the way to go, given the finances now involved in the decision. It was a different calculation for our generation two or three decades ago.
Just creating opportunities for degree carrying immigrants.
After all, Nigerians are the most qualified of US immigrants, even more than the Chinese.
Let's remember that Labour lost all 3 seats in Stoke-on-Trent at the last election for the first time since 1931. Plus neighbouring Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in stoke if they could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna Ibiza or Palma just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
There’s an English couple three tables away from me. He has earrings that would fit around my thumbs. She has entirely tattooed thighs and keeps complaining about the cold (put your fucking thighs away then woman). They’re louder than the rest of the clientele put together. Earlier their sons were at the table. The older one, who looked about fourteen, kept loudly declaring “I wanna go and shitfaced”. They gave gave him cash to do just that. I hope they leave soon.
I really hate English tourists who behave like this when abroad.
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).
I got loads from the clubs & societies though.
The first page of a great economics book described the whole field thus:
People respond to incentives. The rest is filler.
I thought the first page was
"Welcome to economics, the science of explaining why the predictions you made in the past did not come true."
I know the former Chief Economist of Uber (he's an investor in my insurance business). If you don't think economics has real world relevence, then you are a fool.
Why are Leavers so obsessed about the clusterfuck that is Brexit? Genuinely fascinating...
You see any leavers talking in this thread? Seems pretty much Stuart in Romford and Garden Walker (in America) enjoying a spot of mutual onanism about how rubbish and awful and horrendous Brexit is to me.
Why are Leavers so obsessed about the clusterfuck that is Brexit? Genuinely fascinating...
You see any leavers talking in this thread? Seems pretty much Stuart in Romford and Garden Walker (in America) enjoying a spot of mutual onanism about how rubbish and awful and horrendous Brexit is to me.
I checked back. Neither Stuart nor myself were the first to mention Brexit, and the bulk of the ranting seems to come from @Pagan2 is who is absolutely FURIOUS that some people regret the loss of FOM.
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in Stoke if they could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna Ibiza or Palma just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
I have got a soft spot for Stoke. I know some folk in the hospital and also Uni there so go from time to time. I used to go there a lot as a student too, as friends at Keele Uni.
I can see why others don't like it much. The key though for the Potters is whether Brexit has delivered them a better life, ot a prospect of one. I have my doubts that there will be any tangible benefits evident by the next GE.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Do you really think the decline of the “North” (yes I know Stoke is in the Midlands) can be attributed to a “loss of pride”?
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
It's not me saying it's a government thing; it's BJ, Gove and the, er, government.
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
So you want to prove that wealth is inversely correlated to tax rates, and to do that you want to exclude low-wealth countries.
Does... does anyone else see the problem here?
When did I ever say that?
It is correlated with average IQ of the nation and lower tax rates.
Developed nations all have average IQs above the global average, hence it is tax rates that largely determines average gdp per capita for them
Aaand we're back to the thickie-Africans "discussion". Fucking wonderful.
Average Ashkenazi Jewish IQ is 115. Fully one standard deviation above the “human average”
Meanwhile American Jews are at least twice as rich, on average, as non Jewish Americans
“Much of the Jewish American community lead middle class lifestyles.[130] While the median household net worth of the typical American family is $99,500, among American Jews the figure is $443,000.[131][132] In addition, the median Jewish American income is estimated to be in the range of $97,000 to $98,000, nearly twice as high the American national median.”
Forget Africa, are you honestly claiming there is no link between these two facts?
Indeed, Jews have the highest average verbal IQ in the world.
East Asians have the highest average numerical IQ in the world.
Those are just facts however much the left deny them
No they aren't. They are highly contentious. You only have to read much of the debate on it because there are so many variables. Many poor countries score around 50. Nepal is 43. Do you really think the average intelligence of these people is actual a score between idiot and moron. Of course they aren't.
Having had to take many of these tests in my career and having had to set them for potential rmployees I explained the methods I could use to up your score by 10 - 20 points. @rcs1000 then came up with a study showing you could train someone to increase their score by 20 points, and this is in well educated countries like the UK and USA.
So even Leon's standard deviation example is nonsense as there are just so many variables. Genetically different people might have different IQs but that could be for all sorts of reasons.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Government spending per head on transport in London - £877.76
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
Can anyone explain why commentators keep stating that Mariupol is about to fall? This has been going on for weeks. I mean it is quite possible it will fall in the next few hours. But it's also possible it won't fall for several more weeks if ever. Yet everyone seems sure (regrettably) that it is on the verge of falling. Perhaps they are running out of ammunition. But who knows? It's claimed there are still several thousands defenders in the biggest steel plant in Europe full of underground tunnels.
Whilst the increased western support is encouraging there still seems to be a real shortage of aircraft which are supposed to be the basis of modern warfare. Aside from Putin daring to drop a nuke it is this that would seem to be the only thing potentially stopping Ukraine from winning the war.
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.
Of course, there are certain professions (medicine, engineering, academia etc.) which absolutely require the degree. There’s also an awful lot of white collar jobs, including accounting, law, IT and software, that really don’t require the degree and can be entered at 18 with a pathway to future qualifications, without the £50k debt around your neck aged 21.
The advice is to think carefully, rather than assume that stundying away from home for a three year degree aged 18 is automatically the way to go, given the finances now involved in the decision. It was a different calculation for our generation two or three decades ago.
Vet is not a great career choice if your daughter unless it is a vocation.
PM if you want to chat about it
Why not?
They are not going to stop making animals in the short to medium term, and there's stacks of insurance around so you can pretty much literally charge £20k for triple bypass surgery on somebody's hamster
And in 97%+ of cases it is a vocation thing anyway
Highest suicide rate among medical professionals (up there with dentists) for a start.
