But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.
One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
The majority of people working in hospitality in the UK were always UK born.
The myth that all the people working at Pret were from the Czech Republic etc. comes from people who live in rather central London, where foreigners do dominate the low skilled, low pay jobs.
The situation has not vastly changed in London, either, in terms of ratios of foreigners vs UK citizens in such jobs.
The problem in the hospitality trade is a shortage of workers, meaning that those who are there are generally over worked.
The problem is that it’s pretty much impossible to live close to central London on minimum wage, unless you’re sleeping three or four to a room.
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK who would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
Edit. NR has now changed it to 'IMPRESSIVE' victory
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about everything else.
Any time the BBC discuss the outdoors or the Highlands. And anything to do with my area of work.
What's weird is I will immediately revert to trusting it by the time I read the next article.
I have rarely read a newspaper article which has been 100% accurate, when I have known details of the story. Important information is either wrong, omitted, or dumbed down to the point of falsity.
In one case, an article about me had my 'bad' foot moved from left to right (admittedly a trivial detail); in another the Derby Evening Telegraph had a fire occurring on the wrong side of the city, when it could be seen from their offices...
One exception is when the journalist emailed me the story, asking me for any corrections or anything I would like to add. Kudos to him.
One paper reported on some analysis I had done and added a 0 in a national headline.
This caused significant chaos.
I know I've mentioned it before, but my favoiurite is the UK newspaper writing a legal advice column based on English/Welsh law and running it in its separate and explicitly Scottish edition as well without caveat - I've seen some on house buying and selling, for instance, which would be disastrous if followed. But not as bad as the chap who was done for committing incest as a result of a piece on marital law (the Scots law being fussier about permitted degrees).
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
Starmer enthusiastically breaking bread with Macron would be brilliant - for the Tories.
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about subjects I don't know about.
Yes, that's my experience too, both of the Economist and most media - they get the general facts but then go down a rabbit-hole with misleading details to suit whatever the theme of their story is. The root of the problem is the doctrine that you need to decide the story in advance, then go and look for people who will buttress it.
My family had one bad experience with the Mail on Sunday after I'd criticised a Tory MP for a racist joke - a journalist seeking to dig dirt first went to our former elderly landlord and aggressively demanded that he tell them where I was living (he told them to get lost) and then tracked it down and doorstepped my wife with questions obviously designed to get a damning quote - "This isn't much of a house, are you embarrassed by it? Do you have another property tucked away somewhere?" (She curtly declined to comment, often the best defence as it's too boring to report.)
About ~ 10 years ago, I was peripherally involved in a murder inquiry that was then of great interest to the press.
By peripherally involved, I mean I happened to know the victim and the alleged killer and I knew some of the facts around the case.
The reporting -- by almost everyone, but especially the print media -- was riddled with basic factual inaccuracies.
It disabused me of any notion that there is integrity, or even basic fact-checking, in UK press journalism.
The following has been observed over the years on PB - in mass mass media story that touches on an area of expertise of various members of PB, they often report that the whole tory is wrong.
Gell-Mann Amnesia effect in action
There is an interesting corollary - particular journalists or publications being praised by the expert, which do get their details right for a *specific topic*.
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
I would comment that Le Pen receiving 42% of the French vote and the police opening fire on a vehicle today and killing two occupants would suggest France is not in a happy place
Starmer is against re-joining the EU and with Boris's problems, Starmer would not be best advised to raise the question of Europe at this time, no matter how much you want it
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
Hope you feel ok. I'm on roughly day 5 of symptoms (1 after positive PCR), feel tired and a cough has finally arrived.
My garmin watch (Fenix 6) has a deeply inaccurate oxygen measure but I'm using it to wind up Doctor girlfriend. Currently 94, apparently. "He's just as irritating as normal".
Yes - I noticed the same with my Garmin, when I had COVID.
The heart rate function is very good, I tested out vs chest strap heart rate monitor (Polar).
The oximeter thing gave totally different numbers (did before COVID) to the finger clip one that @Foxy recommended.
BUNGLER SPY US spy puts UK’s military secrets ONLINE so he can work from home ... The Sun was alerted to the data’s presence online and found it in seconds from a Google search.
LOL. The Times app server is playing up but this error message from Cloudfront (their CDN) suggests The Times has not set it up correctly so they see these messages and the public gets something more banal.
503 ERROR The request could not be satisfied. The Lambda function associated with the CloudFront distribution is invalid or doesn't have the required permissions. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner. If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation. Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront) Request ID: F_MmsD9_NWMYSFA5LSQ5YLeEGbswE6k4y_mjG-topQg78ERTLLI4mQ==
Speaking of misconfigurations, Deliveroo has just told me I need photo-ID to buy a bacon sandwich.
Just checking you're not really Ed Miliband? They have a duty of care to their delivery people/society, afterall
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK who would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
Edit. NR has now changed it to 'IMPRESSIVE' victory
42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
It may be a benefit for hospitality workers, to be fair, but it hasn't solved the staffing problems there. Higher wages usually means higher prices to the customer, hence inflation. We all then suffer, higher prices and still a lack of service in many areas. We still have pubs on reduced hours and many items out of stock in retail.
So your argument is to use cheap labour so you can have cheaper meals and services
No, I'm saying that the wages make no difference to recruitment as we have a shortage of workers. Moreover, in a lot of service industry jobs no amount of money can encourage people to swap to them and brew coffee and wipe old people's arses as someone put it.
I see that British Airways’ attempt to use the pandemic to do a “P&O” on their cabin crew a couple of years ago, is now backfiring on them spectacularly as demand returns.
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK who would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
Edit. NR has now changed it to 'IMPRESSIVE' victory
42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
I remember the heady days when a 52% to 48% result was emphatic. And the 48% should suck it up.
I think we underestimate at our betting peril this man's capacity to sacrifice everything and everyone in order to save his own skin.
They are reporting a senior official saying it's so damning that he may have no choice but to resign.
That's quite different. Boris only goes when there's a clear alternative who'd do better.
I cant recall who the leading "would do better than T May" was back in 2018-9..... genuinely who was the leading light?
It was potential tory leader speed-dating there for a while. Just about anybody with a pulse and whose arsehole faced down was in with a shout. John "Johnny" Mercer, S/Lt (Acting) Mordaunt, Rat Eyes, even JRM when the collective neurosis was at its peak.
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about subjects I don't know about.
The Economist is written by people with an average age of about 25, following a very tight style guide. Once you know this, it becomes obvious when reading it.
I find the same problem with much of the FT’s commentary. And it’s got noticeably worse since it got bought by the Japanese. Mid 20s art history grads masquerading as experts in finance.
But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.
