Was perusing the Daily Mail in the caff. Their line is ditching Boris hands No.10 to Labour. That's not a popular view on here. But. What if the only thing keeping Tory support up is the lovable cheeky chappy? After all, the country appears to be failing to perform some of the very basics of government. It's the @HYUFD view. Is it widespread on Tory benches?
That's not to say that the Tories can't contrive to choose someone worse as a successor. Several of the contenders would likely be epic disasters. But, "not the worst option we could have," is not a great endorsement.
I see that Dominic Cummings has just described Liz Truss as "close to properly crackers" and would be even worse than Boris Johnson.
Something I agree with him about.
You're right. They 'could' contrive to choose someone like her who would be even worse than Boris Johnson. Otherwise they have every opportunity to get this right, win back the centre-right ground, and make a serious challenge to Sir Keir Starmer who is not exactly setting the electorate alight.
The Tories having a confidence vote, only for Boris to win in a reasonably close vote, has to be the best possible outcome for the Opposition.
Agree, assuming he brazens it out as the indications suggest he would.
That said, you'd not say anything other than "a win's a win" at this stage, but it's hard to see a long life as PM after a tight vote. May won her confidence vote 200-117 in December 2018 (which was narrow but not that close) and had made it clear she was off to the 1922 by March 2019. May was a different character, of course.
As far as I can tell, the government has done nothing about inflation.
Supply side reform? No. Emergency measures to incentivise energy production? No.
Instead, it’s provided a poorly targeted bung, (which is inflationary), lost investor confidence in the pound (which is inflationary) exacerbated the supply shock with self-defeating immigration measures (which is inflationary), and appointed a waster to the BoE (which doesn’t help either).
They are staggeringly un-Conservative.
I mean, in some ways as a socialist I don't mind. But they are nothing like any Conservative Gov't I've ever known. Out-and-out spendthrifts with high and rising levels of taxation. Extraordinary.
There’s a motion @ScotParl right now recognising the #PlatinumJubilee and paying tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth. Every single @scottishgreens MSP has just upped and walked out of the Chamber.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
What is Government for if not to solve big, structural problems?
I don't expect the Government to resolve the wiring problem in my hall. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem I'm having making a graph look pretty in Excel. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem with my second cousin not paying her debt to my late mother.
But I do expect the Government to steer the economy, to the extent that it can, which includes acting to prevent wide-scale failures in a particular sector.
So what could it have done to solve this weeks problems??
Surely Easy Jet and TUI should have not sold so many seats when they did not have the facility to carry everyone.
Its like my firm promising to do the work of 100 electricians when it only has access to 50.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
As far as I can tell, the government has done nothing about inflation.
Supply side reform? No. Emergency measures to incentivise energy production? No.
Instead, it’s provided a poorly targeted bung, (which is inflationary), lost investor confidence in the pound (which is inflationary) exacerbated the supply shock with self-defeating immigration measures (which is inflationary), and appointed a waster to the BoE (which doesn’t help either).
They are staggeringly un-Conservative.
I mean, in some ways as a socialist I don't mind. But they are nothing like any Conservative Gov't I've ever known. Out-and-out spendthrifts with high and rising levels of taxation. Extraordinary.
What I genuinely can’t understand is how much they’ve managed - within the space of just a few years - to achieve the high tax / high spend / poor public service trifecta.
Covid, yes, but at the very highest level Covid was a one-off crisis which should have largely been put on the never-never.
Was perusing the Daily Mail in the caff. Their line is ditching Boris hands No.10 to Labour. That's not a popular view on here. But. What if the only thing keeping Tory support up is the lovable cheeky chappy? After all, the country appears to be failing to perform some of the very basics of government. It's the @HYUFD view. Is it widespread on Tory benches?
I don't think it's too controversial to think that, even now, Boris has the highest electoral ceiling of any possible Tory leader - but he also has the lowest floor.
So the choice for MPs pretty much comes down to: do you gamble on Boris's ceiling, or do you concede some upside to avoid the risk of a total wipeout?
Depends. Did Lulu Lytle do the ceiling as well as the walls?
(And politicians generally have to have a slice of mad swaggering gambler in them, or they would persue a more reliable career. And becuase of the weird shapes of the probability distributions, the most vulnerable MPs might be better off personally with Bozza.)
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
The loss of FOM is not the only cause, see my post upthread. But it sure hasn’t helped.
Was perusing the Daily Mail in the caff. Their line is ditching Boris hands No.10 to Labour. That's not a popular view on here. But. What if the only thing keeping Tory support up is the lovable cheeky chappy? After all, the country appears to be failing to perform some of the very basics of government. It's the @HYUFD view. Is it widespread on Tory benches?
I don't think it's too controversial to think that, even now, Boris has the highest electoral ceiling of any possible Tory leader - but he also has the lowest floor.
So the choice for MPs pretty much comes down to: do you gamble on Boris's ceiling, or do you concede some upside to avoid the risk of a total wipeout?
Depends. Did Lulu Lytle do the ceiling as well as the walls?
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
A start would have been to explain to the thickos in this country that Brexit had lots more downsides than upsides and cooperation works better than conflict
And yet, the great and the good, could not explain that before the referendum. We both know fundamental to a successful brand is a strong product…..
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
It would be interesting to know the numbers of EU nationals that worked at airports pre-2016 compared to now. Surely someone could check this?
Dunno.
But I did see that of the ?600,000 reduction in the workforce post Covid, 50% is said to be attributed to EUers leaving.
Indeed, the utter collapse of EU migration is the pretty much the only Brexit “win”. It’s an astonishing turnaround.
