There's not a chance that Hunt will lose his seat. SW Surrey was a Lib Dem target for years (and they held Waverley council for a long time) but now he has a lead of 8,000.
WRT Ukraine, it's plain that both the "realists" (Russia is too powerful to resist in its own sphere of influence) and the Chomskyist left (wringing their hands about how the NATO will make things worse by intervening) have had a bad war.
One to bookmark. I cite Scotland and the Red Wall.
It would be a big mistake for the EU to let Ukraine in in its present state. It's a worthwhile ambition, but as a tactical move it would be terrible.
Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries on Earth before the war and now it's barely a functioning state and economic black hole on top of that. So, on paper, Macron is right; they are decades away from meeting the requirements from EU membership...
And how long did it take the rest of the former Eastern European Soviet colonies - which weren't even democracies when they escaped the Russian sphere ? 'Decades' is just Macron being Macron.
And Dura Ace being Dura Ace.
Decades is a possibility, but as you note where theres will and support it can happen much faster. Societies can be transformed surprisingly quickly, and rebuilt quickly.
Can Ukraine manage that? It wont be easy, but the possibility doesnt deserve to be sneeringly dismissed by us. Macron can reasonably take the cautious prediction (personally I also think it will take the better part of a decade even going well), but a pessimistic or 'realistic' view is no more an automatic certainty than an optimistic one.
Well, yes, Britain told the rest of the EU this optimistic view in the early 2000s, then when it didn't quite work out Britain quit and left the others to hold the baby, paying for Hungary's paranoia and Poland's homophobe councils.
Should those countries have been accepted or not? On the whole, I would say accession has benefitted those countries significantly. And the fact Orban is definitely the odd person out demonstrates that.
There was a naive, but understandable, tendency to treat the Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe as a homogeneous monolith post-1990. One that is only just wearing off. They had considerable differences even under Communism.
Indeed, and different historical roots. Hungary has always been a pain in the arse
I see Parish is thinking about standing as an independent. Likely to cost £500 quid so just as well he claims to have financial backers. LibDem candidate is utterly unknown in the constituency even to LibDems so that's not a brilliant start.
There's not a chance that Hunt will lose his seat. SW Surrey was a Lib Dem target for years (and they held Waverley council for a long time) but now he has a lead of 8,000.
WRT Ukraine, it's plain that both the "realists" (Russia is too powerful to resist in its own sphere of influence) and the Chomskyist left (wringing their hands about how the NATO will make things worse by intervening) have had a bad war.
Surrey SW is the 19th LD target seat, on current polls Hunt's voteshare would certainly fall well below 50% at the next general election so if he is saved it will be a resilient Labour vote holding out that could be key.
The Tories also lost control of the local council, Waverley, in 2019 to a LD-Residents-Labour-Green coalition
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
Ireland is completely integrated as one Nation in Rugby Union and cricket. Both internationally and at club level. But not in football or the Olympics. It seems to go without a hitch. Does anyone know why this should be? Is it a class thing? Also. Hunt is the first senior Tory to mention the elephant. Tory LE results were dire. Right at the far extremity of expectations. They all must privately have noticed, surely?
Class is certainly one thing. Irish Rugby historically has been played by the middle / upper middle classes in Ireland at private school. Also an element of Religion in that, because of the class side of things, the religious / nationalist angle was much less pronounced (and there were a fair few Protestants left in the Irish upper classes). Most of the other sports have very strong nationalist / religious origins - Gaelic football and hurling the most obvious. Football less so but the Northern and Southern Irish working classes were often divided by religion
Thanks. Am thinking now I once heard you could draw a pretty good correlation of Irish voting behaviour by the sports you followed. GAA Fianna Fail. Rugby Fine Gael. (Six Nations games disparagingly referred to as FG Party Conference). Football Labour (not anymore. Maybe that's gone to SF).
Yup, that would pretty much sum it up and, when you look at the roots of both parties, it's pretty obvious - FF were the anti-treaty Republicans and FG were the pro-Treaty ones plus the gathering up of the ex-unionist votes. Football I would say now is probably more SF as you say.
Public servants, Whitehall, being told by PM that 91,000 are surplus to requirements and a pay rise of 3% is sufficient when inflation is heading for 10%. They’re also being told they are slackers if they work from home. Morale among public servants being tested, to put it mildly https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1525012331293511680
Lucky the Government doesn't need goodwill from civil servants to advance any of its agenda...
You mean like those that partied in Downing Street and Whitehall
A good start would be by sacking each and everyone of them
Hmm, what? While the person that either tacitly or actively encouraged such a culture remains in place? Nice one!
Johnson wants to restore civil service numbers to 2016 levels (cutting 90k jobs) to save £3.5bn a year. The additional numbers were employed to process Brexit.
More proof it has cost, rather than saved us money.
Actually many of those people were hired to deal with the pandemic, but hey ho, I don't expect integrity from you.
Brexit is done and the pandemic is done, so people hired to deal with that should be let go.
Is the pandemic done? Well, COVID-19 isn't done. I still have regular meetings with UK civil servants on COVID-19 and expect to do so for many months to come. I have a meeting later today to bid for some Govt money on a COVID-19 vaccination project.
People are still dying. We have an ongoing vaccination programme to run. COVID-19 is never going away. Hopefully, we'll get to the point where it is like the flu, but people seem to forget that the flu is a major seasonal infectious disease that causes considerably mortality and morbidity (including lost working days). Civil servants are employed to deal with the flu, with public health information programmes, with vaccination programmes, with managing the NHS response. If COVID-19 becomes like another flu, then take all those flu jobs and double them.
Boris Johnson promised that we would build a world-leading health security agency to prepare for future pandemics. You can't deliver on that promise with pre-pandemic staffing. So, which is it? Was Boris (gasp) lying? Or do you accept that we will need more civil servants working in health security? We don't need as many people working on COVID-19 as in 2020-1, sure, but we can't go back to 2016 levels.
Is Brexit done? One could quibble that we haven't worked out a post-Brexit relationship with the EU yet, as the continued politicking over Northern Ireland shows. But let's presume that will settle down eventually. What did Brexit mean? It meant, I understand, taking back control. Let's take as an example pesticide regulation. This is done for the EU in Parma. Part of what we paid to the EU was for this function and there were British people among the staff working in Parma. But we've taken back control now. We now control the UK's pesticide regulatory system. That's what the Brexiteers wanted, I understand.
OK, so whatever we choose to do with our now independent pesticide regulatory system, we need civil servants to man that system, forever. Taking back control means what was once done by Eurocrats now has to be done by UK bureaucrats. There is a necessary, permanent increase in UK civil servant jobs associated with Brexit.
So, COVID-19 and Brexit both require higher civil service numbers in perpetuity.
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
...except perhaps people who wanted an effective civil service, since disproportionately the good people will have left and government will be left with those not confident of finding a job elsewhere...
That's a good point to be fair, and glad you agree that there are plenty of duds we could get rid of instead.
What better solution would you propose to get rid of the duds?
I saw Hunt at a Tory leadership hustings event and thought he was very impressive - intelligent, thoughtful and articulate. That the Tories chose Johnson instead tells you everything you need to know about the moral and intellectual health of the party. It would be quite a pivot for them to go back and make the right choice now, I think they're too far gone down the UKIP rabbit hole to do it.
Johnson won a majority of 80, had they chosen Hunt in 2019 the Brexit Party would still have stood candidates in Tory held seats, likely there would have been more Tory losses to the LDs therefore and fewer Tory gains in the redwall, we may still be in a hung parliament, Corbyn still leader of the opposition and Brexit would still not have got done. Boris did what Tory members elected him to do
It would be a big mistake for the EU to let Ukraine in in its present state. It's a worthwhile ambition, but as a tactical move it would be terrible.
Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries on Earth before the war and now it's barely a functioning state and economic black hole on top of that. So, on paper, Macron is right; they are decades away from meeting the requirements from EU membership...
And how long did it take the rest of the former Eastern European Soviet colonies - which weren't even democracies when they escaped the Russian sphere ? 'Decades' is just Macron being Macron.
And Dura Ace being Dura Ace.
Decades is a possibility, but as you note where theres will and support it can happen much faster. Societies can be transformed surprisingly quickly, and rebuilt quickly.
Can Ukraine manage that? It wont be easy, but the possibility doesnt deserve to be sneeringly dismissed by us. Macron can reasonably take the cautious prediction (personally I also think it will take the better part of a decade even going well), but a pessimistic or 'realistic' view is no more an automatic certainty than an optimistic one.
Well, yes, Britain told the rest of the EU this optimistic view in the early 2000s, then when it didn't quite work out Britain quit and left the others to hold the baby, paying for Hungary's paranoia and Poland's homophobe councils.