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
So you want to prove that wealth is inversely correlated to tax rates, and to do that you want to exclude low-wealth countries.
Does... does anyone else see the problem here?
When did I ever say that?
It is correlated with average IQ of the nation and lower tax rates.
Developed nations all have average IQs above the global average, hence it is tax rates that largely determines average gdp per capita for them
Aaand we're back to the thickie-Africans "discussion". Fucking wonderful.
Average Ashkenazi Jewish IQ is 115. Fully one standard deviation above the “human average”
Meanwhile American Jews are at least twice as rich, on average, as non Jewish Americans
“Much of the Jewish American community lead middle class lifestyles.[130] While the median household net worth of the typical American family is $99,500, among American Jews the figure is $443,000.[131][132] In addition, the median Jewish American income is estimated to be in the range of $97,000 to $98,000, nearly twice as high the American national median.”
Forget Africa, are you honestly claiming there is no link between these two facts?
Indeed, Jews have the highest average verbal IQ in the world.
East Asians have the highest average numerical IQ in the world.
Those are just facts however much the left deny them
No they aren't. They are highly contentious. You only have to read much of the debate on it because there are so many variables. Many poor countries score around 50. Nepal is 43. Do you really think the average intelligence of these people is actual a score between idiot and moron. Of course they aren't.
Having had to take many of these tests in my career and having had to set them for potential rmployees I explained the methods I could use to up your score by 10 - 20 points. @rcs1000 then came up with a study showing you could train someone to increase there score by 20 points, and this is in well educated countries like the UK and USA.
So even Leon's standard deviation example is nonsense as there are just so many variables. Genetically different people might have different IQs but that could be for all sorts of reasons.
Its almost as if IQ is a crap and spurious measure...
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 we don't have enough workers and the ratio of workers/rich pensioners is out of whack. That will be the case whether we are in or out of the EU, or have a Tory or even UKIP govt. Tory and Brexit voters were lied to by Tories and Leave politicians.
Please blame them for lying, rather than the system, the metropolitan elite or the migrants.
This is just the same old bullshit that has been debunked a hundred times.
The level of immigration you would need to meaningfully alter the elderly dependency ratio is staggering. You would have to multiply immigration by about 10x and cause massive integration issues.
As for "enough workers", we have plenty of workers for unskilled jobs like florists and telesales. The problem is the pay and conditions in those jobs are shit.
As always, you "let them all in" types don't actually address the issue of why we need to import shopkeepers as skilled workers, so instead you do this sneering patronization.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Government spending on transport in London - £877.76
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
Also worth mentioning that R&D spend in the UK is quite low.
Private R&D spend tends to follow public R&D spend in terms of where it goes, and what spend there is in the UK has been highly concentrated in London and the usual suspects.
The government has pledged to increase R&D spend overall (though not to peer economy levels) and to rebalance a bit (though not by much) toward the “North”.
Britbox has created the most remainery original series ever. It's called 'Murder in Provence'. But far from being about murder in an imagined ex-pat community, the characters are all meant to be French, speaking in French, but they're actually English, speaking in English. The script is moderately high brow, and the actors are well known in some cases, but the lines are all delivered in this oddly monotonous way, that indeed sounds like a very middle class English Waitrose-esque dinner table conversation. It doesn't work as drama at all, but it's the essence of remainerism, because it feels like a certain type of English person living a brittle extended fantasy of being French - not just living *like* them, but inhabiting their actual lives, Buffalo Bill style. https://youtu.be/-5uB2LBE8Qw
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Government spending on transport in London - £877.76
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
Also worth mentioning that R&D spend in the UK is quite low.
Private R&D spend tends to follow public R&D spend in terms of where it goes, and what spend there is in the UK has been highly concentrated in London and the usual suspects.
The government has pledged to increase R&D spend overall (though not to peer economy levels) and to rebalance a bit (though not by much) toward the “North”.
Although of course one of the sites for vaccine manufacture is Keele University, between Stoke and Newcastle under Lyme.
Can anyone explain why commentators keep stating that Mariupol is about to fall? This has been going on for weeks. I mean it is quite possible it will fall in the next few hours. But it's also possible it won't fall for several more weeks if ever. Yet everyone seems sure (regrettably) that it is on the verge of falling. Perhaps they are running out of ammunition. But who knows? It's claimed there are still several thousands defenders in the biggest steel plant in Europe full of underground tunnels.
Whilst the increased western support is encouraging there still seems to be a real shortage of aircraft which are supposed to be the basis of modern warfare. Aside from Putin daring to drop a nuke it is this that would seem to be the only thing potentially stopping Ukraine from winning the war.
The explanation that makes most sense to me is that the defenders of Mariupol are holding out for as long as possible to divert Russian assets from attacking the rest of Ukraine. They are true heroes in that case.
Can anyone explain why commentators keep stating that Mariupol is about to fall? This has been going on for weeks. I mean it is quite possible it will fall in the next few hours. But it's also possible it won't fall for several more weeks if ever. Yet everyone seems sure (regrettably) that it is on the verge of falling. Perhaps they are running out of ammunition. But who knows? It's claimed there are still several thousands defenders in the biggest steel plant in Europe full of underground tunnels.
Whilst the increased western support is encouraging there still seems to be a real shortage of aircraft which are supposed to be the basis of modern warfare. Aside from Putin daring to drop a nuke it is this that would seem to be the only thing potentially stopping Ukraine from winning the war.
If you look at the maps, the area of Mariupol still held by Ukrainian defenders has got smaller and smaller.
People expected Mariupol to fall about two weeks ago, but it does now seem that it’s all over. Defence is now down to a single (but large) steel factory complex.