Yes we voted to remove the burdensome Eastern Europeans and their pallid children so we could get the full benefits of the NHS. The Poles and Lithuanians may have returned to whence they came, so why can one still not get an appointment with the GP within a fortnight? Maybe they weren't the problem after all. Still Brexit brought us PM Johnson, so it wasn't all bad news.
Was perusing the Daily Mail in the caff. Their line is ditching Boris hands No.10 to Labour. That's not a popular view on here. But. What if the only thing keeping Tory support up is the lovable cheeky chappy? After all, the country appears to be failing to perform some of the very basics of government. It's the @HYUFD view. Is it widespread on Tory benches?
HYUFD and presumably others level of analysis is that he won an 80 seat majority, more than any other Tory leader since whenever and therefore is a winner who must not be dropped (how many times has hyufd said that?). Their analysis is graphene thin. Of course it be might be true. Boris might be the great vote winner, but no analysis is carried out as to why he won then or what might have changed since. I mean there are 3 obvious ones that spring to mind: Get Brexit done, Jeremy Corbyn, Partygate.
But there's a reason Nicola Sturgeon is still all over SNP election leaflets, but Boris Johnson was missing from recent Tory election leaflets. One of them is an asset to their party's electoral prospects and the other a millstone.
I think the airport situation is quite simple. 20 years ago working at an airport paid really well, stupidly so in many respects for all the retail, cleaning etc etc, supposed making up for all that inconvenience of weird shifts and anti-social hours.
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
The Conservatives could still win the next GE or get close to it IF they change leader, win back the centre and centre-right and ABOVE ALL start behaving like a Conservative Gov't i.e. get spending under control and taxation DOWN not up.
They have managed to piss-off the whole of middle England and that's not even about partygate.
All of this, 'there's no one obvious to take over' is just Boris fanboi guff. There are plenty of highly capable Conservative MPs waiting their opportunity to show what good governance is all about. Two years is enough time, even with the worsening economic situation, to show that they are serious about leading this country as it bloody-well should be led.
I'm no economist but I suspect they'd have already gone for interest rate rises if they could. Other possibilities are the sudden death of Putin, on the assumption the successor might be less of a warmonger. I can't see a UK PM having much of an input there. Tony started wars, he didn't stop many. Pass me the shovel, Rishi.
Queues at airports? We could nationalise the holiday industry and bring in the army. But I can see a whole host of problems there.
You're better off in opposition. Stand on the sidelines and carp. I could do that. Gissa a job.
Nadine Dorries was interviewed at some length on the radio this lunchtime. I strongly believe that she is underused, and that the Tories should give her an even higher profile.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
What is Government for if not to solve big, structural problems?
I don't expect the Government to resolve the wiring problem in my hall. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem I'm having making a graph look pretty in Excel. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem with my second cousin not paying her debt to my late mother.
But I do expect the Government to steer the economy, to the extent that it can, which includes acting to prevent wide-scale failures in a particular sector.
So what could it have done to solve this weeks problems??
Surely Easy Jet and TUI should have not sold so many seats when they did not have the facility to carry everyone.
Its like my firm promising to do the work of 100 electricians when it only has access to 50.
Surely builders have an enormous reputation for just doing that. I certainly fired mine because the bastards never turned up when they said they would.
Was perusing the Daily Mail in the caff. Their line is ditching Boris hands No.10 to Labour. That's not a popular view on here. But. What if the only thing keeping Tory support up is the lovable cheeky chappy? After all, the country appears to be failing to perform some of the very basics of government. It's the @HYUFD view. Is it widespread on Tory benches?
That's not to say that the Tories can't contrive to choose someone worse as a successor. Several of the contenders would likely be epic disasters. But, "not the worst option we could have," is not a great endorsement.
I see that Dominic Cummings has just described Liz Truss as "close to properly crackers" and would be even worse than Boris Johnson.
Something I agree with him about.
You're right. They 'could' contrive to choose someone like her who would be even worse than Boris Johnson. Otherwise they have every opportunity to get this right, win back the centre-right ground, and make a serious challenge to Sir Keir Starmer who is not exactly setting the electorate alight.
I think Dom describes anyone who doesn't like Dom as "crackers" (or worse), so I'm not sure there's much in it. Indeed, I'd think worse of anyone praised by Dom.
That's not a staunch defence of Truss, by the way. She has a lot of flaws as a potential Tory leader and PM, but the rather dodgy suggestion she's unstable probably isn't one of them. Indeed, she's arguably just a rather cold careerist and has a high opinion of her own talents, which isn't terribly unusual.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
What is Government for if not to solve big, structural problems?
I don't expect the Government to resolve the wiring problem in my hall. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem I'm having making a graph look pretty in Excel. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem with my second cousin not paying her debt to my late mother.
But I do expect the Government to steer the economy, to the extent that it can, which includes acting to prevent wide-scale failures in a particular sector.
So what could it have done to solve this weeks problems??
Surely Easy Jet and TUI should have not sold so many seats when they did not have the facility to carry everyone.
Its like my firm promising to do the work of 100 electricians when it only has access to 50.
Surely builders have an enormous reputation for just doing that. I certainly fired mine because the bastards never turned up when they said they would.
They do, but people do not expect the Government to provide a solution.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
The loss of FOM is not the only cause, see my post upthread. But it sure hasn’t helped.
If it was ANY cause, why would Amsterdam and Dublin be in as big, if not bigger messes?
Net migration into the UK has stayed flat. It’s uncontrolled (and quite probably low skilled/waged) immigration from the EU that has stopped.
As Sir Stuart Rose remarked at the start of the Remain campaign, if we left the EU “wages might have to rise”.