Should those countries have been accepted or not? On the whole, I would say accession has benefitted those countries significantly. And the fact Orban is definitely the odd person out demonstrates that.
The EU is set up to deliver lower-income members benefits through structural investment transfers and labour market access. For sure. But existing members pay costs for those. And on the subjective political stuff, the biggest new members are hostile to common EU action. Finally they both cause and encourage anti-migrant sentiment that hurts support for the EU. So on net, the average W Europe EU government is firmly against any new members due to the disproportionate tail risk of a bad egg, and would even happily see Hungary gone in particular.
Of course existing members pay towards structural investment etc, but you forget that the return is the extension of free market for trade to be enjoyed by these countries, and the tax takes generated by improving growth in the continuing countries etc.
Johnson wants to restore civil service numbers to 2016 levels (cutting 90k jobs) to save £3.5bn a year. The additional numbers were employed to process Brexit.
More proof it has cost, rather than saved us money.
Actually many of those people were hired to deal with the pandemic, but hey ho, I don't expect integrity from you.
Brexit is done and the pandemic is done, so people hired to deal with that should be let go.
Is the pandemic done? Well, COVID-19 isn't done. I still have regular meetings with UK civil servants on COVID-19 and expect to do so for many months to come. I have a meeting later today to bid for some Govt money on a COVID-19 vaccination project.
People are still dying. We have an ongoing vaccination programme to run. COVID-19 is never going away. Hopefully, we'll get to the point where it is like the flu, but people seem to forget that the flu is a major seasonal infectious disease that causes considerably mortality and morbidity (including lost working days). Civil servants are employed to deal with the flu, with public health information programmes, with vaccination programmes, with managing the NHS response. If COVID-19 becomes like another flu, then take all those flu jobs and double them.
Boris Johnson promised that we would build a world-leading health security agency to prepare for future pandemics. You can't deliver on that promise with pre-pandemic staffing. So, which is it? Was Boris (gasp) lying? Or do you accept that we will need more civil servants working in health security? We don't need as many people working on COVID-19 as in 2020-1, sure, but we can't go back to 2016 levels.
Is Brexit done? One could quibble that we haven't worked out a post-Brexit relationship with the EU yet, as the continued politicking over Northern Ireland shows. But let's presume that will settle down eventually. What did Brexit mean? It meant, I understand, taking back control. Let's take as an example pesticide regulation. This is done for the EU in Parma. Part of what we paid to the EU was for this function and there were British people among the staff working in Parma. But we've taken back control now. We now control the UK's pesticide regulatory system. That's what the Brexiteers wanted, I understand.
OK, so whatever we choose to do with our now independent pesticide regulatory system, we need civil servants to man that system, forever. Taking back control means what was once done by Eurocrats now has to be done by UK bureaucrats. There is a necessary, permanent increase in UK civil servant jobs associated with Brexit.
So, COVID-19 and Brexit both require higher civil service numbers in perpetuity.
Rees-Mogg wasn't specifically referring to civil servants in the health area was he?
OK, so whatever we choose to do with our now independent pesticide regulatory system, we need civil servants to man that system, forever. Taking back control means what was once done by Eurocrats now has to be done by UK bureaucrats. There is a necessary, permanent increase in UK civil servant jobs associated with Brexit.
You're taking a sclerotic view that neglects the many opportunities that await Global Britain by not regulating pesticides if we have the courage and vision to grasp them.
If Labour hadn't stood and every one of their votes had gone to the Greens, the lead Conservative would have won by 1 vote. Sadly, Brian Adams died, hence the by-election. The Green challenger stood again and Labour and LibDems, um, didn't find suitable candidates. But a deselected Conservative, the former PCC for Surrey David Munro, decided to stand.
I'm not sure what to conclude from that! Name recognition as the former PCC, perhaps?
The other by election last night in Lewes had an equally curious result. Labour took 55% having previously not even had a candidate.
Not as curious as you think. The election was in Peacehaven, part of Lewes DC but just as close to Brighton. On the coastal strip, where Labour is picking up seats both east and west of Brighton now.
Well yes. Nevertheless. 55% from a standing start is still remarkable. Brighton is spreading. All part of demographic drift. The Sussex coast is the Potteries in reverse.
Public servants, Whitehall, being told by PM that 91,000 are surplus to requirements and a pay rise of 3% is sufficient when inflation is heading for 10%. They’re also being told they are slackers if they work from home. Morale among public servants being tested, to put it mildly https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1525012331293511680
Lucky the Government doesn't need goodwill from civil servants to advance any of its agenda...
You mean like those that partied in Downing Street and Whitehall
A good start would be by sacking each and everyone of them
Hmm, what? While the person that either tacitly or actively encouraged such a culture remains in place? Nice one!
No
I want him gone as well as you will note from my posts and certainly all the senior civil servants and mandarins
Someone suggested Boris and the senior mandarins should pay the fines of the rank and file civil servants, and that is a very good idea
Public servants, Whitehall, being told by PM that 91,000 are surplus to requirements and a pay rise of 3% is sufficient when inflation is heading for 10%. They’re also being told they are slackers if they work from home. Morale among public servants being tested, to put it mildly https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1525012331293511680
Lucky the Government doesn't need goodwill from civil servants to advance any of its agenda...
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
Unless they want to keep their cushy jobs and just moan?
Anyone good will be updating their CV and leaving ASAP - what you will be left rid is the ones who aren't that good.
Also it doesn't actually save that much in the scheme of things - total savings will be £3-4bn (Iooks big but decimates the work force) but at the cost of more things being outsourced at twice the price.
Sacking large amounts of people isn't a solution to save money - HMRC tried that - they are now (or were until yesterday) on a big recruitment spree to find the workers they need to actually do the things that they were neglecting (such as enforcement).
That's the key isn't it?
I see it with local authority Department Director journeymen. "We have reduced our workforce by 25%. A saving of £1m pa". Very impressive!
"Meanwhile our budget for agency staff has increased to £1.5m, a symptom of the Pandemic and the economic crisis".
The key to saving money is processes, training and organisation. Productivity....
I'm currently working on automating business processes that everyone on PB (outside the banking industry) assumes are totally automated
That is - from the traders trading to the client resolution paperwork, there is no need for anyone to touch anything. Monitoring, yes. But floors of buildings are filled with the people who copy and pasta stuff from one system to another. And more floors are filled with the people who fix the problems created by the people from the copy & pasta floors.
Government is largely composed of this.
No, this doesn't mean putting the entire country in one giant database. Anyone who suggest that needs shooting. Repeatedly.
What it means, is re-designing systems (not necessarily computer systems) and processes that are effective and efficient. And, included in the effective and efficient bit - not horrific for the implementer and the client alike.
Perhaps you thought the Conservative party took partygate seriously. Last night a champagne bottle signed by @BorisJohnson was donated to a charity event in Hertfordshire by local MP and Tory party chairman @OliverDowden.
Meanwhile I have read various legal commentators regarding the NIP. We can set aside whatever "its ok" advice Braverman has given the government because she has as much credibility as a legal officer as Richard Burgon would have had in a Labour cabinet in the same role.
UK government arguments amount to: "Its created a trade border" - not a new development as it was clear thats what it was "Its damaging trade" - the same. Duh! "The GFA has legal primacy" - you wot?
Even Triggering A16 has its difficulties - we won't give a month's notice, we have already taken mitigating action which A16 allows us to then take, and we don't have any suggestions for what we do after triggering A16 to restore the NIP in a workable form.
But we don't want to do that. The threat to Boris is too big even for that. So having threatened it repeatedly we're now threatening the entire treaty. Or at least we are on paper. Because in the real world we don't have a legal leg to stand on, and the US delegation are flying in to point out in a pretty brutal manner that we don't have a political leg to stand on either.
It doesn't need to be "a new development", if its damaging trade that is a criterion met. Nothing in the 16th Article requires it to be new or unforeseen or unclear.
Indeed the reason you put in safeguarding or take out insurance is very often precisely because problems are foreseeable, so the fact that a problem that was foreseen has come to pass is not a reason not to engage in safeguarding, it is a reason to follow through with it.
With respect, you are one of the people who make bold statements on this subject from a position of profound legal and diplomatic ignorance.
With respect, I can read the text and please tell me where "unforeseen" is mentioned?
Article 16 Safeguards 1. If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures. Such safeguard measures shall be restricted with regard to their scope and duration to what is strictly necessary in order to remedy the situation. Priority shall be given to such measures as will least disturb the functioning of this Protocol. 2. If a safeguard measure taken by the Union or the United Kingdom, as the case may be, in accordance with paragraph 1 creates an imbalance between the rights and obligations under this Protocol, the Union or the United Kingdom, as the case may be, may take such proportionate rebalancing measures as are strictly necessary to remedy the imbalance. Priority shall be given to such measures as will least disturb the functioning of this Protocol. 3. Safeguard and rebalancing measures taken in accordance with paragraphs 1 and 2 shall be governed by the procedures set out in Annex 7 to this Protocol.