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
So you want to prove that wealth is inversely correlated to tax rates, and to do that you want to exclude low-wealth countries.
Does... does anyone else see the problem here?
When did I ever say that?
It is correlated with average IQ of the nation and lower tax rates.
Developed nations all have average IQs above the global average, hence it is tax rates that largely determines average gdp per capita for them
Aaand we're back to the thickie-Africans "discussion". Fucking wonderful.
Average Ashkenazi Jewish IQ is 115. Fully one standard deviation above the “human average”
Meanwhile American Jews are at least twice as rich, on average, as non Jewish Americans
“Much of the Jewish American community lead middle class lifestyles.[130] While the median household net worth of the typical American family is $99,500, among American Jews the figure is $443,000.[131][132] In addition, the median Jewish American income is estimated to be in the range of $97,000 to $98,000, nearly twice as high the American national median.”
Forget Africa, are you honestly claiming there is no link between these two facts?
Indeed, Jews have the highest average verbal IQ in the world.
East Asians have the highest average numerical IQ in the world.
Those are just facts however much the left deny them
No they aren't. They are highly contentious. You only have to read much of the debate on it because there are so many variables. Many poor countries score around 50. Nepal is 43. Do you really think the average intelligence of these people is actual a score between idiot and moron. Of course they aren't.
Having had to take many of these tests in my career and having had to set them for potential rmployees I explained the methods I could use to up your score by 10 - 20 points. @rcs1000 then came up with a study showing you could train someone to increase there score by 20 points, and this is in well educated countries like the UK and USA.
So even Leon's standard deviation example is nonsense as there are just so many variables. Genetically different people might have different IQs but that could be for all sorts of reasons.
Its almost as if IQ is a crap and spurious measure...
This is just unscientific bullshit. IQ is THE most reliable metric in the whole of modern psychology. If it doesn't meet your scientific standards than you can throw out the entire field of study as worthless.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Do you really think the decline of the “North” (yes I know Stoke is in the Midlands) can be attributed to a “loss of pride”?
There's a chunk of that, I reckon. Places that were somewhere, that were damn good at what they did, but they lose their purpose. Heck, I grew up in a place a bit like that in a different part of the country. Partly, the money that was coming stops, and that shows. But also, there's the emotional kick, the difficulty of working out what the place is for next. And in some (maybe many) cases, the answer is "not much", or "something a lot less profitable than before".
It needn't last forever, but it's painful while it lasts. And civic pride (alongside investment in infrastructure and retraining) is part of the mix of getting over the gap.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Do you really think the decline of the “North” (yes I know Stoke is in the Midlands) can be attributed to a “loss of pride”?
Yes, you can, to an extent
There are plenty of Stokes across the world - ex-industrial areas. Britain has a lot because we were the first to industrialise, and we did it when it was REALLY messy, and we are a small but densely populated country (and also we lost confidence in our urbanism post 1945, a separate, weird phenomenon)
There are worse Stokes in America - Detroit, say. There are better Stokes in East Germany - where German diligence has preserved some cleanliness and dignity, but the towns are still depopulating and maybe doomed
And pride - self esteem - seems crucial. Once people conclude "this place is a shit-hole, I have to leave" it is hard to reverse this self-fulfilling perception.
Some British cities have done it. The major example is, of course, London. A seedy post-Imperial city in apparently endless decline in 1980 was arguably the capital of the world by 2010. Quite something.
It has lost momentum of late but it still has a swagger, matched by few cities in the world. Someone who came here now who was last here in, say, February 1981 would be utterly astonished
So pride can be restored. This is good. But how do you do it for smaller towns and cities?
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 we don't have enough workers and the ratio of workers/rich pensioners is out of whack. That will be the case whether we are in or out of the EU, or have a Tory or even UKIP govt. Tory and Brexit voters were lied to by Tories and Leave politicians.
Please blame them for lying, rather than the system, the metropolitan elite or the migrants.
This is just the same old bullshit that has been debunked a hundred times.
The level of immigration you would need to meaningfully alter the elderly dependency ratio is staggering. You would have to multiply immigration by about 10x and cause massive integration issues.
As for "enough workers", we have plenty of workers for unskilled jobs like florists and telesales. The problem is the pay and conditions in those jobs are shit.
As always, you "let them all in" types don't actually address the issue of why we need to import shopkeepers as skilled workers, so instead you do this sneering patronization.
Perhaps you could have a go at answering the question in your last paragraph instead of having a shit-fit about it.
Why indeed do we need to import flower-arrangers, which was another skilled profession I saw on the list.
Russell Warne has spent many hours scrutinising undergraduate psychology textbooks. As a professor of psychology at Utah Valley University, he wasn’t looking for insight, but for mistakes – and he found plenty. Some of the worst concerned IQ tests. “The most common inaccuracy I found, by far, was the claim that intelligence tests are biased against certain groups,” he says. Yet intelligence researchers are at pains to ensure that IQ tests are fair and not culturally biased. “Another, very common one was the idea that intelligence is difficult to measure.”
The truth about intelligence: A guide for the confusedOur thinking on human intellect is clouded with misinformation. But the latest science of intelligence is surprisingly enlightening
No wonder IQ tests are often considered controversial and flaky. But that simply isn’t the case. “Despite the critiques, the intelligence test is one of the most reliable and solid behavioural tests ever invented,” says Rex Jung at the University of New Mexico.
Why are Leavers so obsessed about the clusterfuck that is Brexit? Genuinely fascinating...
You see any leavers talking in this thread? Seems pretty much Stuart in Romford and Garden Walker (in America) enjoying a spot of mutual onanism about how rubbish and awful and horrendous Brexit is to me.