Wonder if allies of the PM might put in a letter or two in order to trigger the contest now rather than wait for the tonking in Tiverton. I mean the narrative is that that's a close race and all, my view is the Tories are going to lose it badly.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
What is Government for if not to solve big, structural problems?
I don't expect the Government to resolve the wiring problem in my hall. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem I'm having making a graph look pretty in Excel. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem with my second cousin not paying her debt to my late mother.
But I do expect the Government to steer the economy, to the extent that it can, which includes acting to prevent wide-scale failures in a particular sector.
So what could it have done to solve this weeks problems??
Surely Easy Jet and TUI should have not sold so many seats when they did not have the facility to carry everyone.
Its like my firm promising to do the work of 100 electricians when it only has access to 50.
I'm not an expert in the topic, so I don't know that I have solutions. But governments can generally do short-term things (e.g., dealing with the delays in vetting procedures for staff), including through "soft power" (making very clear to the relevant companies that they need to do better), and they can do long-term things through legislation (the Conservatives have proposed various legislative checks on unions and on protesters on the grounds that we need to protect transport infrastructure, so what about proposing requirements on the companies concerned to have better contingencies) or other means, like international agreements (building a good relationship with the EU built on cooperation to reduce red tape).
I'm no economist but I suspect they'd have already gone for interest rate rises if they could. Other possibilities are the sudden death of Putin, on the assumption the successor might be less of a warmonger. I can't see a UK PM having much of an input there. Tony started wars, he didn't stop many. Pass me the shovel, Rishi.
Queues at airports? We could nationalise the holiday industry and bring in the army. But I can see a whole host of problems there.
You're better off in opposition. Stand on the sidelines and carp. I could do that. Gissa a job.
I see today a co-pilot was so cheesed off he started unloading the baggage of his passengers for them. Good for him.
Was perusing the Daily Mail in the caff. Their line is ditching Boris hands No.10 to Labour. That's not a popular view on here. But. What if the only thing keeping Tory support up is the lovable cheeky chappy? After all, the country appears to be failing to perform some of the very basics of government. It's the @HYUFD view. Is it widespread on Tory benches?
That's not to say that the Tories can't contrive to choose someone worse as a successor. Several of the contenders would likely be epic disasters. But, "not the worst option we could have," is not a great endorsement.
I see that Dominic Cummings has just described Liz Truss as "close to properly crackers" and would be even worse than Boris Johnson.
Something I agree with him about.
You're right. They 'could' contrive to choose someone like her who would be even worse than Boris Johnson. Otherwise they have every opportunity to get this right, win back the centre-right ground, and make a serious challenge to Sir Keir Starmer who is not exactly setting the electorate alight.
I think Dom describes anyone who doesn't like Dom as "crackers" (or worse), so I'm not sure there's much in it. Indeed, I'd think worse of anyone praised by Dom.
That's not a staunch defence of Truss, by the way. She has a lot of flaws as a potential Tory leader and PM, but the rather dodgy suggestion she's unstable probably isn't one of them. Indeed, she's arguably just a rather cold careerist and has a high opinion of her own talents, which isn't terribly unusual.
I don't know Sir Norfolk. She has had a bad reputation in the civil service for some years. It was they who branded her 'the human hand grenade'.
However, you're probably right that it's all careerist pandering to the membership.
Poor Dom R. He doesn't stand a chance in E&W in 23/24. And it's not as if the Gross Canine has ever shown him any loyalty in return for the pitiful obeisance.
Indeed, getting demoted from Foreign Secretary to Justice and spinning it as a promotion with the sinecure of Deputy Prime Minister was amusing.
He's Geoffrey Howe de nos jours, it's like actually being savaged by a dead sheep.
If only Raab were like Howe - mild mannered sheep transformed into The Avenged Maggie Slayer.
But Johnson wouldn't sit there and take his medicine like she did. He'd hide in the nearest fridge, under the pretext he was unloading that suitcase full of wine for the celebratory drinks.
I've been toying with a piece for this weekend.
Imagine if Boris Johnson loses the confidence it takes 2-3 months for a Tory leadership contest to take place.
I can see him flouncing out because I don't think he could cope with being a lame duck PM, having to do all the hard work and having the piss taken out of him during the interregnum.
We will have a new temporary PM before we get the winner of the Tory leadership contest takes place.
This is going to wreak havoc with the betting markets.
He could introduce a poison pill by reshuffling some absolute arse (yes more than Raab) in as deputy PM so the horror of that person being acting PM made people think twice - maybe JRM or Daniel Kawczynsci.
What about that Chope chappy....the one who opposed the legislation to prevent female mutilation.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
What is Government for if not to solve big, structural problems?
I don't expect the Government to resolve the wiring problem in my hall. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem I'm having making a graph look pretty in Excel. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem with my second cousin not paying her debt to my late mother.
But I do expect the Government to steer the economy, to the extent that it can, which includes acting to prevent wide-scale failures in a particular sector.
So what could it have done to solve this weeks problems??
Surely Easy Jet and TUI should have not sold so many seats when they did not have the facility to carry everyone.
Its like my firm promising to do the work of 100 electricians when it only has access to 50.
Surely builders have an enormous reputation for just doing that. I certainly fired mine because the bastards never turned up when they said they would.
They do, but people do not expect the Government to provide a solution.
Oh I don't know. It would have been good to see Boris and JRM around here doing a bit of bricklaying and plastering. I believe Churchill did a bit of bricklaying on the side.
Was perusing the Daily Mail in the caff. Their line is ditching Boris hands No.10 to Labour. That's not a popular view on here. But. What if the only thing keeping Tory support up is the lovable cheeky chappy? After all, the country appears to be failing to perform some of the very basics of government. It's the @HYUFD view. Is it widespread on Tory benches?