Unilateral safeguard measures may be taken if there is diversion of trade, or societal problems likely to persist. That is all it says, it doesn't say unforeseen problems.
Indeed. And we have *already* taken those measures. So we can't legally trigger A16 to enact things that have already been enacted. But that's just what the lawyers say, what would they know?
Again, you do come across like the QT contributor, making bold statements that just don't work. I know you don't know why they won't work but that's because you aren't a lawyer. Thats why we have lawyers so that laypeople like me and thee can be protected from making a mess of ourselves by failing to understand the law.
We haven't taken those measures, we've taken some measures and have been in negotiations to resolve the problems always explicitly retaining the right to unilaterally implement more measures just as the Article explicitly gives us the right to do.
A bunch of lawyers with an axe to grind like Jolyon don't make themselves right.
I don't need to argue with you on this one. Its very simple. Pretty much the only legal brain who agrees with your position is Suella Braverman. So legally your argument doesn't stand up. And politically your "just walk away we do what we want" argument is about to be handed to you in a goodie bag by the US congress delegation.
I know you want it and believe it. That doesn't make it true.
Let me guess, the US Congress delegation is going to express their "concern" and that the "Good Friday Agreement must be respected".
Considering the fact that the decision to take actions is to be made "unilaterally", the fact that the Attorney General agrees with me trumps every other hack lawyer grinding their own axe.
You're parking your bus on "Braverman agrees with me"?
Good luck in court. Just because they appointed mince as the AG doesn't mean she has a clue what she is talking about. The government will be taken to court, will have its arse handed to it on a plate, at which point the government attack "leftie lawyers". Or "hack lawyers" as you put it.
The political persuasion of lawyers doesn't matter in court. Only the law. The hack / leftie lawyers don't win if their legal argument is invalid. There is politics - where you can say any old shit and get away with it - and there is the law. Where you can't.
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
...except perhaps people who wanted an effective civil service, since disproportionately the good people will have left and government will be left with those not confident of finding a job elsewhere...
I despair at the loss of talent and organisational memory that I have seen happen over and over again in the NHS and other health-related parts of Government. Good companies thrive by supporting their workforce: this is a lesson Government never learns, treating civil servants as political footballs, always to be re-organised or, when you want Daily Mail headlines, disparaged or just sacked.
It's pathetic, it really is. Whenever this government is in a bit of trouble, it lashes out in the sure knowledge that enough people will agree that the targets are legitimate.
This week's targets for lashing out are a) the EU, and b) the Civil Service. Next week? Who knows. Woke universities probably, then the French, then asylum seekers. Let's feed the hate, they think. It's so divisive and dangerous for the body politic.
The 2 minutes hate is one of the "benefits of Brexit"...
Perhaps you thought the Conservative party took partygate seriously. Last night a champagne bottle signed by @BorisJohnson was donated to a charity event in Hertfordshire by local MP and Tory party chairman @OliverDowden.
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
...except perhaps people who wanted an effective civil service, since disproportionately the good people will have left and government will be left with those not confident of finding a job elsewhere...
That's a good point to be fair, and glad you agree that there are plenty of duds we could get rid of instead.
What better solution would you propose to get rid of the duds?
Make them Non-duds, ie train them or appraise them?
Perhaps you thought the Conservative party took partygate seriously. Last night a champagne bottle signed by @BorisJohnson was donated to a charity event in Hertfordshire by local MP and Tory party chairman @OliverDowden.
Boris Johnson at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, shortly before plans emerged to lay off 90,000 civil servants: “Folks, we’re going to get through this, it’s going to take a lot of focus – but jobs, jobs, jobs is the answer”. https://twitter.com/GuardianHeather/status/1525030301495439362
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
...except perhaps people who wanted an effective civil service, since disproportionately the good people will have left and government will be left with those not confident of finding a job elsewhere...
That's a good point to be fair, and glad you agree that there are plenty of duds we could get rid of instead.
What better solution would you propose to get rid of the duds?
Have you considered switching to decaf after the first couple of cups?
Why is the Civil Service full of duds, after 12 years of tory governments having responsibility for the selection and training process?
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
There are strong rumours that the Russians are across the river in other places, though...
I hope the rumours are not true, or if they are true, they're getting some of the treatment shown above.
Johnson wants to restore civil service numbers to 2016 levels (cutting 90k jobs) to save £3.5bn a year. The additional numbers were employed to process Brexit.
More proof it has cost, rather than saved us money.
Actually many of those people were hired to deal with the pandemic, but hey ho, I don't expect integrity from you.
Brexit is done and the pandemic is done, so people hired to deal with that should be let go.
Is the pandemic done? Well, COVID-19 isn't done. I still have regular meetings with UK civil servants on COVID-19 and expect to do so for many months to come. I have a meeting later today to bid for some Govt money on a COVID-19 vaccination project.
People are still dying. We have an ongoing vaccination programme to run. COVID-19 is never going away. Hopefully, we'll get to the point where it is like the flu, but people seem to forget that the flu is a major seasonal infectious disease that causes considerably mortality and morbidity (including lost working days). Civil servants are employed to deal with the flu, with public health information programmes, with vaccination programmes, with managing the NHS response. If COVID-19 becomes like another flu, then take all those flu jobs and double them.
Boris Johnson promised that we would build a world-leading health security agency to prepare for future pandemics. You can't deliver on that promise with pre-pandemic staffing. So, which is it? Was Boris (gasp) lying? Or do you accept that we will need more civil servants working in health security? We don't need as many people working on COVID-19 as in 2020-1, sure, but we can't go back to 2016 levels.
Is Brexit done? One could quibble that we haven't worked out a post-Brexit relationship with the EU yet, as the continued politicking over Northern Ireland shows. But let's presume that will settle down eventually. What did Brexit mean? It meant, I understand, taking back control. Let's take as an example pesticide regulation. This is done for the EU in Parma. Part of what we paid to the EU was for this function and there were British people among the staff working in Parma. But we've taken back control now. We now control the UK's pesticide regulatory system. That's what the Brexiteers wanted, I understand.
OK, so whatever we choose to do with our now independent pesticide regulatory system, we need civil servants to man that system, forever. Taking back control means what was once done by Eurocrats now has to be done by UK bureaucrats. There is a necessary, permanent increase in UK civil servant jobs associated with Brexit.
So, COVID-19 and Brexit both require higher civil service numbers in perpetuity.
Thats a very cogent, well argued case. I have stated many times that to the man on the street, Brexit is done. We left the EU, no longer pay money in and have no say in what they do. Thats Brexit. We are now negotiating the post brexit world, and have made a fair few screw ups along the way. The EU has too - UVDL threatening A16 for one, in a spat about vaccines. So for me, Brexit is done, but will also still be a shadow cast over the next decades as we evolve our place in the world.
Is the pandemic done? Covid-19 will almost certainly never be eradicated. But from a UK perspective we have 99% of people with antibodies either from vaccines, recovery or both. We have been through a wave (BA2) without any restrictions on peoples lives. At all. We cannot now the future. Its surely likely that there will be future waves and more variants. My optimistic hope is that we will never see a situation like the last two years again. i expect further vaccinations, mainly now targeted at the usual cohort who get flu shots.
I don't believe the government line about being prepared for the next pandemic. Rather like @Leon I suspect many of us are quite happy to forget covid, and that probably includes the lessons.
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
...except perhaps people who wanted an effective civil service, since disproportionately the good people will have left and government will be left with those not confident of finding a job elsewhere...
I despair at the loss of talent and organisational memory that I have seen happen over and over again in the NHS and other health-related parts of Government. Good companies thrive by supporting their workforce: this is a lesson Government never learns, treating civil servants as political footballs, always to be re-organised or, when you want Daily Mail headlines, disparaged or just sacked.
The state isn't a company though.
It needs to be slimmed down, the state is too big and we can't afford it. Good companies thrive better than the state does.
I see Parish is thinking about standing as an independent. Likely to cost £500 quid so just as well he claims to have financial backers. LibDem candidate is utterly unknown in the constituency even to LibDems so that's not a brilliant start.
He won't gain any traction
I mean - I keep Googling about tractors and no porn appears.
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
...except perhaps people who wanted an effective civil service, since disproportionately the good people will have left and government will be left with those not confident of finding a job elsewhere...
That's a good point to be fair, and glad you agree that there are plenty of duds we could get rid of instead.
What better solution would you propose to get rid of the duds?