One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
The majority of people working in hospitality in the UK were always UK born.
The myth that all the people working at Pret were from the Czech Republic etc. comes from people who live in rather central London, where foreigners do dominate the low skilled, low pay jobs.
The situation has not vastly changed in London, either, in terms of ratios of foreigners vs UK citizens in such jobs.
The problem in the hospitality trade is a shortage of workers, meaning that those who are there are generally over worked.
The problem is that it’s pretty much impossible to live close to central London on minimum wage, unless you’re sleeping three or four to a room.
Yes. One practical result of house prices rising is that the landlords are kicking out the layers of illegal sub tenanting, and putting the houses on the market.
There was an example locally, that I saw, during lockdown. My wife had organised a house viewing - some of the detail seemed a bit odd. Went along, and it was one of these slums - one of the bathrooms had been turned into a bedroom. When we visited there were 7-8 people in the house, but evidence that 12-15 people were living there.
Just the other day, saw it on the market again - the landlord had cleared out the tenants and done a superficial tidy up.
The garden, on my first visit had a pile of delivery bikes for Deliveroo etc.
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about subjects I don't know about.
The Economist is written by people with an average age of about 25, following a very tight style guide. Once you know this, it becomes obvious when reading it.
I find the same problem with much of the FT’s commentary. And it’s got noticeably worse since it got bought by the Japanese. Mid 20s art history grads masquerading as experts in finance.
Indeed. Who gets a degree in finance or economics then takes a £30k junior newspaper reporter salary, when the City will start you on double that salary and double that again in a handful of years?
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about everything else.
Any time the BBC discuss the outdoors or the Highlands. And anything to do with my area of work.
What's weird is I will immediately revert to trusting it by the time I read the next article.
I have rarely read a newspaper article which has been 100% accurate, when I have known details of the story. Important information is either wrong, omitted, or dumbed down to the point of falsity.
In one case, an article about me had my 'bad' foot moved from left to right (admittedly a trivial detail); in another the Derby Evening Telegraph had a fire occurring on the wrong side of the city, when it could be seen from their offices...
One exception is when the journalist emailed me the story, asking me for any corrections or anything I would like to add. Kudos to him.
One paper reported on some analysis I had done and added a 0 in a national headline.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
FPT, thanks @CorrectHorseBattery for your comment re the bullying. TBH (1) it was confined to @Anabobazina (with a little help from a 'fact checker') and (2) I was laughing this morning at how many posts they spewed out late on a Sunday night. The reverse ferret on denying they had been mocking on Virginia and then, when presented with the post, turning round and saying they were right all along was also funny (I say 'they' because I have no idea whether it's a man or woman).
Still, my view of such people is that it is best to hope that they get the help they so obviously need with what seems like multiple issues.
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
I would comment that Le Pen receiving 42% of the French vote and the police opening fire on a vehicle today and killing two occupants would suggest France is not in a happy place
Starmer is against re-joining the EU and with Boris's problems, Starmer would not be best advised to raise the question of Europe at this time, no matter how much you want it
It was always a thing for leaders of the opposition to show their potential by meeting foreign leaders. America was the prize though that didn't always go well. Remember Kinnock?
Now the Top Honcho has got to be Macron and not just for the europhiles.
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about subjects I don't know about.
The Economist is written by people with an average age of about 25, following a very tight style guide. Once you know this, it becomes obvious when reading it.
I find the same problem with much of the FT’s commentary. And it’s got noticeably worse since it got bought by the Japanese. Mid 20s art history grads masquerading as experts in finance.
Indeed. Who gets a degree in finance or economics then takes a £30k junior newspaper reporter salary, when the City will start you on double that salary and double that again in a handful of years?
The comments below the articles are often far better informed than the article itself. If I ran it I’d make better use of freelancing, sitting under a commissioning board of highly paid finance grey hairs that have seen it all.
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about subjects I don't know about.
The Economist is written by people with an average age of about 25, following a very tight style guide. Once you know this, it becomes obvious when reading it.
I find the same problem with much of the FT’s commentary. And it’s got noticeably worse since it got bought by the Japanese. Mid 20s art history grads masquerading as experts in finance.
Indeed. Who gets a degree in finance or economics then takes a £30k junior newspaper reporter salary, when the City will start you on double that salary and double that again in a handful of years?
Martin Wolf, the FT's chief economics commentator, has an MPhil in economics from Oxford and used to work at the World Bank.
There are still some very able writers there and as the 2008 crash proved, just because you work in the City does not make you a genius, even if it is likely to make you reasonably rich and plenty of money
I see that British Airways’ attempt to use the pandemic to do a “P&O” on their cabin crew a couple of years ago, is now backfiring on them spectacularly as demand returns.
A friend works as cabin crew. Malicious compliance with rules is apparently the new sport there.
It’s not just BA either. A lot of the travel industry used the pandemic as an excuse for serious restructuring, and have lost a lot of people they now really need as the world returns to something approaching normal.
I know of one airline who made redundant 500 £200k/yr A380 captains. Now these guys and gals don’t grow on trees, but many of them have relocated to different countries and taken other jobs. Funnily enough, they don’t now want to go back for £150k.
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about subjects I don't know about.
The Economist is written by people with an average age of about 25, following a very tight style guide. Once you know this, it becomes obvious when reading it.
I find the same problem with much of the FT’s commentary. And it’s got noticeably worse since it got bought by the Japanese. Mid 20s art history grads masquerading as experts in finance.
Indeed. Who gets a degree in finance or economics then takes a £30k junior newspaper reporter salary, when the City will start you on double that salary and double that again in a handful of years?
I once came across an FT three line article on a company I worked for. There was at least 1 major mistake in each sentence. Including a howler for anyone in finance.
The source of the article was a joint press release from the company and another company. They couldn't even Copy 'n Pasta correctly.
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK who would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
Edit. NR has now changed it to 'IMPRESSIVE' victory
42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
I remember the heady days when a 52% to 48% result was emphatic. And the 48% should suck it up.
No one is disputing the results of the election, or demanding a re-run, not least Le Pen.
What some of us are pointing out is that 42% of the population voting for her, especially given the drag factor for the war, is not a great sign.
However, if you those 42% of French people who did vote for her should now just follow Macron, that's your choice. I suspect you wouldn't get a welcome in many towns and villages in rural France.
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
I would comment that Le Pen receiving 42% of the French vote and the police opening fire on a vehicle today and killing two occupants would suggest France is not in a happy place
Starmer is against re-joining the EU and with Boris's problems, Starmer would not be best advised to raise the question of Europe at this time, no matter how much you want it
It was always a thing for leaders of the opposition to show their potential by meeting foreign leaders. America was the prize though that didn't always go well. Remember Kinnock?