I checked back. Neither Stuart nor myself were the first to mention Brexit, and the bulk of the ranting seems to come from @Pagan2 is who is absolutely FURIOUS that some people regret the loss of FOM.
The fact that you had to check back hardly convinces me that my initial impression was inaccurate.
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in Stoke if they could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna Ibiza or Palma just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
This has been done to death over the years but perhaps worth pointing out that people in places like Stoke on Trent can alternatively just move to London or Manchester, they aren't trapped in Stoke on Trent because the UK has left the EU. I too deeply regret the loss of the freedom to live and work anywhere in Europe but in reality it is only a small amount of people who are bothered about this.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Government spending per head on transport in London - £877.76
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
London is rather different though, and particularly for transport spending. Building an underground railway in Stoke would seem to be an unlikely winner. (One day though)
Macron deserves a vote of thanks! It might not have been caused by Brexit but the dystopian vision that is Stoke would have been vastly improved by greater EU integration and the population speaking with their feet. Would they live and work in Stoke if they could as easily work and live in Paris Venice Florence Amsterdam Barcelona Vienna Ibiza or Palma just a short train ride away? Wouldn't Stoke have to get it's act together if it wanted it's population to stay?
I have got a soft spot for Stoke. I know some folk in the hospital and also Uni there so go from time to time. I used to go there a lot as a student too, as friends at Keele Uni.
I can see why others don't like it much. The key though for the Potters is whether Brexit has delivered them a better life, ot a prospect of one. I have my doubts that there will be any tangible benefits evident by the next GE.
Me too. I had a lovely friend from Stoke. She was an account exec and very funny. She deflated the pretentions of the people we were both working for like no one else I knew. She used her accent like a weapon. But she had found her way to London
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 we don't have enough workers and the ratio of workers/rich pensioners is out of whack. That will be the case whether we are in or out of the EU, or have a Tory or even UKIP govt. Tory and Brexit voters were lied to by Tories and Leave politicians.
Please blame them for lying, rather than the system, the metropolitan elite or the migrants.
This is just the same old bullshit that has been debunked a hundred times.
The level of immigration you would need to meaningfully alter the elderly dependency ratio is staggering. You would have to multiply immigration by about 10x and cause massive integration issues.
As for "enough workers", we have plenty of workers for unskilled jobs like florists and telesales. The problem is the pay and conditions in those jobs are shit.
As always, you "let them all in" types don't actually address the issue of why we need to import shopkeepers as skilled workers, so instead you do this sneering patronization.
It is not me doing me it, I am not in charge, nor are those I voted for. It is Tory leave politicians doing it. Moan to them about it, not us.
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
So you want to prove that wealth is inversely correlated to tax rates, and to do that you want to exclude low-wealth countries.
Does... does anyone else see the problem here?
When did I ever say that?
It is correlated with average IQ of the nation and lower tax rates.
Developed nations all have average IQs above the global average, hence it is tax rates that largely determines average gdp per capita for them
Aaand we're back to the thickie-Africans "discussion". Fucking wonderful.
Average Ashkenazi Jewish IQ is 115. Fully one standard deviation above the “human average”
Meanwhile American Jews are at least twice as rich, on average, as non Jewish Americans
“Much of the Jewish American community lead middle class lifestyles.[130] While the median household net worth of the typical American family is $99,500, among American Jews the figure is $443,000.[131][132] In addition, the median Jewish American income is estimated to be in the range of $97,000 to $98,000, nearly twice as high the American national median.”
Forget Africa, are you honestly claiming there is no link between these two facts?
Indeed, Jews have the highest average verbal IQ in the world.
East Asians have the highest average numerical IQ in the world.
Those are just facts however much the left deny them
No they aren't. They are highly contentious. You only have to read much of the debate on it because there are so many variables. Many poor countries score around 50. Nepal is 43. Do you really think the average intelligence of these people is actual a score between idiot and moron. Of course they aren't.
Having had to take many of these tests in my career and having had to set them for potential rmployees I explained the methods I could use to up your score by 10 - 20 points. @rcs1000 then came up with a study showing you could train someone to increase there score by 20 points, and this is in well educated countries like the UK and USA.
So even Leon's standard deviation example is nonsense as there are just so many variables. Genetically different people might have different IQs but that could be for all sorts of reasons.
Its almost as if IQ is a crap and spurious measure...
This is just unscientific bullshit. IQ is THE most reliable metric in the whole of modern psychology. If it doesn't meet your scientific standards than you can throw out the entire field of study as worthless.
If the cap fits!
IQ may well be a valuable metric, but it seems that we cannot measure it accurately, and certainly not across cultures and groups. It may have some validity comparing individuals within a group, but it cannot be extrapolated.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Government spending per head on transport in London - £877.76
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
London is rather different though, and particularly for transport spending. Building an underground railway in Stoke would seem to be an unlikely winner. (One day though)
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Government spending per head on transport in London - £877.76
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
The cost of buying & demolishing property is higher in Camden than in the North East though which will affect the costs for the same output
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.
Right, sure they were.
Cost of being an eu member circa 10 billion a year number of tax payers in the country circa 20 million average cost per tax payer there = 500£
number of people wanting to move to the eu about 1 million out of 68 million = 1.4%
Sorry why did all those tax payers have to pay up for your freedom of movement exactly?
Where do you get your number of taxpayers from?
about 40 million adults in the country, about 50% or so percent pay any form of direct taxation yes couldnt be bothered to look up the exact percentage as its close enough. Its above 20 mill by a mill or two but just did a rough sum of 50% as close enough
VAT says hi!
I specifically mentioned direct taxation = income tax and national insurance. Even if you divide by all adults in the uk it is still 250£
What you actually said was "number of tax payers in the country circa 20 million". It is often overlooked that just about every man, woman and child in the UK is a tax payer.