Have you considered switching to decaf after the first couple of cups?
Why is the Civil Service full of duds, after 12 years of tory governments having responsibility for the selection and training process?
Because the state is a Byzantine behemoth that always will be.
We need the state to do less, and if its doing less, it can do it better but with fewer people.
Cheering on a government lying and breaking its own ultra-oppressive lockdown laws would have been seen even 20 years ago as some kind of dystopian fascist prediction. Dom's lasting contribution to the UK is to normalise the national value of control through law-breaking, centralisation and fear.
Boris Johnson at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, shortly before plans emerged to lay off 90,000 civil servants: “Folks, we’re going to get through this, it’s going to take a lot of focus – but jobs, jobs, jobs is the answer”. https://twitter.com/GuardianHeather/status/1525030301495439362
Aside from the irony of the juxtaposition, don't we have full employment? Jobs aren't scarce. Well-paid, skilled ones with a clear path of progression are in much of the country.
🐎 There 15 of us going racing today. My friends meeting my friends friends. Amazing weekend.
I’ve made some decisions. But flat racing isn’t my best thingy.
13:50 Miami girl. 14:25 Girl on Film. I’m going to wear the green dress I posted, and racing on ITV. Doxxing strictly not allowed on this forum, but i’ve probably doxxing myself now! 😆 15:00 Miramichi 15:35 Stradivarius 16:10 New Comedy 16:45 Strongbowe 17:20 Maybe Even Never
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
It would be a big mistake for the EU to let Ukraine in in its present state. It's a worthwhile ambition, but as a tactical move it would be terrible.
Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries on Earth before the war and now it's barely a functioning state and economic black hole on top of that. So, on paper, Macron is right; they are decades away from meeting the requirements from EU membership...
And how long did it take the rest of the former Eastern European Soviet colonies - which weren't even democracies when they escaped the Russian sphere ? 'Decades' is just Macron being Macron.
And Dura Ace being Dura Ace.
Decades is a possibility, but as you note where theres will and support it can happen much faster. Societies can be transformed surprisingly quickly, and rebuilt quickly.
Can Ukraine manage that? It wont be easy, but the possibility doesnt deserve to be sneeringly dismissed by us. Macron can reasonably take the cautious prediction (personally I also think it will take the better part of a decade even going well), but a pessimistic or 'realistic' view is no more an automatic certainty than an optimistic one.
It will be an order of decades - it could be 20 years.
It's also about national pride.
A friend has been building a house, slowly, in Montenegro.
He has often expressed surprise in the way that corruption has reduced there - literally, people who he used to have to give a gift to, now refusing it. "Because our country is changing".
Of course, a big part of that is enforcement, but there is a genuine sense there of "We want to become a Western country".
In addition: just the application process can help. The AQ *can* be quite stringent (*), and a country taking an active part in the application process is likely to be progressing in the 'better' direction than one that is not.
(*) Although as we saw with Greece, some can be waved through.
In the case of Montenegro, the EU application process is what is pushing the anti-corruption drive, politically.
These people were hired to deal with Brexit the pandemic...
Aye, right.
What part of Brexit is done and the pandemic is done are you struggling to wrap your head around.
If Brexit is done, and the pandemic is done, we can go back 2016 levels of staff.
The civil servants are needed to oversee the post Brexit environment, where all kind of regulatory functions have been repatriated from the EU to the UK and where new regulatory frictions, eg at the UK border, have been created. Not to oversee the act of Brexit, which is over. This is why the whole spiel about saving money by leaving the EU was nonsense (the European Commission is actually a remarkably lean and efficient piece of government machinery).
Only the other day we were being told that the Treasury was having to outsource a large part of its legal work relating to the post-Brexit financial services sector to Hogan Lovells because it did not have the staff to do it. So clearly in some areas we do not have enough civil servants with the right skills. Outsourcing to a City law firm will not be cheap at all.
A sensible government which was genuinely concerned about cost effectiveness would ensure that it has high quality lawyers on its staff to do such an important part of government work. But somehow I doubt we will be hearing Boris or JRM demanding the hiring of more government lawyers.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
Bridges have always been targets in war, either to control or to destroy, because of their strategic importance. There is nothing new here.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
"2 battalions of infantry"
That's, what, at least 400 infantry lost trying to cross a river?
This is just slaughter of Russia's youth. Vlad doesn't care of course.
Public servants, Whitehall, being told by PM that 91,000 are surplus to requirements and a pay rise of 3% is sufficient when inflation is heading for 10%. They’re also being told they are slackers if they work from home. Morale among public servants being tested, to put it mildly https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1525012331293511680
Lucky the Government doesn't need goodwill from civil servants to advance any of its agenda...
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
Unless they want to keep their cushy jobs and just moan?
Anyone good will be updating their CV and leaving ASAP - what you will be left rid is the ones who aren't that good.
Also it doesn't actually save that much in the scheme of things - total savings will be £3-4bn (Iooks big but decimates the work force) but at the cost of more things being outsourced at twice the price.
Sacking large amounts of people isn't a solution to save money - HMRC tried that - they are now (or were until yesterday) on a big recruitment spree to find the workers they need to actually do the things that they were neglecting (such as enforcement).
That's the key isn't it?
I see it with local authority Department Director journeymen. "We have reduced our workforce by 25%. A saving of £1m pa". Very impressive!
"Meanwhile our budget for agency staff has increased to £1.5m, a symptom of the Pandemic and the economic crisis".
The key to saving money is processes, training and organisation. Productivity....
I'm currently working on automating business processes that everyone on PB (outside the banking industry) assumes are totally automated
That is - from the traders trading to the client resolution paperwork, there is no need for anyone to touch anything. Monitoring, yes. But floors of buildings are filled with the people who copy and pasta stuff from one system to another. And more floors are filled with the people who fix the problems created by the people from the copy & pasta floors.
Government is largely composed of this.
No, this doesn't mean putting the entire country in one giant database. Anyone who suggest that needs shooting. Repeatedly.
What it means, is re-designing systems (not necessarily computer systems) and processes that are effective and efficient. And, included in the effective and efficient bit - not horrific for the implementer and the client alike.
+1 - we both automate things for a living which means that your savings come later once you know the solution works and you've identified the savings created as a lot of them will be things no one even recognises that come from small changes within subsequent iterations once the core is automated.
Getting rid of jobs prior to automation doesn't solve anything it either creates more work for those who are left or it results in things not being done (and it will always be both).
If Bozo wishes to cut 90,000 civil service jobs he needs to identify x,000 things that Civil Servants will no longer do and see if removing that service is possible.
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
...except perhaps people who wanted an effective civil service, since disproportionately the good people will have left and government will be left with those not confident of finding a job elsewhere...
I despair at the loss of talent and organisational memory that I have seen happen over and over again in the NHS and other health-related parts of Government. Good companies thrive by supporting their workforce: this is a lesson Government never learns, treating civil servants as political footballs, always to be re-organised or, when you want Daily Mail headlines, disparaged or just sacked.
I agree, and that applies through much of the Civil Service, not just the health-related parts. The Home Office and DfE, for example, have been weakened (further) as good people have left, disillusioned, or been forced out.
These people were hired to deal with Brexit the pandemic...
Aye, right.
What part of Brexit is done and the pandemic is done are you struggling to wrap your head around.
If Brexit is done, and the pandemic is done, we can go back 2016 levels of staff.
The civil servants are needed to oversee the post Brexit environment, where all kind of regulatory functions have been repatriated from the EU to the UK and where new regulatory frictions, eg at the UK border, have been created. Not to oversee the act of Brexit, which is over. This is why the whole spiel about saving money by leaving the EU was nonsense (the European Commission is actually a remarkably lean and efficient piece of government machinery).
Only the other day we were being told that the Treasury was having to outsource a large part of its legal work relating to the post-Brexit financial services sector to Hogan Lovells because it did not have the staff to do it. So clearly in some areas we do not have enough civil servants with the right skills. Outsourcing to a City law firm will not be cheap at all.
A sensible government which was genuinely concerned about cost effectiveness would ensure that it has high quality lawyers on its staff to do such an important part of government work. But somehow I doubt we will be hearing Boris or JRM demanding the hiring of more government lawyers.
Not necessarily. Is the legal work a permanent, on-going requirement, or a one-off temporary issue?
If the latter, outsourcing makes perfect sense. There's a reason why firms can outsource legal work rather than having in-house lawyers.
Boris Johnson at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, shortly before plans emerged to lay off 90,000 civil servants: “Folks, we’re going to get through this, it’s going to take a lot of focus – but jobs, jobs, jobs is the answer”. https://twitter.com/GuardianHeather/status/1525030301495439362
Aside from the irony of the juxtaposition, don't we have full employment? Jobs aren't scarce. Well-paid, skilled ones with a clear path of progression are in much of the country.