Now the Top Honcho has got to be Macron and not just for the europhiles.
You really cannot see the politics in this can you
Your admiration for all things France and EU is obvious but the last thing Starmer needs just now is to indicate a closeness to France which would galvanise the conservatives
Indeed I believe Starmer is wise enough not to go down that route
But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.
One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
How do you know? You live in France
I don't live in France (thanks to the brexiteers) I have a home in France.
All this speculation about a confidence vote. But might it not be that Johnson goes in the autumn when the Privileges Committee reports? Or is to being assumed that even if the Committee finds him in contempt of Parliament, he'll get all the Con MPs whipped to reject what they find/recommend -- a la Owen Paterson?
My guess is that May's locals results will not be as bad as speculated and he will survive that as all the backbenchers swerve to start saying 'we must wait for the committee to report'. That will drift well into summer and by then it will be too late to hold a contest to complete by the Autumn conference season and they will come up with something else.
42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
Being in government will do that for you -- you have to run on what you've done rather than merely what you promise you will do. For an estimate of how much of France is in favour of far-right populism, the round 1 votes are probably more helpful -- the two round system means that Le Pen's r2 result is a mix of genuine support and protest votes.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost.
Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less. The alternative is either to go bust when you end up paying three workers all £15/hr, or to pass the costs on in higher prices.
The status quo of millions of minimum-wage workers trying to cram into overcrowded housing is unsustainable, and why the UK has had a productivity problem for years.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.
One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
The majority of people working in hospitality in the UK were always UK born.
The myth that all the people working at Pret were from the Czech Republic etc. comes from people who live in rather central London, where foreigners do dominate the low skilled, low pay jobs.
The situation has not vastly changed in London, either, in terms of ratios of foreigners vs UK citizens in such jobs.
The problem in the hospitality trade is a shortage of workers, meaning that those who are there are generally over worked.
EDIT: There was an amusing piece on Radio 4 the other day. A chap running a gastro pub had lost all his staff in the lock down. They were all doing other jobs now. He described his workplace conditions - mainly his use of no-notice shifts. Literally ring people the day before to tell them they were/weren't working.....
Short of actually flogging his employees.... it was astonishing to me that they hadn't all left before.
I don't know the precise figures but in ALL major cities and large towns it's obvious to anyone who eats out and uses hotels a lot that many if not most of the staff were European. Even in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The only area I can think of where this doesn't SEEM to be the case is North Wales.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
Of course machines require cleaning, service and maintenance to keep working efficiently. The argument that machines need to be replacing people in such jobs still stands though.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
This is utter nonsense and always has been, @TOPPING is a big fan of this myth too. Wages are just one of many factors in prices, commodity prices and many other factors are equally if not more important too.
Rising wages so long as they are supported by market conditions is how standards of living improve and is not simply inflation.
The problem in the seventies was that wage-inflation was not driven by market conditions, but instead by politicians and unions etc getting involved in wage negotiations. So inflationary price rises were occurring because of politics, rather than economics.
If the wages are going up because of supply and demand that isn't inflation, it is real wage growth.
The problem causing inflation today isn't wages, it is commodity prices. Commodity prices up and wages flat is inflation and real wage decline. Wages up and commodity prices flat is real wage growth higher than inflation.
I think we underestimate at our betting peril this man's capacity to sacrifice everything and everyone in order to save his own skin.
They are reporting a senior official saying it's so damning that he may have no choice but to resign.
That's quite different. Boris only goes when there's a clear alternative who'd do better.
I cant recall who the leading "would do better than T May" was back in 2018-9..... genuinely who was the leading light?
It was potential tory leader speed-dating there for a while. Just about anybody with a pulse and whose arsehole faced down was in with a shout. John "Johnny" Mercer, S/Lt (Acting) Mordaunt, Rat Eyes, even JRM when the collective neurosis was at its peak.
Ruth Davidson.
Just astonishing mental breakdown by the betting market.
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK who would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
Edit. NR has now changed it to 'IMPRESSIVE' victory
42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
I remember the heady days when a 52% to 48% result was emphatic. And the 48% should suck it up.
No one is disputing the results of the election, or demanding a re-run, not least Le Pen.
What some of us are pointing out is that 42% of the population voting for her, especially given the drag factor for the war, is not a great sign.
However, if you those 42% of French people who did vote for her should now just follow Macron, that's your choice. I suspect you wouldn't get a welcome in many towns and villages in rural France.
Macron is certainly likely to lose his majority in the legislative elections in June.
A BVA poll yesterday had 66% wanting En Marche to lose its majority, it was a vote to keep out Le Pen but Macron will likely swiftly find out it is going to be harder for him to govern in his second term
Journalists should run drafts of significant articles past PB before publishing.
Yes, the PB editing machine would be very good! Running them first past their own editors would be a good starting point, especially for technical articles they are intending to be read by an informed audience.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost.
Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less. The alternative is either to go bust when you end up paying three workers all £15/hr, or to pass the costs on in higher prices.
The status quo of millions of minimum-wage workers trying to cram into overcrowded housing is unsustainable, and why the UK has had a productivity problem for years.
On the general productivity problem, I would agree.
It was interesting, when Sunak made investing in equipment such a bargain (for a while) to hear the complaints from business. To many, investment in equipment is this horrible thing you have to do, when the old stuff has completely broken down.
The contrast with things like French domestic building site is interesting.
Even the smallest site in France seems to have a mini-crane setup as the first part of the job. Not long ago, I watched a dozen Polish blokes manhandling a hug piece of double glassing up 2 stories of scaffolding, in London.
In France, labour costs are high. Not so much wages as the indirect costs (the things that Macron is on about). Investment in equipment gets some big tax breaks.
I think we underestimate at our betting peril this man's capacity to sacrifice everything and everyone in order to save his own skin.
They are reporting a senior official saying it's so damning that he may have no choice but to resign.
That's quite different. Boris only goes when there's a clear alternative who'd do better.
I cant recall who the leading "would do better than T May" was back in 2018-9..... genuinely who was the leading light?
It was potential tory leader speed-dating there for a while. Just about anybody with a pulse and whose arsehole faced down was in with a shout. John "Johnny" Mercer, S/Lt (Acting) Mordaunt, Rat Eyes, even JRM when the collective neurosis was at its peak.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
Of course machines require cleaning, service and maintenance to keep working efficiently. The argument that machines need to be replacing people in such jobs still stands though.
Besides, next time you go to Starbucks/Costa etc have a look at their machines. Last time I looked at one, the espresso machine is grinding the coffee beans anyway it isn't separate to it, so the servicing of the machine is something they already have to do.