That's not to say that the Tories can't contrive to choose someone worse as a successor. Several of the contenders would likely be epic disasters. But, "not the worst option we could have," is not a great endorsement.
I see that Dominic Cummings has just described Liz Truss as "close to properly crackers"
Why, did she drive hundreds of miles to check if she could still see?
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
The loss of FOM is not the only cause, see my post upthread. But it sure hasn’t helped.
If it was ANY cause, why would Amsterdam and Dublin be in as big, if not bigger messes?
Net migration into the UK has stayed flat. It’s uncontrolled (and quite probably low skilled/waged) immigration from the EU that has stopped.
As Sir Stuart Rose remarked at the start of the Remain campaign, if we left the EU “wages might have to rise”.
And people think Leave voters were stupid…..
I don’t care about Dublin and Amsterdam.
I’m merely noting that the UK airport industry has less labour to call upon, and likely 50% of the reason is the end of FOM.
Most (but of course not all) economists believe, by the way, that immigration increases wages rather than decreases them, at least in the long run. I appreciate this is vigorously contested on PB, mostly by people who have given up looking for Brexit benefits anywhere else.
Was perusing the Daily Mail in the caff. Their line is ditching Boris hands No.10 to Labour. That's not a popular view on here. But. What if the only thing keeping Tory support up is the lovable cheeky chappy? After all, the country appears to be failing to perform some of the very basics of government. It's the @HYUFD view. Is it widespread on Tory benches?
That's not to say that the Tories can't contrive to choose someone worse as a successor. Several of the contenders would likely be epic disasters. But, "not the worst option we could have," is not a great endorsement.
I see that Dominic Cummings has just described Liz Truss as "close to properly crackers" and would be even worse than Boris Johnson.
Something I agree with him about.
You're right. They 'could' contrive to choose someone like her who would be even worse than Boris Johnson. Otherwise they have every opportunity to get this right, win back the centre-right ground, and make a serious challenge to Sir Keir Starmer who is not exactly setting the electorate alight.
The thing is the previous six leaders of the party were objectively worse than Johnson 2019 as measured by election results: Major, Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron and May.
Those odds are not great.
Exactly where Johnson 2024 would rank is unknown, but we have to acknowledge that he had a rare quality of relationship with the electorate, and the chances of the Tories picking that well (in terms of their electoral performance) are slim.
Wonder if allies of the PM might put in a letter or two in order to trigger the contest now rather than wait for the tonking in Tiverton.
I'm not sure this logic works.
If the Tories win either of the two by-elections before a confidence vote is triggered, then he may not have to face one.
But assuming they are going to lose, I think the PM would rather the confidence vote was after Tiverton/Wakefield as it's easier to draw a line if he ekes out a win amongst MPs. The line is then, "Look, I took a beating like I've not had since Eton, and know I must do better... and my MPs have kindly said they think I can and will regain the trust of the good people of Devon and wherever the hell the other one was".
If he narrowly survives a confidence vote among MPs before Tiverton/Wakefield, it's harder to draw the line. The narrative is then that the by-elections are the "People's Confidence Vote" and they've said that no matter what MPs say, you have to go. It's harder to deal with.
But there's a reason Nicola Sturgeon is still all over SNP election leaflets, but Boris Johnson was missing from recent Tory election leaflets. One of them is an asset to their party's electoral prospects and the other a millstone.
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
Was perusing the Daily Mail in the caff. Their line is ditching Boris hands No.10 to Labour. That's not a popular view on here. But. What if the only thing keeping Tory support up is the lovable cheeky chappy? After all, the country appears to be failing to perform some of the very basics of government. It's the @HYUFD view. Is it widespread on Tory benches?
That's not to say that the Tories can't contrive to choose someone worse as a successor. Several of the contenders would likely be epic disasters. But, "not the worst option we could have," is not a great endorsement.
I see that Dominic Cummings has just described Liz Truss as "close to properly crackers" and would be even worse than Boris Johnson.
Something I agree with him about.
You're right. They 'could' contrive to choose someone like her who would be even worse than Boris Johnson. Otherwise they have every opportunity to get this right, win back the centre-right ground, and make a serious challenge to Sir Keir Starmer who is not exactly setting the electorate alight.
The thing is the previous six leaders of the party were objectively worse than Johnson 2019 as measured by election results: Major, Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron and May.
Those odds are not great.
Exactly where Johnson 2024 would rank is unknown, but we have to acknowledge that he had a rare quality of relationship with the electorate, and the chances of the Tories picking that well (in terms of their electoral performance) are slim.
The thing that should matter is that the previous six leaders of the Conservative party were objectively better than Johnson as measured by honesty, competence, sexual fidelity...
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
The loss of FOM is not the only cause, see my post upthread. But it sure hasn’t helped.
If it was ANY cause, why would Amsterdam and Dublin be in as big, if not bigger messes?
Net migration into the UK has stayed flat. It’s uncontrolled (and quite probably low skilled/waged) immigration from the EU that has stopped.
As Sir Stuart Rose remarked at the start of the Remain campaign, if we left the EU “wages might have to rise”.
And people think Leave voters were stupid…..
I don’t care about Dublin and Amsterdam.
I’m merely noting that the UK airport industry has less labour to call upon, and likely 50% of the reason is the end of FOM.
Most (but of course not all) economists believe, by the way, that immigration increases wages rather than decreases them, at least in the long run. I appreciate this is vigorously contested on PB, mostly by people who have given up looking for Brexit benefits anywhere else.