Most of the people suffering horrendous cost of living issues are in work.
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
...except perhaps people who wanted an effective civil service, since disproportionately the good people will have left and government will be left with those not confident of finding a job elsewhere...
I despair at the loss of talent and organisational memory that I have seen happen over and over again in the NHS and other health-related parts of Government. Good companies thrive by supporting their workforce: this is a lesson Government never learns, treating civil servants as political footballs, always to be re-organised or, when you want Daily Mail headlines, disparaged or just sacked.
The state isn't a company though.
It needs to be slimmed down, the state is too big and we can't afford it. Good companies thrive better than the state does.
The difference is that there’s no profit motive affecting most state employers.
In fact you see the opposite, where managers measure their success in terms of how many people under them are shuffling the paperclips. The constant political re-organisations don’t help either, nor do people sticking in a role for only 18 months or two years before heading for a new post.
The big savings are in reducing the scope of government itself, and management focus on productivity.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
The solution is very simple - don’t invade other countries and then you avoid being targets.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
The solution is very simple - don’t invade other countries and then you avoid being targets.
That's true for Russia so gave you a like, but once Russia's military is ground down sufficiently if Ukraine is to liberate the areas Russia is occupying they may need a solution to crossing rivers they've blown the bridges up for. Otherwise we may end up with a stalemate with Russia occupying the land unable to move forwards, but unable to be displaced.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
Bridges have always been targets in war, either to control or to destroy, because of their strategic importance. There is nothing new here.
There is, perhaps, a change in magnitude of the threat. Which makes it of a different order.
The ability to rapidly create a potion bridge came out of the issue of bridges themselves being choke points and targets. When finding and destroying pontoon bridge took days, this worked....
You can see the recent evolution of artillery as a response to the increasing threat to rear areas - heavier and heavier armour in some systems, others are light, automated, shoot and scoot.
Perhaps you thought the Conservative party took partygate seriously. Last night a champagne bottle signed by @BorisJohnson was donated to a charity event in Hertfordshire by local MP and Tory party chairman @OliverDowden.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
Haven't bridging units always been key targets in 'modern' warfare? No army has an unlimited supply of the units, or of the trained professionals who build them. And a successful bridge can win a battle, so you want to knock them down ASAP.
I was thinking about this the other day, and there's an obvious answer: tunnels.
You mean like those that partied in Downing Street and Whitehall
A good start would be by sacking each and everyone of them
I have wanted BoZo sacked since the day he was elected
I had no idea that you wanted that !!!!!
Scott was right about that though, wasn't he?
Only from the prism of those who really do not like brexit
I like Boris, am pleased we have left the EU, also that on the whole he got covid right with the vaccines and unlocking the economy while Starmer and the opposition would have kept us in a semi lockdown forever, and undeniably he has done well with Ukraine
However, 'partygate' is a step too far and not only has he lost the goodwill of the populace, he is now doing serious harm to the conservative party and his mps need to take decisive action to elect a new leader, and I am open on that, otherwise they risk annihilation at the polls in 2024
I would just also comment that Brexit needs work on it and consensus between the UK - EU and withdrawing from the NIP to placate a few DUP mps is daft and frankly will just make Boris et all more unpopular, as I do not detect a general mood in the UK and almost certainly in Northern Ireland to go down this road
You can run that the other way, though. Some defenders of BoJo have been happy to overlook his flaws because he Got Brexit Done. But the flaws were there all along.
Before he became PM, everyone who was paying attention knew that Johnson was more than a bit lazy, very capable of telling people what they wanted to hear, saw rules as a thing for little people and loyalty as something that the elite demand and weaklings offer. Everyone who was paying attention knew that he is a fluent liar and that everyone who trusts him gets betrayed.
This was all known all along. You can try and deflect it with cries of remoaner if you want. But words don't change reality. In politics, they can cloak reality for quite a long time, but reality will out. Boris Johnson is not fit to be Prime Minister, and the Conservative Party were so dazzled by his star quality that they not only handed him the job but they allowed him to booby-trap the building so he can't be removed.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
Well, the position of a bridge is dictated by geography to a greater extent than the position of gun emplacements. This is like saying to a burglar that robbing banks is contra indicated by the strength of their security systems, and primary schools are an easier target
A fair amount of speculation this morning on whether Hunt will keep his seat but, as far as I noticed, no mention of boundary changes. Does anyone know what is proposed? As obviously this is somthing that needs to be considered in the calculations.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
The solution is very simple - don’t invade other countries and then you avoid being targets.
Hopefully one good thing that can come from this bloodshed is that every country completely focuses their military and spending on defensive kit and tactics.
Every country should make it clear that if any country attacks then it’s going to fail - every beach can be covered quickly by anti-ship missiles, every road route, bridge, mountain pass is covered by artillery and missiles with coordinates already plugged into the systems, anti aircraft missiles deployed to remove air superiority/supremacy chances, huge stockpiles of easy to use NLAWs etc that average joes can be trained to use quickly.
If after this it makes no sense to attack another country without appalling cost then maybe all the lives lost in Ukraine won’t be for nothing.
Kwarteng admitted the PMs nuclear power boosterism to be paid for by government raiding household housekeeping pots? The government have to contradict ASAP surely? That’s toxic statement, as in atomic toxic 😦
Boris Johnson at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, shortly before plans emerged to lay off 90,000 civil servants: “Folks, we’re going to get through this, it’s going to take a lot of focus – but jobs, jobs, jobs is the answer”. https://twitter.com/GuardianHeather/status/1525030301495439362
Aside from the irony of the juxtaposition, don't we have full employment? Jobs aren't scarce. Well-paid, skilled ones with a clear path of progression are in much of the country.
Most of the people suffering horrendous cost of living issues are in work.
Yes. We don't have a huge pool of unemployed up here in the NE to fill the vacancies we have. We don't have many opportunities that pay the national mean salary though. Let alone the median. Which is why simply opening a factory or a retail park isn't the answer. If it is skilled like Nissan, yes.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
Haven't bridging units always been key targets in 'modern' warfare? No army has an unlimited supply of the units, or of the trained professionals who build them. And a successful bridge can win a battle, so you want to knock them down ASAP.
I was thinking about this the other day, and there's an obvious answer: tunnels.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
Well, the position of a bridge is dictated by geography to a greater extent than the position of gun emplacements. This is like saying to a burglar that robbing banks is contra indicated by the strength of their security systems, and primary schools are an easier target
There's a twitter thread that is allegedly from a Ukrainian engineer who was asked to scout the river for the best places to cross. *Allegedly* the place the Russians chose to cross was that location, and the Ukrainians already had guns set up ready.
It does read a little self-congratulatory, but it also makes sense.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
Haven't bridging units always been key targets in 'modern' warfare? No army has an unlimited supply of the units, or of the trained professionals who build them. And a successful bridge can win a battle, so you want to knock them down ASAP.
I was thinking about this the other day, and there's an obvious answer: tunnels.
A fair amount of speculation this morning on whether Hunt will keep his seat but, as far as I noticed, no mention of boundary changes. Does anyone know what is proposed? As obviously this is somthing that needs to be considered in the calculations.
Perhaps you thought the Conservative party took partygate seriously. Last night a champagne bottle signed by @BorisJohnson was donated to a charity event in Hertfordshire by local MP and Tory party chairman @OliverDowden.
Perhaps you thought the Conservative party took partygate seriously. Last night a champagne bottle signed by @BorisJohnson was donated to a charity event in Hertfordshire by local MP and Tory party chairman @OliverDowden.
Public servants, Whitehall, being told by PM that 91,000 are surplus to requirements and a pay rise of 3% is sufficient when inflation is heading for 10%. They’re also being told they are slackers if they work from home. Morale among public servants being tested, to put it mildly https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1525012331293511680
Lucky the Government doesn't need goodwill from civil servants to advance any of its agenda...
You mean like those that partied in Downing Street and Whitehall
A good start would be by sacking each and everyone of them
What if the opposition parties gain traction with public sector workers pay with their jobs because of GOVERNMENT WASTE AND INCOMPETENCE. It’s supposed to raise three billion? How much did treasurey hand to gangsters: thirty billion? And then those covid contracts. And pet Boris projects. And a full blown “example of Tory waste and bad value for money of the day” scrutiny could throw up a good one everyday for years - whilst public servants lose their jobs to pay for it 😦
Government supporters really gotta hope opposition don’t think of tying this to government waste.
Yesterday's sequel to the disastrous failed river crossing.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690 On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
A thought for the Armchair Admiral Generals - a lot has been made of the dangers in modern warfare of fixed positions. Parking your artillery in a neat line and setting up the tea tent is now considered suicide.