The primary thing the baristas seem to do is handle the milk and add syrups etc, not how they handle the coffee which the machine is already dealing with.
42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
Being in government will do that for you -- you have to run on what you've done rather than merely what you promise you will do. For an estimate of how much of France is in favour of far-right populism, the round 1 votes are probably more helpful -- the two round system means that Le Pen's r2 result is a mix of genuine support and protest votes.
No doubt though that the french are unhappy and don't seem to think the country is going in the right direction.
Bootle has interesting piece on their economy this morning:
One thing the FR seem to get right is productivity. Maybe that has been forced on them because hiring people is so difficult. We seem to have the opposite issue. Our productivity is appalling.
But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.
One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
The majority of people working in hospitality in the UK were always UK born.
The myth that all the people working at Pret were from the Czech Republic etc. comes from people who live in rather central London, where foreigners do dominate the low skilled, low pay jobs.
The situation has not vastly changed in London, either, in terms of ratios of foreigners vs UK citizens in such jobs.
The problem in the hospitality trade is a shortage of workers, meaning that those who are there are generally over worked.
EDIT: There was an amusing piece on Radio 4 the other day. A chap running a gastro pub had lost all his staff in the lock down. They were all doing other jobs now. He described his workplace conditions - mainly his use of no-notice shifts. Literally ring people the day before to tell them they were/weren't working.....
Short of actually flogging his employees.... it was astonishing to me that they hadn't all left before.
Roger does not recognise anywhere in the UK beyond central London.
I think we underestimate at our betting peril this man's capacity to sacrifice everything and everyone in order to save his own skin.
They are reporting a senior official saying it's so damning that he may have no choice but to resign.
That's quite different. Boris only goes when there's a clear alternative who'd do better.
I cant recall who the leading "would do better than T May" was back in 2018-9..... genuinely who was the leading light?
It was potential tory leader speed-dating there for a while. Just about anybody with a pulse and whose arsehole faced down was in with a shout. John "Johnny" Mercer, S/Lt (Acting) Mordaunt, Rat Eyes, even JRM when the collective neurosis was at its peak.
Ruth Davidson.
Just astonishing mental breakdown by the betting market.
I forgot about Lawrence of Belgravia too. Now languishing in the "Where Are They Now?" file.
But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.
One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
The majority of people working in hospitality in the UK were always UK born.
The myth that all the people working at Pret were from the Czech Republic etc. comes from people who live in rather central London, where foreigners do dominate the low skilled, low pay jobs.
The situation has not vastly changed in London, either, in terms of ratios of foreigners vs UK citizens in such jobs.
The problem in the hospitality trade is a shortage of workers, meaning that those who are there are generally over worked.
EDIT: There was an amusing piece on Radio 4 the other day. A chap running a gastro pub had lost all his staff in the lock down. They were all doing other jobs now. He described his workplace conditions - mainly his use of no-notice shifts. Literally ring people the day before to tell them they were/weren't working.....
Short of actually flogging his employees.... it was astonishing to me that they hadn't all left before.
Roger does not recognise anywhere in the UK beyond central London.
Roger does not recognise anywhere in France beyond central Paris.
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
I would comment that Le Pen receiving 42% of the French vote and the police opening fire on a vehicle today and killing two occupants would suggest France is not in a happy place
Starmer is against re-joining the EU and with Boris's problems, Starmer would not be best advised to raise the question of Europe at this time, no matter how much you want it
It was always a thing for leaders of the opposition to show their potential by meeting foreign leaders. America was the prize though that didn't always go well. Remember Kinnock?
Now the Top Honcho has got to be Macron and not just for the europhiles.
It was irrelevant then, and is irrelevant now, electorally.
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK who would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
Edit. NR has now changed it to 'IMPRESSIVE' victory
42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
I remember the heady days when a 52% to 48% result was emphatic. And the 48% should suck it up.
Of course - both in France and with Brexit. Has anyone suggested otherwise?
But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.
One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
The majority of people working in hospitality in the UK were always UK born.
The myth that all the people working at Pret were from the Czech Republic etc. comes from people who live in rather central London, where foreigners do dominate the low skilled, low pay jobs.
The situation has not vastly changed in London, either, in terms of ratios of foreigners vs UK citizens in such jobs.
The problem in the hospitality trade is a shortage of workers, meaning that those who are there are generally over worked.
EDIT: There was an amusing piece on Radio 4 the other day. A chap running a gastro pub had lost all his staff in the lock down. They were all doing other jobs now. He described his workplace conditions - mainly his use of no-notice shifts. Literally ring people the day before to tell them they were/weren't working.....
Short of actually flogging his employees.... it was astonishing to me that they hadn't all left before.
I don't know the precise figures but in ALL major cities and large towns it's obvious to anyone who eats out and uses hotels a lot that many if not most of the staff were European. Even in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The only area I can think of where this doesn't SEEM to be the case is North Wales.
2017 - "Between 12.3% and 23.7% of the UK hospitality sector workforce is currently made up of EU nationals."
There is an effect, I've been told, where the staff up front are tailored to customers expectations - so in posh restaurants they make sure the sommelier has a foreign accent.
A reverse example - a local butcher runs a massive commercial trade. He has all the pubs and restaurants for miles around using him as a supplier. All the English cheeky chaps work in the front shop, doing the banter with the customers. The crew at the back are nearly all Polish.....
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
I would comment that Le Pen receiving 42% of the French vote and the police opening fire on a vehicle today and killing two occupants would suggest France is not in a happy place
Starmer is against re-joining the EU and with Boris's problems, Starmer would not be best advised to raise the question of Europe at this time, no matter how much you want it
It was always a thing for leaders of the opposition to show their potential by meeting foreign leaders. America was the prize though that didn't always go well. Remember Kinnock?
Now the Top Honcho has got to be Macron and not just for the europhiles.
You really cannot see the politics in this can you
Your admiration for all things France and EU is obvious but the last thing Starmer needs just now is to indicate a closeness to France which would galvanise the conservatives
Indeed I believe Starmer is wise enough not to go down that route
Quite right. In fact, if Starmer wants to attract the right-wing PB contingent to Labour, he should insert a manifesto pledge that on becoming PM his first act will be to declare war on France. That'll show 'em.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
Of course machines require cleaning, service and maintenance to keep working efficiently. The argument that machines need to be replacing people in such jobs still stands though.
Besides, next time you go to Starbucks/Costa etc have a look at their machines. Last time I looked at one, the espresso machine is grinding the coffee beans anyway it isn't separate to it, so the servicing of the machine is something they already have to do.
The primary thing the baristas seem to do is handle the milk and add syrups etc, not how they handle the coffee which the machine is already dealing with.