Wages at airports have been driven down....you won't get any sort of real premium now for working in things llke retail or hospitality simply because its at the airport, security pays as little as 20k a year (average 30k) for gatwick. So long anti-social hours dealing with pissed off passengers at 5am in the morning while living in Crawley for 20k a year....
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
What is Government for if not to solve big, structural problems?
I don't expect the Government to resolve the wiring problem in my hall. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem I'm having making a graph look pretty in Excel. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem with my second cousin not paying her debt to my late mother.
But I do expect the Government to steer the economy, to the extent that it can, which includes acting to prevent wide-scale failures in a particular sector.
So what could it have done to solve this weeks problems??
Surely Easy Jet and TUI should have not sold so many seats when they did not have the facility to carry everyone.
Its like my firm promising to do the work of 100 electricians when it only has access to 50.
I'm not an expert in the topic, so I don't know that I have solutions. But governments can generally do short-term things (e.g., dealing with the delays in vetting procedures for staff), including through "soft power" (making very clear to the relevant companies that they need to do better), and they can do long-term things through legislation (the Conservatives have proposed various legislative checks on unions and on protesters on the grounds that we need to protect transport infrastructure, so what about proposing requirements on the companies concerned to have better contingencies) or other means, like international agreements (building a good relationship with the EU built on cooperation to reduce red tape).
Mrs May, who has a lot of constituents who work at LHR pointed out to Shapps that the industry would need several months notice to ramp up again - you can’t turn it on and turn it off like a tap. The airports - and some of the airlines in particular - treated their employees poorly and as they sowed so are they reaping.
This is not a UK specific problem.
The Chief Executive of [Dublin] airport operator daa has said that its predictions on the rate of recovery post-pandemic were "wildly wrong".
Appearing before the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications, Dalton Philips said that the rate of passenger increases from March of this year "took off" at a level that "we were not expecting".
Mr Philips told Committee Chair Kieran O'Donnell that the airport let too many people go during the height of the pandemic.
"But travel bosses say they spent the pandemic warning ministers that unless they got sector specific support and funding, the significant cuts they made to their businesses would be incredibly damaging. They say that’s the damage we’re seeing now.
One boss says getting back to the levels of skills and training "doesn’t happen at the flick of a switch" and said being blamed now for it - when they had told the government they needed support - was "very distressing"."
The simple question is if they didn't have the staff to facilitate taking these people on planes, why did they sell tickets for flights that could not happen.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
The loss of FOM is not the only cause, see my post upthread. But it sure hasn’t helped.
If it was ANY cause, why would Amsterdam and Dublin be in as big, if not bigger messes?
Net migration into the UK has stayed flat. It’s uncontrolled (and quite probably low skilled/waged) immigration from the EU that has stopped.
As Sir Stuart Rose remarked at the start of the Remain campaign, if we left the EU “wages might have to rise”.
And people think Leave voters were stupid…..
I don’t care about Dublin and Amsterdam.
I’m merely noting that the UK airport industry has less labour to call upon, and likely 50% of the reason is the end of FOM.
Most (but of course not all) economists believe, by the way, that immigration increases wages rather than decreases them, at least in the long run. I appreciate this is vigorously contested on PB, mostly by people who have given up looking for Brexit benefits anywhere else.
Wages at airports have been driven down....you won't get any sort of real premium now for working in things llke retail or hospitality simply because its at the airport, security pays as little as 20k a year (average 30k) for gatwick.
The first question is why - you suggest a mechanism upthread but there could be other reasons.
The second question might be is it even a bad thing if it supports profitability elsewhere in the economy and/or if it allows UK natives to “move up” into better paying jobs.
I think the airport situation is quite simple. 20 years ago working at an airport paid really well, stupidly so in many respects for all the retail, cleaning etc etc, supposed making up for all that inconvenience of weird shifts and anti-social hours.
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
Not even sure it's that. There's simple inertia. People laid off by the airports had to find other jobs, and now that they have why would they go to the trouble of applying for a job at the airport and go through the security clearance hassle, etc, even if the pay and conditions were comparable to their current job?
The airline industry has never tried to recruit so many people so quickly before. Given the unemployment rate it shouldn't be a surprise that it's difficult.
I'm no economist but I suspect they'd have already gone for interest rate rises if they could. Other possibilities are the sudden death of Putin, on the assumption the successor might be less of a warmonger. I can't see a UK PM having much of an input there. Tony started wars, he didn't stop many. Pass me the shovel, Rishi.
Queues at airports? We could nationalise the holiday industry and bring in the army. But I can see a whole host of problems there.
You're better off in opposition. Stand on the sidelines and carp. I could do that. Gissa a job.
I see today a co-pilot was so cheesed off he started unloading the baggage of his passengers for them. Good for him.
That won't have been the only reason. He will have a strict limit on the number of hours he works in a period: if he doesn't get his plane into the air by a certain time, he won't be able to fly and him (and all his passengers) will be stranded. That's extremely expensive for the airline and sucks for the pilot too.
I think the airport situation is quite simple. 20 years ago working at an airport paid really well, stupidly so in many respects for all the retail, cleaning etc etc, supposed making up for all that inconvenience of weird shifts and anti-social hours.
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
Not even sure it's that. There's simple inertia. People laid off by the airports had to find other jobs, and now that they have why would they go to the trouble of applying for a job at the airport and go through the security clearance hassle, etc, even if the pay and conditions were comparable to their current job?
The airline industry has never tried to recruit so many people so quickly before. Given the unemployment rate it shouldn't be a surprise that it's difficult.