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
Haven't bridging units always been key targets in 'modern' warfare? No army has an unlimited supply of the units, or of the trained professionals who build them. And a successful bridge can win a battle, so you want to knock them down ASAP.
I was thinking about this the other day, and there's an obvious answer: tunnels.
A fair amount of speculation this morning on whether Hunt will keep his seat but, as far as I noticed, no mention of boundary changes. Does anyone know what is proposed? As obviously this is somthing that needs to be considered in the calculations.
You can also discern it is very good news for him.
Even if the boundary changes go through on those numbers the combined LD and Labour voteshare would still be comfortably more than the Tory voteshare in Surrey SW
I will eat a pizza with pineapple on it Hunt loses Surrey South West at the next GE.
Surrey SW is now a very marginal seat, in the top 20 LD target seats.
How much Labour tactical voting for the LDs there is will likely determine Hunt's fate
See earlier. Unless we vote before the new boundaries. Or there are big changes, he's safe. He loses the whole of Godalming. And gains a swathe of East Hampshire.
Don't understand UKG's game plan on the Northern Ireland Protocol, assuming they want some kind of outcome beyond creating suitably hysterical headlines in their client press.
If they want to reduce trade frictions, their actions are increasing them. They could do things to reduce checks across the Irish Sea in coordination with the EU but they choose not to do them. Meanwhile unilateral action will shut down any EU cooperation. It's also guaranteed to create greater instability, while they disingenuously claim to protect the GFA. Unlike the EU Commission, UKG has made no effort to get the various stakeholders on board: politicians in NI, business in NI, Irish government etc.
A fair amount of speculation this morning on whether Hunt will keep his seat but, as far as I noticed, no mention of boundary changes. Does anyone know what is proposed? As obviously this is somthing that needs to be considered in the calculations.
Yes, important point. Yesterday, folk were speculating about some Scottish seats that do not even exist under the new boundaries. People need to do some elementary research before opinionating about outcomes.
Perhaps you thought the Conservative party took partygate seriously. Last night a champagne bottle signed by @BorisJohnson was donated to a charity event in Hertfordshire by local MP and Tory party chairman @OliverDowden.
Is there a remote possibility that the description wasn't written by Boris or by Dowden, but was written by someone working for the charity hosting the event who isn't a fan of theirs?
A fair amount of speculation this morning on whether Hunt will keep his seat but, as far as I noticed, no mention of boundary changes. Does anyone know what is proposed? As obviously this is somthing that needs to be considered in the calculations.
You can also discern it is very good news for him.
Even if the boundary changes go through on those numbers the combined LD and Labour voteshare would still be comfortably more than the Tory voteshare in Surrey SW
These people were hired to deal with Brexit the pandemic...
Aye, right.
What part of Brexit is done and the pandemic is done are you struggling to wrap your head around.
If Brexit is done, and the pandemic is done, we can go back 2016 levels of staff.
The civil servants are needed to oversee the post Brexit environment, where all kind of regulatory functions have been repatriated from the EU to the UK and where new regulatory frictions, eg at the UK border, have been created. Not to oversee the act of Brexit, which is over. This is why the whole spiel about saving money by leaving the EU was nonsense (the European Commission is actually a remarkably lean and efficient piece of government machinery).
Only the other day we were being told that the Treasury was having to outsource a large part of its legal work relating to the post-Brexit financial services sector to Hogan Lovells because it did not have the staff to do it. So clearly in some areas we do not have enough civil servants with the right skills. Outsourcing to a City law firm will not be cheap at all.
A sensible government which was genuinely concerned about cost effectiveness would ensure that it has high quality lawyers on its staff to do such an important part of government work. But somehow I doubt we will be hearing Boris or JRM demanding the hiring of more government lawyers.
Not necessarily. Is the legal work a permanent, on-going requirement, or a one-off temporary issue?
If the latter, outsourcing makes perfect sense. There's a reason why firms can outsource legal work rather than having in-house lawyers.
Ongoing restructuring and regulation of the financial services sector is not an one-off temporary issue but an ongoing key part of the Treasury's functions. Even if you bring in external specialist advisors you still need high quality in-house people because it is not simply giving the advice which is needed but understanding its implications for other policy areas / legislation / how it fits with international obligations / proposed trade treaties / prioritising within the legislative programme / liaison with the other government departments involved - the BoE, the FCA, the PRA etc.
It has been happening for the 40 years I have been working in the sector and before then too.
Johnson wants to restore civil service numbers to 2016 levels (cutting 90k jobs) to save £3.5bn a year. The additional numbers were employed to process Brexit.
More proof it has cost, rather than saved us money.
Actually many of those people were hired to deal with the pandemic, but hey ho, I don't expect integrity from you.
Brexit is done and the pandemic is done, so people hired to deal with that should be let go.
Is the pandemic done? Well, COVID-19 isn't done. I still have regular meetings with UK civil servants on COVID-19 and expect to do so for many months to come. I have a meeting later today to bid for some Govt money on a COVID-19 vaccination project.
People are still dying. We have an ongoing vaccination programme to run. COVID-19 is never going away. Hopefully, we'll get to the point where it is like the flu, but people seem to forget that the flu is a major seasonal infectious disease that causes considerably mortality and morbidity (including lost working days). Civil servants are employed to deal with the flu, with public health information programmes, with vaccination programmes, with managing the NHS response. If COVID-19 becomes like another flu, then take all those flu jobs and double them.
Boris Johnson promised that we would build a world-leading health security agency to prepare for future pandemics. You can't deliver on that promise with pre-pandemic staffing. So, which is it? Was Boris (gasp) lying? Or do you accept that we will need more civil servants working in health security? We don't need as many people working on COVID-19 as in 2020-1, sure, but we can't go back to 2016 levels.
Is Brexit done? One could quibble that we haven't worked out a post-Brexit relationship with the EU yet, as the continued politicking over Northern Ireland shows. But let's presume that will settle down eventually. What did Brexit mean? It meant, I understand, taking back control. Let's take as an example pesticide regulation. This is done for the EU in Parma. Part of what we paid to the EU was for this function and there were British people among the staff working in Parma. But we've taken back control now. We now control the UK's pesticide regulatory system. That's what the Brexiteers wanted, I understand.
OK, so whatever we choose to do with our now independent pesticide regulatory system, we need civil servants to man that system, forever. Taking back control means what was once done by Eurocrats now has to be done by UK bureaucrats. There is a necessary, permanent increase in UK civil servant jobs associated with Brexit.
So, COVID-19 and Brexit both require higher civil service numbers in perpetuity.
Rees-Mogg wasn't specifically referring to civil servants in the health area was he?
If you're returning civil servant numbers to 2016 levels, but you have more health-related civil servants, then you'll have to cut services elsewhere. Is the Government going to tell us what services it proposes to chop? Because the right-wing press like the sound of cutting numbers, but voters are rather less keen when services vanish.
Don't understand UKG's game plan on the Northern Ireland Protocol, assuming they want some kind of outcome beyond creating suitably hysterical headlines in their client press.
If they want to reduce trade frictions, their actions are increasing them. They could do things to reduce checks across the Irish Sea in coordination with the EU but they choose not to do them. Meanwhile unilateral action will shut down any EU cooperation. It's also guaranteed to create greater instability, while they disingenuously claim to protect the GFA. Unlike the EU Commission, UKG has made no effort to get the various stakeholders on board: politicians in NI, business in NI, Irish government etc.
They want to win another election by whipping up Mr Angry in Dudley and Ballymena.
A fair amount of speculation this morning on whether Hunt will keep his seat but, as far as I noticed, no mention of boundary changes. Does anyone know what is proposed? As obviously this is somthing that needs to be considered in the calculations.
You can also discern it is very good news for him.
Looks potentially awful for him if non Tory voters gravitate to the LDs who got 38% in his old seat rather than this rather random labour surge to the mid 20s.
A fair amount of speculation this morning on whether Hunt will keep his seat but, as far as I noticed, no mention of boundary changes. Does anyone know what is proposed? As obviously this is somthing that needs to be considered in the calculations.
Perhaps you thought the Conservative party took partygate seriously. Last night a champagne bottle signed by @BorisJohnson was donated to a charity event in Hertfordshire by local MP and Tory party chairman @OliverDowden.
Well exactly but plenty of pious crap about it on twitter.
Is it as pious as the criticisms made of Cherie Blair signing a copy of the Hutton report about poor Dr David Kelly before auctioning it to raise money for the Labour Party?
Don't understand UKG's game plan on the Northern Ireland Protocol, assuming they want some kind of outcome beyond creating suitably hysterical headlines in their client press.