Starbucks has actually been ahead of the trend here, they’ve been replacing manual espresso machines with automatic ones for a few years now - it’s been demanded in markets where costs of unskilled labour are high.
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about subjects I don't know about.
Yes, that's my experience too, both of the Economist and most media - they get the general facts but then go down a rabbit-hole with misleading details to suit whatever the theme of their story is. The root of the problem is the doctrine that you need to decide the story in advance, then go and look for people who will buttress it.
My family had one bad experience with the Mail on Sunday after I'd criticised a Tory MP for a racist joke - a journalist seeking to dig dirt first went to our former elderly landlord and aggressively demanded that he tell them where I was living (he told them to get lost) and then tracked it down and doorstepped my wife with questions obviously designed to get a damning quote - "This isn't much of a house, are you embarrassed by it? Do you have another property tucked away somewhere?" (She curtly declined to comment, often the best defence as it's too boring to report.)
About ~ 10 years ago, I was peripherally involved in a murder inquiry that was then of great interest to the press.
By peripherally involved, I mean I happened to know the victim and the alleged killer and I knew some of the facts around the case.
The reporting -- by almost everyone, but especially the print media -- was riddled with basic factual inaccuracies.
It disabused me of any notion that there is integrity, or even basic fact-checking, in UK press journalism.
The following has been observed over the years on PB - in mass mass media story that touches on an area of expertise of various members of PB, they often report that the whole tory is wrong.
Gell-Mann Amnesia effect in action
There is an interesting corollary - particular journalists or publications being praised by the expert, which do get their details right for a *specific topic*.
But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.
One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
How do you know? You live in France
I don't live in France (thanks to the brexiteers) I have a home in France.
I'm sure the French are devastated at your absence.
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about subjects I don't know about.
Yes, that's my experience too, both of the Economist and most media - they get the general facts but then go down a rabbit-hole with misleading details to suit whatever the theme of their story is. The root of the problem is the doctrine that you need to decide the story in advance, then go and look for people who will buttress it.
My family had one bad experience with the Mail on Sunday after I'd criticised a Tory MP for a racist joke - a journalist seeking to dig dirt first went to our former elderly landlord and aggressively demanded that he tell them where I was living (he told them to get lost) and then tracked it down and doorstepped my wife with questions obviously designed to get a damning quote - "This isn't much of a house, are you embarrassed by it? Do you have another property tucked away somewhere?" (She curtly declined to comment, often the best defence as it's too boring to report.)
About ~ 10 years ago, I was peripherally involved in a murder inquiry that was then of great interest to the press.
By peripherally involved, I mean I happened to know the victim and the alleged killer and I knew some of the facts around the case.
The reporting -- by almost everyone, but especially the print media -- was riddled with basic factual inaccuracies.
It disabused me of any notion that there is integrity, or even basic fact-checking, in UK press journalism.
The following has been observed over the years on PB - in mass mass media story that touches on an area of expertise of various members of PB, they often report that the whole tory is wrong.
Gell-Mann Amnesia effect in action
There is an interesting corollary - particular journalists or publications being praised by the expert, which do get their details right for a *specific topic*.
I'm not sure if any of you know this but a close relative was at the heart of the terrorist attack at Fishmongers Hall. I knew what had happened many, many hours prior to the public but what was amazing, was how wrong the media was about what was going on.
They had the location wrong until about 9PM that night - and were still getting details wrong days later.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
V-true. Plus removing all but one worker fucks the shop when a machine breaks, the card machine goes down, the delivery guy arrives etc etc. Fragility from misplaced efficiency.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España
But have you tried using the hospitality industry recently.? Now that so many Europeans have been replaced by English workers in cafes restaurants bars and hotels it's become across the board crap.
One thing even the biggest eurosceptics will have appreciated with free movement was that the hospitality industry improved dramatically. Well it's now taken a nosedive.
The majority of people working in hospitality in the UK were always UK born.
The myth that all the people working at Pret were from the Czech Republic etc. comes from people who live in rather central London, where foreigners do dominate the low skilled, low pay jobs.
The situation has not vastly changed in London, either, in terms of ratios of foreigners vs UK citizens in such jobs.
The problem in the hospitality trade is a shortage of workers, meaning that those who are there are generally over worked.
EDIT: There was an amusing piece on Radio 4 the other day. A chap running a gastro pub had lost all his staff in the lock down. They were all doing other jobs now. He described his workplace conditions - mainly his use of no-notice shifts. Literally ring people the day before to tell them they were/weren't working.....
Short of actually flogging his employees.... it was astonishing to me that they hadn't all left before.
Roger does not recognise anywhere in the UK beyond central London.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España
Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.
The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.
How much are you paying per capsule :-)
I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
V-true. Plus removing all but one worker fucks the shop when a machine breaks, the card machine goes down, the delivery guy arrives etc etc. Fragility from misplaced efficiency.
You don't need to remove all but one worker though, instead what you can do is remove many workers with investment while also growing capacity or redirecting staff to work on something else that is value-added.
McDonalds have been doing this for years. One of my first jobs was working at McDonalds as a student and I worked front of house on the tills and would grab pre-made food from the counter and serve it to the customer. Now they've eliminated most of the people doing what was my then job, while simultaneously improving their offering so food is made fresh to order now rather than pre-made an hour ago.
Costa have invested a lot in getting their machines that make their drinks installed in other people's businesses. Petrol stations, supermarkets etc - one member of staff can service the machine a few times a day while the rest of the time the staff of the premise are doing their own jobs rather than have dedicated staff working as baristas.
According to Nick Robinson the BBC has had lots of callers telling them they are exaggerating the poor showing of Macron. I couldn't agree with the callers more. Why are the BBC putting this slant on a victory which however it is looked at is one of the best for many years.
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
I would comment that Le Pen receiving 42% of the French vote and the police opening fire on a vehicle today and killing two occupants would suggest France is not in a happy place
Starmer is against re-joining the EU and with Boris's problems, Starmer would not be best advised to raise the question of Europe at this time, no matter how much you want it
It was always a thing for leaders of the opposition to show their potential by meeting foreign leaders. America was the prize though that didn't always go well. Remember Kinnock?
Now the Top Honcho has got to be Macron and not just for the europhiles.
You really cannot see the politics in this can you
Your admiration for all things France and EU is obvious but the last thing Starmer needs just now is to indicate a closeness to France which would galvanise the conservatives
Indeed I believe Starmer is wise enough not to go down that route
Quite right. In fact, if Starmer wants to attract the right-wing PB contingent to Labour, he should insert a manifesto pledge that on becoming PM his first act will be to declare war on France. That'll show 'em.