Regarding the EU contributions which you so vehemently objected to - it was your right to object, and now you no longer have to pay them. Whether that makes you any better off is a moot point.
If I knew more about you I could probably identify some of my taxes that benefit you but not me. I could object to those but that would be to miss the point of the nation state, where we all pay our taxes and see them distributed based on the policies and parties the nation as a whole voted for.
And the policy I voted for which was brexit has seen them redirected. Therefore we agree. It was a policy voted for by the country and the policy voted for was enacted. I was merely pointing out to Gardenwalker that his freedom wasn't actually free but was being paid for by a lot of people to whom the freedom had no value so he should stop calling it a freedom and realise that a lot of other people were paying for it.
We can all find things our taxes pay for and we object to. The difference is most of us don't whine incessantly about it like a petulant toddler when people take a democratic vote and say yes we don't want to pay for that anymore.
You won! Get over it!
I actually rarely mention brexit here compared to a lot of people
You’ve done little but rant angrily about it for the last hour.
Whereas you have ranted angrily about Brexit for the last six 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:
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 we don't have enough workers and the ratio of workers/rich pensioners is out of whack. That will be the case whether we are in or out of the EU, or have a Tory or even UKIP govt. Tory and Brexit voters were lied to by Tories and Leave politicians.
Please blame them for lying, rather than the system, the metropolitan elite or the migrants.
This is just the same old bullshit that has been debunked a hundred times.
The level of immigration you would need to meaningfully alter the elderly dependency ratio is staggering. You would have to multiply immigration by about 10x and cause massive integration issues.
As for "enough workers", we have plenty of workers for unskilled jobs like florists and telesales. The problem is the pay and conditions in those jobs are shit.
As always, you "let them all in" types don't actually address the issue of why we need to import shopkeepers as skilled workers, so instead you do this sneering patronization.
It is not me doing me it, I am not in charge, nor are those I voted for. It is Tory leave politicians doing it. Moan to them about it, not us.
Ok, I will remember to call you out if you criticize politicians on a political forum.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Government spending per head on transport in London - £877.76
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
The cost of buying & demolishing property is higher in Camden than in the North East though which will affect the costs for the same output
The spending showed a similar discrepancy years back before Crossrail and HS2.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Do you really think the decline of the “North” (yes I know Stoke is in the Midlands) can be attributed to a “loss of pride”?
I don't know. Perhaps. There's something that happens to regons which isn't about state funding, isn't about transport, and probably isn't about eductation.
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
So you want to prove that wealth is inversely correlated to tax rates, and to do that you want to exclude low-wealth countries.
Does... does anyone else see the problem here?
When did I ever say that?
It is correlated with average IQ of the nation and lower tax rates.
Developed nations all have average IQs above the global average, hence it is tax rates that largely determines average gdp per capita for them
Aaand we're back to the thickie-Africans "discussion". Fucking wonderful.
Average Ashkenazi Jewish IQ is 115. Fully one standard deviation above the “human average”
Meanwhile American Jews are at least twice as rich, on average, as non Jewish Americans
“Much of the Jewish American community lead middle class lifestyles.[130] While the median household net worth of the typical American family is $99,500, among American Jews the figure is $443,000.[131][132] In addition, the median Jewish American income is estimated to be in the range of $97,000 to $98,000, nearly twice as high the American national median.”
Forget Africa, are you honestly claiming there is no link between these two facts?
Indeed, Jews have the highest average verbal IQ in the world.
East Asians have the highest average numerical IQ in the world.
Those are just facts however much the left deny them
No they aren't. They are highly contentious. You only have to read much of the debate on it because there are so many variables. Many poor countries score around 50. Nepal is 43. Do you really think the average intelligence of these people is actual a score between idiot and moron. Of course they aren't.
Having had to take many of these tests in my career and having had to set them for potential rmployees I explained the methods I could use to up your score by 10 - 20 points. @rcs1000 then came up with a study showing you could train someone to increase there score by 20 points, and this is in well educated countries like the UK and USA.
So even Leon's standard deviation example is nonsense as there are just so many variables. Genetically different people might have different IQs but that could be for all sorts of reasons.
Its almost as if IQ is a crap and spurious measure...
This is just unscientific bullshit. IQ is THE most reliable metric in the whole of modern psychology. If it doesn't meet your scientific standards than you can throw out the entire field of study as worthless.
If the cap fits!
IQ may well be a valuable metric, but it seems that we cannot measure it accurately, and certainly not across cultures and groups. It may have some validity comparing individuals within a group, but it cannot be extrapolated.
It can very measured accurately. It is highly repeatable and can also be reliably used across cultures and groups. It also shows high correlations between different components of IQ, such as reasoning, spatial ability, memory etc, demonstrating that it is measuring something real.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Do you really think the decline of the “North” (yes I know Stoke is in the Midlands) can be attributed to a “loss of pride”?
Yes, you can, to an extent
There are plenty of Stokes across the world - ex-industrial areas. Britain has a lot because we were the first to industrialise, and we did it when it was REALLY messy, and we are a small but densely populated country (and also we lost confidence in our urbanism post 1945, a separate, weird phenomenon)
There are worse Stokes in America - Detroit, say. There are better Stokes in East Germany - where German diligence has preserved some cleanliness and dignity, but the towns are still depopulating and maybe doomed
And pride - self esteem - seems crucial. Once people conclude "this place is a shit-hole, I have to leave" it is hard to reverse this self-fulfilling perception.
Some British cities have done it. The major example is, of course, London. A seedy post-Imperial city in apparently endless decline in 1980 was arguably the capital of the world by 2010. Quite something.