If they want to reduce trade frictions, their actions are increasing them. They could do things to reduce checks across the Irish Sea in coordination with the EU but they choose not to do them. Meanwhile unilateral action will shut down any EU cooperation. It's also guaranteed to create greater instability, while they disingenuously claim to protect the GFA. Unlike the EU Commission, UKG has made no effort to get the various stakeholders on board: politicians in NI, business in NI, Irish government etc.
Oh really?
What has the EU Commission done to get the Unionist politicians on board?
I have been saying here what the solution is for five years and its deceptively simple: No checks.
We do no checks in GB/NI, no checks NI/Republic, and no alignment.
If we do that, we don't need EU "cooperation". They're bluffing and always have been, they're not going to erect a border on the island of Ireland and if we don't erect one in the Irish Sea then what exactly is the issue that threatens the GFA?
A fair amount of speculation this morning on whether Hunt will keep his seat but, as far as I noticed, no mention of boundary changes. Does anyone know what is proposed? As obviously this is somthing that needs to be considered in the calculations.
You can also discern it is very good news for him.
Even if the boundary changes go through on those numbers the combined LD and Labour voteshare would still be comfortably more than the Tory voteshare in Surrey SW
Yes but. That's true for many, many Tory seats.
The rather key thing is that the notional result has Labour very close to the Lib Dems. That's unlikely to all go yellow in a general election contest.
Perhaps you thought the Conservative party took partygate seriously. Last night a champagne bottle signed by @BorisJohnson was donated to a charity event in Hertfordshire by local MP and Tory party chairman @OliverDowden.
Is there a remote possibility that the description wasn't written by Boris or by Dowden, but was written by someone working for the charity hosting the event who isn't a fan of theirs?
That’s cruel after the contortions of the usual suspects saying how wonderful it is that we Tories can laugh at ourselves.
Johnson wants to restore civil service numbers to 2016 levels (cutting 90k jobs) to save £3.5bn a year. The additional numbers were employed to process Brexit.
More proof it has cost, rather than saved us money.
Actually many of those people were hired to deal with the pandemic, but hey ho, I don't expect integrity from you.
Brexit is done and the pandemic is done, so people hired to deal with that should be let go.
Is the pandemic done? Well, COVID-19 isn't done. I still have regular meetings with UK civil servants on COVID-19 and expect to do so for many months to come. I have a meeting later today to bid for some Govt money on a COVID-19 vaccination project.
People are still dying. We have an ongoing vaccination programme to run. COVID-19 is never going away. Hopefully, we'll get to the point where it is like the flu, but people seem to forget that the flu is a major seasonal infectious disease that causes considerably mortality and morbidity (including lost working days). Civil servants are employed to deal with the flu, with public health information programmes, with vaccination programmes, with managing the NHS response. If COVID-19 becomes like another flu, then take all those flu jobs and double them.
Boris Johnson promised that we would build a world-leading health security agency to prepare for future pandemics. You can't deliver on that promise with pre-pandemic staffing. So, which is it? Was Boris (gasp) lying? Or do you accept that we will need more civil servants working in health security? We don't need as many people working on COVID-19 as in 2020-1, sure, but we can't go back to 2016 levels.
Is Brexit done? One could quibble that we haven't worked out a post-Brexit relationship with the EU yet, as the continued politicking over Northern Ireland shows. But let's presume that will settle down eventually. What did Brexit mean? It meant, I understand, taking back control. Let's take as an example pesticide regulation. This is done for the EU in Parma. Part of what we paid to the EU was for this function and there were British people among the staff working in Parma. But we've taken back control now. We now control the UK's pesticide regulatory system. That's what the Brexiteers wanted, I understand.
OK, so whatever we choose to do with our now independent pesticide regulatory system, we need civil servants to man that system, forever. Taking back control means what was once done by Eurocrats now has to be done by UK bureaucrats. There is a necessary, permanent increase in UK civil servant jobs associated with Brexit.
So, COVID-19 and Brexit both require higher civil service numbers in perpetuity.
Rees-Mogg wasn't specifically referring to civil servants in the health area was he?
If you're returning civil servant numbers to 2016 levels, but you have more health-related civil servants, then you'll have to cut services elsewhere. Is the Government going to tell us what services it proposes to chop? Because the right-wing press like the sound of cutting numbers, but voters are rather less keen when services vanish.
Anyone with “Diversity”, “Equality”, or “Inclusion” in their job title?
If any of the civil servants are unhappy with the situation, why don't they quit and get a better job elsewhere?
Then the 91,000 surplus will be gone, and the former civil servants will be able to be happy in a new role elsewhere, everybody wins.
...except perhaps people who wanted an effective civil service, since disproportionately the good people will have left and government will be left with those not confident of finding a job elsewhere...
I despair at the loss of talent and organisational memory that I have seen happen over and over again in the NHS and other health-related parts of Government. Good companies thrive by supporting their workforce: this is a lesson Government never learns, treating civil servants as political footballs, always to be re-organised or, when you want Daily Mail headlines, disparaged or just sacked.
The state isn't a company though.
It needs to be slimmed down, the state is too big and we can't afford it. Good companies thrive better than the state does.
But, given you've offered no rebuttal, I take it you accept that Brexit and COVID-19 both mean necessary increases in civil servant numbers on an ongoing basis.
These people were hired to deal with Brexit the pandemic...
Aye, right.
What part of Brexit is done and the pandemic is done are you struggling to wrap your head around.
If Brexit is done, and the pandemic is done, we can go back 2016 levels of staff.
The civil servants are needed to oversee the post Brexit environment, where all kind of regulatory functions have been repatriated from the EU to the UK and where new regulatory frictions, eg at the UK border, have been created. Not to oversee the act of Brexit, which is over. This is why the whole spiel about saving money by leaving the EU was nonsense (the European Commission is actually a remarkably lean and efficient piece of government machinery).
Only the other day we were being told that the Treasury was having to outsource a large part of its legal work relating to the post-Brexit financial services sector to Hogan Lovells because it did not have the staff to do it. So clearly in some areas we do not have enough civil servants with the right skills. Outsourcing to a City law firm will not be cheap at all.
A sensible government which was genuinely concerned about cost effectiveness would ensure that it has high quality lawyers on its staff to do such an important part of government work. But somehow I doubt we will be hearing Boris or JRM demanding the hiring of more government lawyers.
Not necessarily. Is the legal work a permanent, on-going requirement, or a one-off temporary issue?
If the latter, outsourcing makes perfect sense. There's a reason why firms can outsource legal work rather than having in-house lawyers.
Ongoing restructuring and regulation of the financial services sector is not an one-off temporary issue but an ongoing key part of the Treasury's functions. Even if you bring in external specialist advisors you still need high quality in-house people because it is not simply giving the advice which is needed but understanding its implications for other policy areas / legislation / how it fits with international obligations / proposed trade treaties / prioritising within the legislative programme / liaison with the other government departments involved - the BoE, the FCA, the PRA etc.
It has been happening for the 40 years I have been working in the sector and before then too.
But perhaps you know different.
No, I don't know different, which is why I asked the question.
If its ongoing, then it probably makes sense to have in house to me.
But if the level of demand isn't consistent but varies like a sine curve then it'd make sense to have a mix of in house and outsourcing at the peak of demand.
Comments
The Tories also lost control of the local council, Waverley, in 2019 to a LD-Residents-Labour-Green coalition
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1524974467146866690
On May 12, the 🇺🇦artillery destroyed another 🇷🇺pontoon bridge and equipment. 4 days of 🇷🇺unsuccessful attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Luhansk Oblast saw the 🇷🇺losses of more than 70 units of equipment & 2 battalions of infantry & engineers...
People are still dying. We have an ongoing vaccination programme to run. COVID-19 is never going away. Hopefully, we'll get to the point where it is like the flu, but people seem to forget that the flu is a major seasonal infectious disease that causes considerably mortality and morbidity (including lost working days). Civil servants are employed to deal with the flu, with public health information programmes, with vaccination programmes, with managing the NHS response. If COVID-19 becomes like another flu, then take all those flu jobs and double them.
Boris Johnson promised that we would build a world-leading health security agency to prepare for future pandemics. You can't deliver on that promise with pre-pandemic staffing. So, which is it? Was Boris (gasp) lying? Or do you accept that we will need more civil servants working in health security? We don't need as many people working on COVID-19 as in 2020-1, sure, but we can't go back to 2016 levels.
Is Brexit done? One could quibble that we haven't worked out a post-Brexit relationship with the EU yet, as the continued politicking over Northern Ireland shows. But let's presume that will settle down eventually. What did Brexit mean? It meant, I understand, taking back control. Let's take as an example pesticide regulation. This is done for the EU in Parma. Part of what we paid to the EU was for this function and there were British people among the staff working in Parma. But we've taken back control now. We now control the UK's pesticide regulatory system. That's what the Brexiteers wanted, I understand.