The UK-EU relationship needs to improve to everyone's mutual benefit but extreme remain and leave views polarise sensible discussion
42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
Being in government will do that for you -- you have to run on what you've done rather than merely what you promise you will do. For an estimate of how much of France is in favour of far-right populism, the round 1 votes are probably more helpful -- the two round system means that Le Pen's r2 result is a mix of genuine support and protest votes.
No doubt though that the french are unhappy and don't seem to think the country is going in the right direction.
Bootle has interesting piece on their economy this morning:
One thing the FR seem to get right is productivity. Maybe that has been forced on them because hiring people is so difficult. We seem to have the opposite issue. Our productivity is appalling.
Some possible reasons for the UK's productivity issues:
1) Low interest rates allowing 'zombie firms' to survive and so not have their resources available for better use
2) A general economic shift towards low productivity sectors eg hand car washes
3) The government pumping in so much money into the economy that it reduced the need for productivity improvements
4) Availability of migrant workers leading it to be cheaper to employ the low paid than invest in equipment
5) Business profits not being passed on to the workers as higher pay giving those workers less incentive to increase profits by higher productivity
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
V-true. Plus removing all but one worker fucks the shop when a machine breaks, the card machine goes down, the delivery guy arrives etc etc. Fragility from misplaced efficiency.
You don't need to remove all but one worker though, instead what you can do is remove many workers with investment while also growing capacity or redirecting staff to work on something else that is value-added.
McDonalds have been doing this for years. One of my first jobs was working at McDonalds as a student and I worked front of house on the tills and would grab pre-made food from the counter and serve it to the customer. Now they've eliminated most of the people doing what was my then job, while simultaneously improving their offering so food is made fresh to order now rather than pre-made an hour ago.
Costa have invested a lot in getting their machines that make their drinks installed in other people's businesses. Petrol stations, supermarkets etc - one member of staff can service the machine a few times a day while the rest of the time the staff of the premise are doing their own jobs rather than have dedicated staff working as baristas.
I agree. But the temptation is to employ the minimum at the kiosk and then wonder why all the secondary jobs are performed poorly.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España
Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.
The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.
How much are you paying per capsule :-)
I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
A fraction of a penny for a double espresso? How do you figure?
I love my coffee and am pleased to have a beans-to-cup coffee machine again but there is no way I can get coffee beans cheap enough to be a fraction of a penny per cup.
Its certainly cheaper using beans than it is buying pods, but its not a fraction of a penny.
I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.
What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.
I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.
FPT, thanks @CorrectHorseBattery for your comment re the bullying. TBH (1) it was confined to @Anabobazina (with a little help from a 'fact checker') and (2) I was laughing this morning at how many posts they spewed out late on a Sunday night. The reverse ferret on denying they had been mocking on Virginia and then, when presented with the post, turning round and saying they were right all along was also funny (I say 'they' because I have no idea whether it's a man or woman).
Still, my view of such people is that it is best to hope that they get the help they so obviously need with what seems like multiple issues.
I sort of concur with your last sentence but the vile personal abuse I received from a poster last night crossed the line for me. Sometimes it's best to just walk away.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España
Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.
The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.
How much are you paying per capsule :-)
I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
Oh of course - but I don't consume as much coffee as tea - and this is so easy. Plus it's always fresh - a lot of palaver to keep beans or grounds fresh once opened. Also when making small quantities the difference is often marginal. Indeed my overall preference here in Spain is to have my coffee at a beachside bar overlooking the tranquil Mediterranean with some pastries , water, orange juice along with excellent coffee for just €1.60 the lot!
42% for Le Pen, especially given the furore over Russia probably cost her several points at least, should be taken as a warning both that France is unhappy and that Macron has alienated large parts of the population.
Being in government will do that for you -- you have to run on what you've done rather than merely what you promise you will do. For an estimate of how much of France is in favour of far-right populism, the round 1 votes are probably more helpful -- the two round system means that Le Pen's r2 result is a mix of genuine support and protest votes.
No doubt though that the french are unhappy and don't seem to think the country is going in the right direction.
Bootle has interesting piece on their economy this morning:
One thing the FR seem to get right is productivity. Maybe that has been forced on them because hiring people is so difficult. We seem to have the opposite issue. Our productivity is appalling.
Some possible reasons for the UK's productivity issues:
1) Low interest rates allowing 'zombie firms' to survive and so not have their resources available for better use
2) A general economic shift towards low productivity sectors eg hand car washes
3) The government pumping in so much money into the economy that it reduced the need for productivity improvements
4) Availability of migrant workers leading it to be cheaper to employ the low paid than invest in equipment
5) Business profits not being passed on to the workers as higher pay giving those workers less incentive to increase profits by higher productivity
Why Le Pen might win the presidency>why Le Pen might run Macron very close>why did Macron only win by 17% pts.
The last is a good question, only beating a fascist by 17% is not a great result. To have over 40% of the country willing to vote for the 'far right', or the 'far left', is concerning.
'Far right' is the BBCs stock phrase for Le Pen. What is it about the actual programme she stood on which makes it 'far right'? And do we really think that 40%+ of French voters voted for a fascist?
I think we underestimate at our betting peril this man's capacity to sacrifice everything and everyone in order to save his own skin.
They are reporting a senior official saying it's so damning that he may have no choice but to resign.
That's quite different. Boris only goes when there's a clear alternative who'd do better.
The practical problem is that it's not enough to find someone who could do better, they have to either achieve a thorough stitch-up of the parliamentary party or somehow *get their members to vote for that person*.
Yes, and Jeremy Hunt is one such person.
The trouble is it's not clear who it should be - and the polling for any alternative now Rishi is holed beneath the waterline utterly inconclusive - so I expect them to hold onto nurse.
There might still be enough letters for a VoNC in May though. That would be a good time to lay a Boris 2022 exit.
Its never been "no" benefits, its that the very few benefits are completely dwarfed by the negatives. Even in that piece it manages to flag them. Better than inflation pay rises for the workers who are in a sector like hospitality is great in the immediate term for those workers - but terrible for their industry.
Why? Because it shows a catastrophic lack of staff: https://beertoday.co.uk/2022/02/16/hospitality-staff-shortage/ The reason why some industries had an influx of the evil forrin wasn't because crooked employers wanted cheap labour, it started because there was a labour shortage as not enough Brits wanted to work in a bar or in a chicken processing factory or wiping someone's mother's bottom etc etc. And despite the inflation busting wage rises have Brits flooded into these sectors in anything like the numbers required? No.
Of course you will always seek a downside but to be fair, to those workers who have enjoyed above inflation (even at today's figure) wage increases is good news
Back in the 1970s the upshot was called a wage-price spiral. Trotskyist Trade Union Shop Stewards loved it. Mrs Thatcher, not so much.