I am sure that's true. My point is wages have been driven down there in all those roles like security and so it isn't an really attractive industry to return if you did get a different job during covid (or returned to home EU country), let alone about thinking joining it.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
What is Government for if not to solve big, structural problems?
I don't expect the Government to resolve the wiring problem in my hall. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem I'm having making a graph look pretty in Excel. I don't expect the Government to resolve the problem with my second cousin not paying her debt to my late mother.
But I do expect the Government to steer the economy, to the extent that it can, which includes acting to prevent wide-scale failures in a particular sector.
So what could it have done to solve this weeks problems??
Surely Easy Jet and TUI should have not sold so many seats when they did not have the facility to carry everyone.
Its like my firm promising to do the work of 100 electricians when it only has access to 50.
I'm not an expert in the topic, so I don't know that I have solutions. But governments can generally do short-term things (e.g., dealing with the delays in vetting procedures for staff), including through "soft power" (making very clear to the relevant companies that they need to do better), and they can do long-term things through legislation (the Conservatives have proposed various legislative checks on unions and on protesters on the grounds that we need to protect transport infrastructure, so what about proposing requirements on the companies concerned to have better contingencies) or other means, like international agreements (building a good relationship with the EU built on cooperation to reduce red tape).
Mrs May, who has a lot of constituents who work at LHR pointed out to Shapps that the industry would need several months notice to ramp up again - you can’t turn it on and turn it off like a tap. The airports - and some of the airlines in particular - treated their employees poorly and as they sowed so are they reaping.
This is not a UK specific problem.
The Chief Executive of [Dublin] airport operator daa has said that its predictions on the rate of recovery post-pandemic were "wildly wrong".
Appearing before the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications, Dalton Philips said that the rate of passenger increases from March of this year "took off" at a level that "we were not expecting".
Mr Philips told Committee Chair Kieran O'Donnell that the airport let too many people go during the height of the pandemic.
% Cancelled El Al 7% Austrian 6% KLM 5% Qantas 5% IcelandAir 3% EasyJet 2%
The problem is similar in the US: a lot of older cabin crew (and even pilots) at the big carriers have simply not returned. Airports have staffing shortages too.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
I don't see what the connection is between any of those Johnson government failings and Brexit.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
The loss of FOM is not the only cause, see my post upthread. But it sure hasn’t helped.
If it was ANY cause, why would Amsterdam and Dublin be in as big, if not bigger messes?
Net migration into the UK has stayed flat. It’s uncontrolled (and quite probably low skilled/waged) immigration from the EU that has stopped.
As Sir Stuart Rose remarked at the start of the Remain campaign, if we left the EU “wages might have to rise”.
And people think Leave voters were stupid…..
I don’t care about Dublin and Amsterdam.
I’m merely noting that the UK airport industry has less labour to call upon, and likely 50% of the reason is the end of FOM.
Most (but of course not all) economists believe, by the way, that immigration increases wages rather than decreases them, at least in the long run. I appreciate this is vigorously contested on PB, mostly by people who have given up looking for Brexit benefits anywhere else.
Wages at airports have been driven down....you won't get any sort of real premium now for working in things llke retail or hospitality simply because its at the airport, security pays as little as 20k a year (average 30k) for gatwick. So long anti-social hours dealing with pissed off passengers at 5am in the morning while living in Crawley for 20k a year....
Agreed. The industry laid a load of people off last year even when they were still able to claim furlough for them, assuming they could re-recruit (on worse conditions). People have since found there are other jobs they can do, with better hours. And that in the days of low-cost travel, jobs in air travel aren't at all glamorous.
And not all airlines are the same. Had an email from Ryanair this morning and was worried, but they were just bringing my flight home from Berlin forward by 10 minutes. So far I don't think they have had cancellations in the latest round. Either they planned better, or it is easier to recruit around Stansted.
"But travel bosses say they spent the pandemic warning ministers that unless they got sector specific support and funding, the significant cuts they made to their businesses would be incredibly damaging. They say that’s the damage we’re seeing now.
One boss says getting back to the levels of skills and training "doesn’t happen at the flick of a switch" and said being blamed now for it - when they had told the government they needed support - was "very distressing"."
The simple question is if they didn't have the staff to facilitate taking these people on planes, why did they sell tickets for flights that could not happen.
.
A rare agreement with you.
Don't promise holidays or flights unless you're sure you can deliver them. It's not difficult.
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
I don't see what the connection is between any of those Johnson government failings and Brexit.
Brexit damaged the economy; the economy pays for everything else. Energy security damaged by leaving EU exchanges. Increased red tape with travel to the EU impacts on airports.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
It’s also bollocks. Yes, the world over is facing an inflationary shock.
But UK “performance” on inward investment, currency strength, export performance, inflation projections, and GDP growth stand out.
Was perusing the Daily Mail in the caff. Their line is ditching Boris hands No.10 to Labour. That's not a popular view on here. But. What if the only thing keeping Tory support up is the lovable cheeky chappy? After all, the country appears to be failing to perform some of the very basics of government. It's the @HYUFD view. Is it widespread on Tory benches?
That's not to say that the Tories can't contrive to choose someone worse as a successor. Several of the contenders would likely be epic disasters. But, "not the worst option we could have," is not a great endorsement.
I see that Dominic Cummings has just described Liz Truss as "close to properly crackers" and would be even worse than Boris Johnson.
Something I agree with him about.
You're right. They 'could' contrive to choose someone like her who would be even worse than Boris Johnson. Otherwise they have every opportunity to get this right, win back the centre-right ground, and make a serious challenge to Sir Keir Starmer who is not exactly setting the electorate alight.