It has lost momentum of late but it still has a swagger, matched by few cities in the world. Someone who came here now who was last here in, say, February 1981 would be utterly astonished
So pride can be restored. This is good. But how do you do it for smaller towns and cities?
Unless you expect 'pride' to motivate people to purchase ladders and tins of Dulux and illegally redecorate the frontages of buildings that are owned by others, then pride alone won't do it. Commercial landlords being taxed for having empty, seedy, run-down high street properties would do it. Tax them until the pips squeak. Tax them until they are forced to sell, or forced to rent, well below their current grossly inflated expectations.
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 we don't have enough workers and the ratio of workers/rich pensioners is out of whack. That will be the case whether we are in or out of the EU, or have a Tory or even UKIP govt. Tory and Brexit voters were lied to by Tories and Leave politicians.
Please blame them for lying, rather than the system, the metropolitan elite or the migrants.
This is just the same old bullshit that has been debunked a hundred times.
The level of immigration you would need to meaningfully alter the elderly dependency ratio is staggering. You would have to multiply immigration by about 10x and cause massive integration issues.
As for "enough workers", we have plenty of workers for unskilled jobs like florists and telesales. The problem is the pay and conditions in those jobs are shit.
As always, you "let them all in" types don't actually address the issue of why we need to import shopkeepers as skilled workers, so instead you do this sneering patronization.
Perhaps you could have a go at answering the question in your last paragraph instead of having a shit-fit about it.
Why indeed do we need to import flower-arrangers, which was another skilled profession I saw on the list.
We don't and the government should get criticism for it.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Government spending per head on transport in London - £877.76
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
London is rather different though, and particularly for transport spending. Building an underground railway in Stoke would seem to be an unlikely winner. (One day though)
So you concede it's not treated the same way?
I suppose one answer to this would be to simply subsidise public transport outside of London. Instead of spending money on building a northern Crossrail, spend the equivalent on subsidised bus travel, for example.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Government spending per head on transport in London - £877.76
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
The cost of buying & demolishing property is higher in Camden than in the North East though which will affect the costs for the same output
The spending showed a similar discrepancy years back before Crossrail and HS2.
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
So you want to prove that wealth is inversely correlated to tax rates, and to do that you want to exclude low-wealth countries.
Does... does anyone else see the problem here?
When did I ever say that?
It is correlated with average IQ of the nation and lower tax rates.
Developed nations all have average IQs above the global average, hence it is tax rates that largely determines average gdp per capita for them
Aaand we're back to the thickie-Africans "discussion". Fucking wonderful.
Average Ashkenazi Jewish IQ is 115. Fully one standard deviation above the “human average”
Meanwhile American Jews are at least twice as rich, on average, as non Jewish Americans
“Much of the Jewish American community lead middle class lifestyles.[130] While the median household net worth of the typical American family is $99,500, among American Jews the figure is $443,000.[131][132] In addition, the median Jewish American income is estimated to be in the range of $97,000 to $98,000, nearly twice as high the American national median.”
Forget Africa, are you honestly claiming there is no link between these two facts?
Indeed, Jews have the highest average verbal IQ in the world.
East Asians have the highest average numerical IQ in the world.
Those are just facts however much the left deny them
No they aren't. They are highly contentious. You only have to read much of the debate on it because there are so many variables. Many poor countries score around 50. Nepal is 43. Do you really think the average intelligence of these people is actual a score between idiot and moron. Of course they aren't.
Having had to take many of these tests in my career and having had to set them for potential rmployees I explained the methods I could use to up your score by 10 - 20 points. @rcs1000 then came up with a study showing you could train someone to increase their score by 20 points, and this is in well educated countries like the UK and USA.
So even Leon's standard deviation example is nonsense as there are just so many variables. Genetically different people might have different IQs but that could be for all sorts of reasons.
This is just unscientific shite
IQ tests measure something important, which allows people to succeed in a capitalist society, if it upsets you, don't call it "intelligence"
Jews are smarter ON AVERAGE than non-Jews. IQ tests detect that. As do Nobel Prizes:
"At least 210 Jews and people of half- or three-quarters-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize, accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2021,"
Read that again, between a fifth and a quarter of all Nobel Prizes have gone to people of notably Jewish ancestry, yet Jews constitute perhaps 0.2-0.3% of the global population
What is the point in denying this obvious stuff? Honestly, it makes the commenter sound wilfully retarded. I understand why a politician in a public forum may need to steer clear of these contentious issues, but this is a small political betting website. FFS
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 we don't have enough workers and the ratio of workers/rich pensioners is out of whack. That will be the case whether we are in or out of the EU, or have a Tory or even UKIP govt. Tory and Brexit voters were lied to by Tories and Leave politicians.
Please blame them for lying, rather than the system, the metropolitan elite or the migrants.
This is just the same old bullshit that has been debunked a hundred times.
The level of immigration you would need to meaningfully alter the elderly dependency ratio is staggering. You would have to multiply immigration by about 10x and cause massive integration issues.
As for "enough workers", we have plenty of workers for unskilled jobs like florists and telesales. The problem is the pay and conditions in those jobs are shit.
As always, you "let them all in" types don't actually address the issue of why we need to import shopkeepers as skilled workers, so instead you do this sneering patronization.
Perhaps you could have a go at answering the question in your last paragraph instead of having a shit-fit about it.
Why indeed do we need to import flower-arrangers, which was another skilled profession I saw on the list.
We don't and the government should get criticism for it.
And get booted out for it - we are able to sack our Government in a way that we couldn't sack the four freedoms (obviously until we did, yadayadyada).
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Do you really think the decline of the “North” (yes I know Stoke is in the Midlands) can be attributed to a “loss of pride”?