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Yes, there need to be sustained increases in productivity. That means replacing minimum wage employees with capital equipment, in industries such as hospitality. A small chain-branded coffee shop doesn’t need three ‘baristas’, when a machine can make the coffee just as well, constistently, and at a lower cost. Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less.
You haven't encountered most press button coffee machines, then.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
My Nespresso makes nice coffee - cost €49 and wortks like a dream - 4 years and counting!! #barista España
Nespresso is a classic in the business plan genre - cheap machine (sold at very low margin), expensive consumables you are locked into.
The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.
How much are you paying per capsule :-)
I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
Indeed. HP are another classic example. A printer for c. £25 and then cartridges which can cost as much for each refill. And then they really went full tonto, programming their printers only to work when the chip inside ordered your next refill ... from HP.
Nowadays I avoid all such buy-ins. My bean-to-cup DeLonghi Eletta is a complete joy and every so often I can snap up a bargain Lavazza bean or Starbucks bean offer making it even cheaper. Basically I get barista quality coffee for, what, 10p a cup?
I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.
What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.
I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.
It was an utterly horrible piece of journalism by the mail and they should apologise and make a contribution to Ukraine charities
I am pleased Boris has communicated directly with Angela condemning the article, and we must all stand against this misogyny, no matter where it comes from
I was given a pretty rough ride on here a few months back for telling you that misogynism was rife in the Parliamentary Conservative Party. It was partly my fault for telling you I had a source and because at the time some of you thought I was a troll.
What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.
I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.
I still think you're trolling and don't think the fact that the Mail is a hate-filled rag is news to many people.
The Mail being misogynistic doesn't demonstrate that anything you said in the past right and I'm glad that even you recognise that people have come out against what the Mail have written.
She’d be better served trying to find the dinosaurs in her own party who fed this story to the press rather than targetting the journalist as a means of deflection.
An extraordinary story and rare to see cross-party condemnation.
The Mail and Mail on Sunday are awful. I'd like to think I would say that even if they were on the Left. It's their salacious tittle-tattle, mean-spiritedness and sometimes downright nastiness that is so revolting.
They're like Guido Fawkes without the humour or intelligence.
The Guardian placed a member of my extended family in danger. So I see the Guardian as the 'worst' of all the 'news'papers - particularly as they pretend to take a moral high ground.
All newspapers are, or can be, sh*t: when they put their political viewpoint, income, or just their friendships ahead of giving their readers information.
The media is mediated - processed by biased humans. So all outlets are potentially lying and misleading. Even a photo or a video of an event can be presented out of context.
I can only imagine the horror you went through. There is though no correlation between what the Grauniad did to you and the Wail's expose on Vagina-wielding Labour politicians written to save a liar and a crook. Both are inexcusable independently.
We can look at the funny side now. I won't go into details, but sometimes life can be perverse, with either good or bad results.
Actually, I'd argue that the Economist is excellent. It too has biases that are quite easy to see, but it seems to report in a relatively non-sensationalised manner.
I find the Economist is very readable and persuasive and convincing-seeming, but the problem is that any time it's been writing about something I know about, it's turned out to be complete and utter garbage. So obviously I'm kind of suspicious about all the authoritative, reasonable-sounding things it's saying about subjects I don't know about.
That's why I cancelled my subscription 10 years ago.
FPT, thanks @CorrectHorseBattery for your comment re the bullying. TBH (1) it was confined to @Anabobazina (with a little help from a 'fact checker') and (2) I was laughing this morning at how many posts they spewed out late on a Sunday night. The reverse ferret on denying they had been mocking on Virginia and then, when presented with the post, turning round and saying they were right all along was also funny (I say 'they' because I have no idea whether it's a man or woman).
Still, my view of such people is that it is best to hope that they get the help they so obviously need with what seems like multiple issues.
I sort of concur with your last sentence but the vile personal abuse I received from a poster last night crossed the line for me. Sometimes it's best to just walk away.
There was no personal abuse whatever, I don't know anything about you (unless you do in fact suffer from the deeply distressing condition I arbitrarily assigned to you, in which case my unreserved apologies). What there was was you purporting to sniff out shy Le Pen supporters on the basis of an idiot cunning misreading of some betting positions, but not having the guts to name them.
Comments
It is time for Starmer to go visiting. There are many in the UK who would like to see intent on the part of the leader of the opposition and a visit to our nearest and dearest would go down very well.
Edit. NR has now changed it to 'IMPRESSIVE' victory
Gell-Mann Amnesia effect in action
There is an interesting corollary - particular journalists or publications being praised by the expert, which do get their details right for a *specific topic*.
Starmer is against re-joining the EU and with Boris's problems, Starmer would not be best advised to raise the question of Europe at this time, no matter how much you want it
Fine by me, fill yer boots, but it gets paid for at the other end in the inflation figures.
The heart rate function is very good, I tested out vs chest strap heart rate monitor (Polar).
The oximeter thing gave totally different numbers (did before COVID) to the finger clip one that @Foxy recommended.
Ben Wallace now tops the table, followed by Truss and Zahawi
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1518493465646088192?s=20&t=MjlHZR2GPimwQ1T-SAESjw
There was an example locally, that I saw, during lockdown. My wife had organised a house viewing - some of the detail seemed a bit odd. Went along, and it was one of these slums - one of the bathrooms had been turned into a bedroom. When we visited there were 7-8 people in the house, but evidence that 12-15 people were living there.
Just the other day, saw it on the market again - the landlord had cleared out the tenants and done a superficial tidy up.
The garden, on my first visit had a pile of delivery bikes for Deliveroo etc.
Real wages: my regular chart updated for today's inflation figures. https://t.co/D5Vxj87K8H
Or, as the article we started with concludes,
But Indeed's Mr Kennedy says that pay rises resulting from hiring shortages will not bring about the "high-wage, high-skill" economy pursued by the government.
"Firms are facing a range of non-labour cost increases so their ability to offer big wage increases is limited," he says. "Without sustained increases in productivity, any wage increases are likely to be passed onto the consumer."
Still, my view of such people is that it is best to hope that they get the help they so obviously need with what seems like multiple issues.
Now the Top Honcho has got to be Macron and not just for the europhiles.
To work!
Martin Wolf, the FT's chief economics commentator, has an MPhil in economics from Oxford and used to work at the World Bank.
There are still some very able writers there and as the 2008 crash proved, just because you work in the City does not make you a genius, even if it is likely to make you reasonably rich and plenty of money
I know of one airline who made redundant 500 £200k/yr A380 captains. Now these guys and gals don’t grow on trees, but many of them have relocated to different countries and taken other jobs. Funnily enough, they don’t now want to go back for £150k.