The thing is the previous six leaders of the party were objectively worse than Johnson 2019 as measured by election results: Major, Hague, IDS, Howard, Cameron and May.
Those odds are not great.
Exactly where Johnson 2024 would rank is unknown, but we have to acknowledge that he had a rare quality of relationship with the electorate, and the chances of the Tories picking that well (in terms of their electoral performance) are slim.
The thing that should matter is that the previous six leaders of the Conservative party were objectively better than Johnson as measured by honesty, competence, sexual fidelity...
Well, it does matter to me and you, but the 360-ish individuals who are making this choice have different motivations, and if you're interested in predicting their actions then it's important to understand those motivations.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
No. The point is that the ending of FOM can’t have contributed to delays at Amsterdam and Dublin - it looks like globally an industry that paid its staff poorly and treated them badly is reaping the rewards of that behaviour, except to some it must be because of Brexit….
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
An impassioned cri de coeur from the French Riviera. Speaking only for myself, I am close to tears
It behoves us ALL to listen to such anguished personal testimony
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
Typical exaggerated comment from someone who fails to criticise France, Germany and Hungary over their appeasement of Putin and the shocking behaviour of the French police at the European Cup final
The airline industry is in chaos across Europe and the US, the energy crisis is Putin made, yesterday Germany announced high inflation figures, and all governments are wrestling with an economic crisis
Yes Boris must go, but he handled covid well and he has shamed the leaders of Germany and France , (or should I say the appeasers) over Ukraine
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
No. The point is that the ending of FOM can’t have contributed to delays at Amsterdam and Dublin - it looks like globally an industry that paid its staff poorly and treated them badly is reaping the rewards of that behaviour, except to some it must be because of Brexit….
Not Brexit but the ending of FOM which has shrunk the workforce. It’s just a fact, Carlotta, however you want to blather.
I think the airport situation is quite simple. 20 years ago working at an airport paid really well, stupidly so in many respects for all the retail, cleaning etc etc, supposed making up for all that inconvenience of weird shifts and anti-social hours.
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
Not even sure it's that. There's simple inertia. People laid off by the airports had to find other jobs, and now that they have why would they go to the trouble of applying for a job at the airport and go through the security clearance hassle, etc, even if the pay and conditions were comparable to their current job?
The airline industry has never tried to recruit so many people so quickly before. Given the unemployment rate it shouldn't be a surprise that it's difficult.
The country coming out of the pandemic is shaped differently to the one that entered the pandemic 2 years ago. People have different aspirations and perspectives on what they are prepared to do. A load of people have moved house or job or to a completely new area.
Fundamentally though there are too many non-jobs where people at best get exploited as an independent contractor slave under pressure to deliver food / groceries / parcels in to short a time. Too many vacancies that are unfillable due to a combination of businesses unable to pay more and a lack of unemployed / wanting a change people to attract - and the airports have been hit hard.
When you are a cafe or tourist spot who simply can't pay more because costs and income don't allow for it, I have sympathy. But the mahoosive PLC airports who have worked really hard to turn them into horrible forced shopping environments? Nope.
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
I don't see what the connection is between any of those Johnson government failings and Brexit.
An obvious one is that the only reason Johnson is in power is because of Brexit and one of the main reasons we Brexited was Johnson. Then he kicked out people like Rory Stewart, Phil Hammond to bring in Dorries and JRM.
I think the airport situation is quite simple. 20 years ago working at an airport paid really well, stupidly so in many respects for all the retail, cleaning etc etc, supposed making up for all that inconvenience of weird shifts and anti-social hours.
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
Not even sure it's that. There's simple inertia. People laid off by the airports had to find other jobs, and now that they have why would they go to the trouble of applying for a job at the airport and go through the security clearance hassle, etc, even if the pay and conditions were comparable to their current job?
The airline industry has never tried to recruit so many people so quickly before. Given the unemployment rate it shouldn't be a surprise that it's difficult.
I am sure that's true. My point is wages have been driven down there in all those roles like security and so it isn't an really attractive industry to return if you did get a different job during covid (or returned to home EU country), let alone about thinking joining it.
It’s not just wages - as I understand things a lot of these places where playing the IR35 shuffle dance & forcing their employees into being self-employed 1 man companies, or else putting them on zero hours contracts where they could be called up for any shift at short notice & couldn’t say no on pain of losing their jobs. (Sometimes both!)
Unsurprisingly, those employees who have found stable employment elsewhere, even for notionally the same wages, are not keen on returning to an industry that historically treated them like dirt on the bottom of a shoe.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
"It's worse in EU countries" isn't a response to "it's bad here", but it is a killer response to "it's bad here because [the stupid racist plebs voted for] Brexit".
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
The loss of FOM is not the only cause, see my post upthread. But it sure hasn’t helped.
If it was ANY cause, why would Amsterdam and Dublin be in as big, if not bigger messes?
Net migration into the UK has stayed flat. It’s uncontrolled (and quite probably low skilled/waged) immigration from the EU that has stopped.
As Sir Stuart Rose remarked at the start of the Remain campaign, if we left the EU “wages might have to rise”.
And people think Leave voters were stupid…..
I don’t care about Dublin and Amsterdam.
I’m merely noting that the UK airport industry has less labour to call upon, and likely 50% of the reason is the end of FOM.
Most (but of course not all) economists believe, by the way, that immigration increases wages rather than decreases them, at least in the long run. I appreciate this is vigorously contested on PB, mostly by people who have given up looking for Brexit benefits anywhere else.
Wages at airports have been driven down....you won't get any sort of real premium now for working in things llke retail or hospitality simply because its at the airport, security pays as little as 20k a year (average 30k) for gatwick.