OK, so whatever we choose to do with our now independent pesticide regulatory system, we need civil servants to man that system, forever. Taking back control means what was once done by Eurocrats now has to be done by UK bureaucrats. There is a necessary, permanent increase in UK civil servant jobs associated with Brexit.
So, COVID-19 and Brexit both require higher civil service numbers in perpetuity.
What better solution would you propose to get rid of the duds?
Congratulations - COVID passes are gone!
Dear friends,
Today, with very little fanfare, the domestic NHS Covid Pass has been discontinued.
This means no venue or events operator will be able to require it as a condition of entry.
Nevertheless. 55% from a standing start is still remarkable.
Brighton is spreading. All part of demographic drift. The Sussex coast is the Potteries in reverse.
I want him gone as well as you will note from my posts and certainly all the senior civil servants and mandarins
Someone suggested Boris and the senior mandarins should pay the fines of the rank and file civil servants, and that is a very good idea
I'm currently working on automating business processes that everyone on PB (outside the banking industry) assumes are totally automated
That is - from the traders trading to the client resolution paperwork, there is no need for anyone to touch anything. Monitoring, yes. But floors of buildings are filled with the people who copy and pasta stuff from one system to another. And more floors are filled with the people who fix the problems created by the people from the copy & pasta floors.
Government is largely composed of this.
No, this doesn't mean putting the entire country in one giant database. Anyone who suggest that needs shooting. Repeatedly.
What it means, is re-designing systems (not necessarily computer systems) and processes that are effective and efficient. And, included in the effective and efficient bit - not horrific for the implementer and the client alike.
Perhaps you thought the Conservative party took partygate seriously. Last night a champagne bottle signed by @BorisJohnson was donated to a charity event in Hertfordshire by local MP and Tory party chairman @OliverDowden.
Read the description.
https://twitter.com/jayrayner1/status/1525017632029679618
I will eat a pizza with pineapple on it Hunt loses Surrey South West at the next GE.
https://twitter.com/joshmanmode_/status/1524884925178171392
If you can't laugh at yourself ...
https://twitter.com/GuardianHeather/status/1525030301495439362
Why is the Civil Service full of duds, after 12 years of tory governments having responsibility for the selection and training process?
I hope the rumours are not true, or if they are true, they're getting some of the treatment shown above.
Is the pandemic done? Covid-19 will almost certainly never be eradicated. But from a UK perspective we have 99% of people with antibodies either from vaccines, recovery or both. We have been through a wave (BA2) without any restrictions on peoples lives. At all. We cannot now the future. Its surely likely that there will be future waves and more variants. My optimistic hope is that we will never see a situation like the last two years again. i expect further vaccinations, mainly now targeted at the usual cohort who get flu shots.
I don't believe the government line about being prepared for the next pandemic. Rather like @Leon I suspect many of us are quite happy to forget covid, and that probably includes the lessons.
It needs to be slimmed down, the state is too big and we can't afford it. Good companies thrive better than the state does.
Perhaps he mis-typed 'agricultural clutch'?
We need the state to do less, and if its doing less, it can do it better but with fewer people.
* I've knocked off the 50 that Big G has already sacked for partygate.
Jobs aren't scarce. Well-paid, skilled ones with a clear path of progression are in much of the country.
I’ve made some decisions. But flat racing isn’t my best thingy.
13:50 Miami girl.
14:25 Girl on Film. I’m going to wear the green dress I posted, and racing on ITV. Doxxing strictly not allowed on this forum, but i’ve probably doxxing myself now! 😆
15:00 Miramichi
15:35 Stradivarius
16:10 New Comedy
16:45 Strongbowe
17:20 Maybe Even Never
What about military bridges and other military engineering? - they create fixed, obvious targets.
What will be the solution there?
A sensible government which was genuinely concerned about cost effectiveness would ensure that it has high quality lawyers on its staff to do such an important part of government work. But somehow I doubt we will be hearing Boris or JRM demanding the hiring of more government lawyers.
That's, what, at least 400 infantry lost trying to cross a river?
This is just slaughter of Russia's youth. Vlad doesn't care of course.
Getting rid of jobs prior to automation doesn't solve anything it either creates more work for those who are left or it results in things not being done (and it will always be both).
If Bozo wishes to cut 90,000 civil service jobs he needs to identify x,000 things that Civil Servants will no longer do and see if removing that service is possible.
If the latter, outsourcing makes perfect sense. There's a reason why firms can outsource legal work rather than having in-house lawyers.
In fact you see the opposite, where managers measure their success in terms of how many people under them are shuffling the paperclips. The constant political re-organisations don’t help either, nor do people sticking in a role for only 18 months or two years before heading for a new post.
The big savings are in reducing the scope of government itself, and management focus on productivity.
The ability to rapidly create a potion bridge came out of the issue of bridges themselves being choke points and targets. When finding and destroying pontoon bridge took days, this worked....
You can see the recent evolution of artillery as a response to the increasing threat to rear areas - heavier and heavier armour in some systems, others are light, automated, shoot and scoot.
I was thinking about this the other day, and there's an obvious answer: tunnels.
(If you have time, not necessarily a silly idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Tunnel_of_Aggression )
Before he became PM, everyone who was paying attention knew that Johnson was more than a bit lazy, very capable of telling people what they wanted to hear, saw rules as a thing for little people and loyalty as something that the elite demand and weaklings offer. Everyone who was paying attention knew that he is a fluent liar and that everyone who trusts him gets betrayed.
This was all known all along. You can try and deflect it with cries of remoaner if you want. But words don't change reality. In politics, they can cloak reality for quite a long time, but reality will out. Boris Johnson is not fit to be Prime Minister, and the Conservative Party were so dazzled by his star quality that they not only handed him the job but they allowed him to booby-trap the building so he can't be removed.
I was +£500 Ukraine and +£0.08 anyone else. I've just cashed out. Now ALL GREEN at +£365 any result.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6930518497978384384?updateEntityUrn=urn:li:fs_feedUpdate:(V2,urn:li:activity:6930518497978384384) https://twitter.com/guywalters/status/1525023312593690624/photo/1
Every country should make it clear that if any country attacks then it’s going to fail - every beach can be covered quickly by anti-ship missiles, every road route, bridge, mountain pass is covered by artillery and missiles with coordinates already plugged into the systems, anti aircraft missiles deployed to remove air superiority/supremacy chances, huge stockpiles of easy to use NLAWs etc that average joes can be trained to use quickly.
If after this it makes no sense to attack another country without appalling cost then maybe all the lives lost in Ukraine won’t be for nothing.
We don't have a huge pool of unemployed up here in the NE to fill the vacancies we have.
We don't have many opportunities that pay the national mean salary though. Let alone the median.
Which is why simply opening a factory or a retail park isn't the answer.
If it is skilled like Nissan, yes.
Interesting thought that, with the right kind of mobile offensive capability, rivers or canals are once again nearly impregnable defences. Possibly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Military_Canal
It does read a little self-congratulatory, but it also makes sense.
Burnham remains favourite despite not being an MP.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/calcwork23.py?seat=Farnham and Bordon
You can also discern it is very good news for him.
See, for example, "does the PM take me for a fool ?" ...
Government supporters really gotta hope opposition don’t think of tying this to government waste.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Water_Line
How much Labour tactical voting for the LDs there is will likely determine Hunt's fate
Yes the description is funny on the champagne but it does look very much like not taking the issue seriously .
He loses the whole of Godalming. And gains a swathe of East Hampshire.
If they want to reduce trade frictions, their actions are increasing them. They could do things to reduce checks across the Irish Sea in coordination with the EU but they choose not to do them. Meanwhile unilateral action will shut down any EU cooperation. It's also guaranteed to create greater instability, while they disingenuously claim to protect the GFA. Unlike the EU Commission, UKG has made no effort to get the various stakeholders on board: politicians in NI, business in NI, Irish government etc.
Any idea what charity?
It has been happening for the 40 years I have been working in the sector and before then too.
But perhaps you know different.
Both seem to me to be in poor taste.
What has the EU Commission done to get the Unionist politicians on board?
I have been saying here what the solution is for five years and its deceptively simple: No checks.
We do no checks in GB/NI, no checks NI/Republic, and no alignment.
If we do that, we don't need EU "cooperation". They're bluffing and always have been, they're not going to erect a border on the island of Ireland and if we don't erect one in the Irish Sea then what exactly is the issue that threatens the GFA?
If its ongoing, then it probably makes sense to have in house to me.
But if the level of demand isn't consistent but varies like a sine curve then it'd make sense to have a mix of in house and outsourcing at the peak of demand.