There's a chunk of that, I reckon. Places that were somewhere, that were damn good at what they did, but they lose their purpose. Heck, I grew up in a place a bit like that in a different part of the country. Partly, the money that was coming stops, and that shows. But also, there's the emotional kick, the difficulty of working out what the place is for next. And in some (maybe many) cases, the answer is "not much", or "something a lot less profitable than before".
It needn't last forever, but it's painful while it lasts. And civic pride (alongside investment in infrastructure and retraining) is part of the mix of getting over the gap.
Yes, but the loss of pride follows the economic decline, not so much the other way round.
As Leon goes on to relate, Britain has an awful lot of these places as a result of industrialising early and densely.
I could go on, but I feel I’ve written a lot about this before. The only thing that matters is how to fix it.
Essentially the answers are:
1. Autonomy 2. Infrastructure 3. Skills
The first seems to be anathema to British tradition, and 2 and 3 require money - lots of it and over a long term, too.
It’s possible. East Germany is the leading example. Even there, the places have suffered a lot of depopulation, but at least those that are left are now wealthier than much of the UK.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Do you really think the decline of the “North” (yes I know Stoke is in the Midlands) can be attributed to a “loss of pride”?
I don't know. Perhaps. There's something that happens to regons which isn't about state funding, isn't about transport, and probably isn't about eductation.
See my post. It’s precisely about those things, plus autonomy.
Of course Stoke didn't become like that because of Brexit, it voted for Brexit because it had become like that.
Less to do with Brexit and more that Stoke is a dump and people can’t escape quickly enough .
I had a girlfriend from Stoke, once. Very pretty elfin blonde. Helen
Worked in the record biz
I have never met someone so desperately keen NOT to ever return to their hometown
My father grew up in Stoke. He left to go to Uni and never went back. He does not have fond memories of the place
Here's a prediction: until the Left stops insulting places like Stoke-on-Trent they'll never win power again.
Here's another prediction: unless this government starts successfully "levelling-up" places like Stoke-on Trent they won't get re-elected.
Is it a government thing though? I'm very far from convinced that it is. Stoke or other places are treated the same as far more prosperous areas after all. It's almost like a sort of local malaise that affects some areas. If government action can solve it then I'd be the first to support that, but I think there's something else going on, and I've no idea what it is. (Perhaps a loss of pride? Stoke was once world reknown)
Government spending per head on transport in London - £877.76
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
London is rather different though, and particularly for transport spending. Building an underground railway in Stoke would seem to be an unlikely winner. (One day though)
So you concede it's not treated the same way?
Oh yes. Absolutely. London is treated as an entirely different beast to anywhere else in the UK. Mostly the differences are around transport, and the contrast between driving to work or taking public transport is huge. I've no idea what percentage of the UK state revenues come from London, but it'll be a big number. Every other region in the UK benefits.
Its almost as if IQ is a crap and spurious measure...
This is just unscientific bullshit. IQ is THE most reliable metric in the whole of modern psychology. If it doesn't meet your scientific standards than you can throw out the entire field of study as worthless.
Bollocks. (That's my professional opinion having a PhD in psychology and a chair at a Russell Group university.)
Comments
I sometimes feel we don’t give enough regard to those who couldn’t be bothered to vote in the referendum. Who were they? Which way would they have voted if they had been forced to make a choice?
Maybe Remainers do still rant about Brexit, because we're sad at the futility and damage of it all.
But the question is: why to Leavers still rant about it? You won ffs!
She kept asking me to tie her up, but I was so young and naive I just thought “well we’re already having wild sex all over london, on Ecstasy, why would I want to do THAT?”
Head::desk
Eliminating our Freedom of Moivement to Europe doesn't give us any more freedom to move to Australia and America. It just means we are less free than before. EU transfers are entirely consumed by additional UK spending without directly matching the EU expenditure lines, per the ONS. ie losing the direct costs of EU membership is at best fiscally neutral. There is no direct tax saving from dropping the EU membership fee. There is however a much larger revenue hit due to GDP falling short after Brexit. Bottom line the recent NI increases were made necessary by Brexit.
Certain NOT sole factor, but (my guess is) quite significant.
1 This isn't the fantasy Brexit that I had, therefore Brexit can't have happened yet, so who is to blame for that?
2 I expected everyone to cheer me to the rafters for liberating the nation, like in 1945, so why aren't the ungrateful sods cheering?
3 Some other stuff I haven't thought of.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-57923010#:~:text=An overhaul of local government,encompass Allerdale, Carlisle and Copeland.
As it involves Cumbria and line drawing there is zero chance of making everyone happy.
The idea of Penrith not being in Cumberland, and looking to Barrow rather than Carlisle as HQ is a bit odd.
Although I guess that’s a spin on (1).
They are not going to stop making animals in the short to medium term, and there's stacks of insurance around so you can pretty much literally charge £20k for triple bypass surgery on somebody's hamster
And in 97%+ of cases it is a vocation thing anyway
Parts of Stoke are alright. The station is impressive, as is the university campus.
But I must admit my favourite sight in Stoke is a big green sign that says 'Uttoxeter A50.'
Both the place itself, and how it is treated by the rest of the country.
That is the peninsula.
The exclave of Lancashire which was part of Cumbria has been called Lonsdale for centuries, very happily.
So either we import workers, or viable businesses close for lack of staff.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0bncl3n/stanley-tucci-searching-for-italy
I won’t hear a word against it
She was the Potteries version of the woman from the famous Berryman stanzas
Filling her compact & delicious body
with chicken páprika, she glanced at me
twice.
Fainting with interest, I hungered back
and only the fact of her husband & four other people
kept me from springing on her
or falling at her little feet and crying
'You are the hottest one for years of night
Henry's dazed eyes
have enjoyed, Brilliance.' I advanced upon
(despairing) my spumoni.—Sir Bones: is stuffed,
de world, wif feeding girls.