The source of the article was a joint press release from the company and another company. They couldn't even Copy 'n Pasta correctly.
What some of us are pointing out is that 42% of the population voting for her, especially given the drag factor for the war, is not a great sign.
However, if you those 42% of French people who did vote for her should now just follow Macron, that's your choice. I suspect you wouldn't get a welcome in many towns and villages in rural France.
Your admiration for all things France and EU is obvious but the last thing Starmer needs just now is to indicate a closeness to France which would galvanise the conservatives
Indeed I believe Starmer is wise enough not to go down that route
Replace three £10/hr workers with one £15/hr worker and three £10k machines - pays for itself in a year or less. The alternative is either to go bust when you end up paying three workers all £15/hr, or to pass the costs on in higher prices.
The status quo of millions of minimum-wage workers trying to cram into overcrowded housing is unsustainable, and why the UK has had a productivity problem for years.
They break down frequently, require lots of cleaning and are generally a pain in the ass. Part of the problem is that coffee grounds are ideal for damaging machinery - fine, sticky, abrasive.....
The design where the coffee grounds are external to the majority of the machine is done that way for a reason.
Rising wages so long as they are supported by market conditions is how standards of living improve and is not simply inflation.
The problem in the seventies was that wage-inflation was not driven by market conditions, but instead by politicians and unions etc getting involved in wage negotiations. So inflationary price rises were occurring because of politics, rather than economics.
If the wages are going up because of supply and demand that isn't inflation, it is real wage growth.
The problem causing inflation today isn't wages, it is commodity prices. Commodity prices up and wages flat is inflation and real wage decline. Wages up and commodity prices flat is real wage growth higher than inflation.
Just astonishing mental breakdown by the betting market.
A BVA poll yesterday had 66% wanting En Marche to lose its majority, it was a vote to keep out Le Pen but Macron will likely swiftly find out it is going to be harder for him to govern in his second term
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1518296213191233536?s=20&t=2ZK00Q6SGSxkEty1l24YnQ
It was interesting, when Sunak made investing in equipment such a bargain (for a while) to hear the complaints from business. To many, investment in equipment is this horrible thing you have to do, when the old stuff has completely broken down.
The contrast with things like French domestic building site is interesting.
Even the smallest site in France seems to have a mini-crane setup as the first part of the job. Not long ago, I watched a dozen Polish blokes manhandling a hug piece of double glassing up 2 stories of scaffolding, in London.
In France, labour costs are high. Not so much wages as the indirect costs (the things that Macron is on about). Investment in equipment gets some big tax breaks.
The primary thing the baristas seem to do is handle the milk and add syrups etc, not how they handle the coffee which the machine is already dealing with.
Bootle has interesting piece on their economy this morning:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/04/25/macron-faces-mammoth-task-reviving-french-economy/
One thing the FR seem to get right is productivity. Maybe that has been forced on them because hiring people is so difficult. We seem to have the opposite issue. Our productivity is appalling.
An election held today would yield...
LAB: 301 MPs (+99)
CON: 254 (-111)
SNP: 56 (+8)
LDEM: 15 (+4)
When will Keir Starmer resign?
2017 - "Between 12.3% and 23.7% of the UK hospitality sector workforce is currently made up of EU nationals."
There is an effect, I've been told, where the staff up front are tailored to customers expectations - so in posh restaurants they make sure the sommelier has a foreign accent.
A reverse example - a local butcher runs a massive commercial trade. He has all the pubs and restaurants for miles around using him as a supplier. All the English cheeky chaps work in the front shop, doing the banter with the customers. The crew at the back are nearly all Polish.....
ROFL.
They had the location wrong until about 9PM that night - and were still getting details wrong days later.
The actual coffee in a double espresso costs a fraction of a penny.
How much are you paying per capsule :-)
I use a stove top mocha maker (in stainless steel) - one of them (I have varying sizes) is 25 years old.....
McDonalds have been doing this for years. One of my first jobs was working at McDonalds as a student and I worked front of house on the tills and would grab pre-made food from the counter and serve it to the customer. Now they've eliminated most of the people doing what was my then job, while simultaneously improving their offering so food is made fresh to order now rather than pre-made an hour ago.
Costa have invested a lot in getting their machines that make their drinks installed in other people's businesses. Petrol stations, supermarkets etc - one member of staff can service the machine a few times a day while the rest of the time the staff of the premise are doing their own jobs rather than have dedicated staff working as baristas.
Hope you are well felix
And Jeremy Corbyn twice re-banned it too.
How many times are they going to ban it?
Another successful prediction.
1) Low interest rates allowing 'zombie firms' to survive and so not have their resources available for better use
2) A general economic shift towards low productivity sectors eg hand car washes
3) The government pumping in so much money into the economy that it reduced the need for productivity improvements
4) Availability of migrant workers leading it to be cheaper to employ the low paid than invest in equipment
5) Business profits not being passed on to the workers as higher pay giving those workers less incentive to increase profits by higher productivity
I love my coffee and am pleased to have a beans-to-cup coffee machine again but there is no way I can get coffee beans cheap enough to be a fraction of a penny per cup.
Its certainly cheaper using beans than it is buying pods, but its not a fraction of a penny.
I think this latest incident about Angela Rayner indicates that my source was not wrong.
https://news.sky.com/story/tory-whips-looking-at-whether-they-know-who-made-sexist-rayner-remarks-12598530
What is heartening, and I mean this genuinely, is that a significant number of Conservatives have come out strongly in condemnation, including the PM. It gives me hope. There is still decency to be found in the Conservative Party, just as there was still decency to be found inside Corbyn's toxic Labour Party.
I think it's this same decency which will help rebuild the Conservative brand. Labour have almost achieved this in two years, so it is possible.
Still glad she lost of course.
The trouble is it's not clear who it should be - and the polling for any alternative now Rishi is holed beneath the waterline utterly inconclusive - so I expect them to hold onto nurse.
There might still be enough letters for a VoNC in May though. That would be a good time to lay a Boris 2022 exit.
Nowadays I avoid all such buy-ins. My bean-to-cup DeLonghi Eletta is a complete joy and every so often I can snap up a bargain Lavazza bean or Starbucks bean offer making it even cheaper. Basically I get barista quality coffee for, what, 10p a cup?
I am pleased Boris has communicated directly with Angela condemning the article, and we must all stand against this misogyny, no matter where it comes from
I am okay here thanks.
The Mail being misogynistic doesn't demonstrate that anything you said in the past right and I'm glad that even you recognise that people have come out against what the Mail have written.