Except: there was no husband, and, reader, this feeding girl was Yes
But at the same time, it's important to normalise between countries with government provided health care, and where it is compulsory by not provided by taxes.
Because your average Swiss worker is also paying health insurance.
After all, Nigerians are the most qualified of US immigrants, even more than the Chinese.
The Middlesbrough of the West Midlands.
The A500 takes you to Crewe.
The A50 takes you to Dovedale.
Two holes minimum axshlly
I can see why others don't like it much. The key though for the Potters is whether Brexit has delivered them a better life, ot a prospect of one. I have my doubts that there will be any tangible benefits evident by the next GE.
Having had to take many of these tests in my career and having had to set them for potential rmployees I explained the methods I could use to up your score by 10 - 20 points. @rcs1000 then came up with a study showing you could train someone to increase their score by 20 points, and this is in well educated countries like the UK and USA.
So even Leon's standard deviation example is nonsense as there are just so many variables. Genetically different people might have different IQs but that could be for all sorts of reasons.
Spending in the North East* - £314.11
And you could say much the same for all the other forms of infrastructure. Housing. Telecoms.
Even allowing for the difference in the cost of living, it is not 'treated the same as other, more prosperous areas' and it shows.
It's not the only problem but it is a big problem.
*Not being stupid I am aware Stoke isn't in the North East.
Whilst the increased western support is encouraging there still seems to be a real shortage of aircraft which are supposed to be the basis of modern warfare. Aside from Putin daring to drop a nuke it is this that would seem to be the only thing potentially stopping Ukraine from winning the war.
The level of immigration you would need to meaningfully alter the elderly dependency ratio is staggering. You would have to multiply immigration by about 10x and cause massive integration issues.
As for "enough workers", we have plenty of workers for unskilled jobs like florists and telesales. The problem is the pay and conditions in those jobs are shit.
As always, you "let them all in" types don't actually address the issue of why we need to import shopkeepers as skilled workers, so instead you do this sneering patronization.
Private R&D spend tends to follow public R&D spend in terms of where it goes, and what spend there is in the UK has been highly concentrated in London and the usual suspects.
The government has pledged to increase R&D spend overall (though not to peer economy levels) and to rebalance a bit (though not by much) toward the “North”.
https://youtu.be/-5uB2LBE8Qw
People expected Mariupol to fall about two weeks ago, but it does now seem that it’s all over. Defence is now down to a single (but large) steel factory complex.
It needn't last forever, but it's painful while it lasts. And civic pride (alongside investment in infrastructure and retraining) is part of the mix of getting over the gap.
There are plenty of Stokes across the world - ex-industrial areas. Britain has a lot because we were the first to industrialise, and we did it when it was REALLY messy, and we are a small but densely populated country (and also we lost confidence in our urbanism post 1945, a separate, weird phenomenon)
There are worse Stokes in America - Detroit, say. There are better Stokes in East Germany - where German diligence has preserved some cleanliness and dignity, but the towns are still depopulating and maybe doomed
And pride - self esteem - seems crucial. Once people conclude "this place is a shit-hole, I have to leave" it is hard to reverse this self-fulfilling perception.
Some British cities have done it. The major example is, of course, London. A seedy post-Imperial city in apparently endless decline in 1980 was arguably the capital of the world by 2010. Quite something.
It has lost momentum of late but it still has a swagger, matched by few cities in the world. Someone who came here now who was last here in, say, February 1981 would be utterly astonished
So pride can be restored. This is good. But how do you do it for smaller towns and cities?
Why indeed do we need to import flower-arrangers, which was another skilled profession I saw on the list.
The truth about intelligence: A guide for the confusedOur thinking on human intellect is clouded with misinformation. But the latest science of intelligence is surprisingly enlightening
No wonder IQ tests are often considered controversial and flaky. But that simply isn’t the case. “Despite the critiques, the intelligence test is one of the most reliable and solid behavioural tests ever invented,” says Rex Jung at the University of New Mexico.
more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931870-400-the-truth-about-intelligence-do-iq-tests-really-work/#ixzz7QqFLRQMJ
Plus he mostly a Tory voter (although I seriously doubt he would vote for Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson)
IQ may well be a valuable metric, but it seems that we cannot measure it accurately, and certainly not across cultures and groups. It may have some validity comparing individuals within a group, but it cannot be extrapolated.
Camden was an example picked to wind up @Leon
Any project requiring purchase of land or property (or compensating neighbours) will cost more in London
IQ tests measure something important, which allows people to succeed in a capitalist society, if it upsets you, don't call it "intelligence"
Jews are smarter ON AVERAGE than non-Jews. IQ tests detect that. As do Nobel Prizes:
"At least 210 Jews and people of half- or three-quarters-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize, accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2021,"
Read that again, between a fifth and a quarter of all Nobel Prizes have gone to people of notably Jewish ancestry, yet Jews constitute perhaps 0.2-0.3% of the global population
What is the point in denying this obvious stuff? Honestly, it makes the commenter sound wilfully retarded. I understand why a politician in a public forum may need to steer clear of these contentious issues, but this is a small political betting website. FFS
As Leon goes on to relate, Britain has an awful lot of these places as a result of industrialising early and densely.
I could go on, but I feel I’ve written a lot about this before. The only thing that matters is how to fix it.
Essentially the answers are:
1. Autonomy
2. Infrastructure
3. Skills
The first seems to be anathema to British tradition, and 2 and 3 require money - lots of it and over a long term, too.
It’s possible. East Germany is the leading example. Even there, the places have suffered a lot of depopulation, but at least those that are left are now wealthier than much of the UK.