The first question is why - you suggest a mechanism upthread but there could be other reasons.
The second question might be is it even a bad thing if it supports profitability elsewhere in the economy and/or if it allows UK natives to “move up” into better paying jobs.
Permanently bringing in immigrant labour to do jobs the locals don't want to do is a ponzi scheme dependent on maintaining a world with countries poorer than us.
I'm in favour of the least possible immigration restrictions on the basis of increasing people's freedom, but all work should pay well enough that it allows the person doing it to live with dignity and a decent quality of life in the society in which they work.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
"It's worse in EU countries" isn't a response to "it's bad here", but it is a killer response to "it's bad here because [the stupid racist plebs voted for] Brexit".
I don’t think Carlotta claimed it was *worse*.
And nobody mentioned stupid racist plebs except you, which is perhaps a form of projection, I don’t know.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
No. The point is that the ending of FOM can’t have contributed to delays at Amsterdam and Dublin - it looks like globally an industry that paid its staff poorly and treated them badly is reaping the rewards of that behaviour, except to some it must be because of Brexit….
A chunk of people travelling through Amsterdam and Dublin are coming or going to the UK, so the UK ending FOM will have had some impact there too. (If Tokyo and Houston are having problems, then, sure, ending FOM can't have contributed there.)
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
An impassioned cri de coeur from the French Riviera. Speaking only for myself, I am close to tears
It behoves us ALL to listen to such anguished personal testimony
I'm trying not to cry, as there is a shortage of tissues in my local shops at the moment.
What must be of a huge concern to Boris is whether he'll get his old Telegraph column back if he's ousted. It would be rather odd, having a bloke pontificate about politics and politicians, who himself was flung out of office for acts of criminality and incompetence. But perhaps it could be marketed as 'Boris - the PM the elite couldn't stomach.'
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
"It's worse in EU countries" isn't a response to "it's bad here", but it is a killer response to "it's bad here because [the stupid racist plebs voted for] Brexit".
I don’t think Carlotta claimed it was *worse*.
And nobody mentioned stupid racist plebs except you, which is perhaps a form of projection, I don’t know.
You don't need to mention it explicitly, that's the point - your sneering (as a New Zealander in New York, no less) makes it obvious what you think of the majority who voted the wrong way for your taste.
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
I don't see what the connection is between any of those Johnson government failings and Brexit.
An obvious one is that the only reason Johnson is in power is because of Brexit and one of the main reasons we Brexited was Johnson. Then he kicked out people like Rory Stewart, Phil Hammond to bring in Dorries and JRM.
Yes, apart from the economic ill-effect of Brexit, there is also a cost to the political malgovernance that comes from voting for an essentially dishonest proposition led by a notably dishonest grifter.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
No. The point is that the ending of FOM can’t have contributed to delays at Amsterdam and Dublin - it looks like globally an industry that paid its staff poorly and treated them badly is reaping the rewards of that behaviour, except to some it must be because of Brexit….
Not Brexit but the ending of FOM which has shrunk the workforce. It’s just a fact, Carlotta, however you want to blather.
Yet net migration is close to record highs again.
I’m not sure this has anything to do with FoM. It’s a universal problem across the planet, post pandemic
eg when I first noticed UK pubs and restaurants and hotels struggling for staff after covid I confess my immediate reaction was: this must be Brexit. All the nice Slovenian waitresses have gone home
They may have gone home, but since then I have travelled to the USA and Sri Lanka, Georgia and Turkey, Greece and Spain - and literally everywhere is the same. New Orleans was so bad one oyster house in the French Quarter had one waitress serving 200 people and the poor woman was in tears, and they had to shut the door to any more customers.
The pandemic has completely fucked the labour market, worldwide, in multiple ways. It will probably take years to settle down again
Brexit is just a tiny part of this, if it has any impact at all
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
No. The point is that the ending of FOM can’t have contributed to delays at Amsterdam and Dublin - it looks like globally an industry that paid its staff poorly and treated them badly is reaping the rewards of that behaviour, except to some it must be because of Brexit….
Not Brexit but the ending of FOM which has shrunk the workforce. It’s just a fact, Carlotta, however you want to blather.
Not clear I’m the one blathering….
The most timely estimate of payrolled employees for April 2022 shows a monthly increase, up 121,000 on the revised March 2022, to a record 29.5 million.
Paul Waugh @paulwaugh · 49m Includes this: fresh chatter among Tory MPs that 1922 ctter exc could change the leadership rules "in an afternoon" to scrap convention that only one confidence vote can be held per year.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
"It's worse in EU countries" isn't a response to "it's bad here", but it is a killer response to "it's bad here because [the stupid racist plebs voted for] Brexit".
I don’t think Carlotta claimed it was *worse*.
And nobody mentioned stupid racist plebs except you, which is perhaps a form of projection, I don’t know.
You don't need to mention it explicitly, that's the point - your sneering (as a New Zealander in New York, no less) makes it obvious what you think of the majority who voted the wrong way for your taste.
I am merely repeating your words back to you. I’m sorry that you take that as a “sneer”.
What must be of a huge concern to Boris is whether he'll get his old Telegraph column back if he's ousted. It would be rather odd, having a bloke pontificate about politics and politicians, who himself was flung out of office for acts of criminality and incompetence. But perhaps it could be marketed as 'Boris - the PM the elite couldn't stomach.'
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
The loss of FOM is not the only cause, see my post upthread. But it sure hasn’t helped.
If it was ANY cause, why would Amsterdam and Dublin be in as big, if not bigger messes?
Net migration into the UK has stayed flat. It’s uncontrolled (and quite probably low skilled/waged) immigration from the EU that has stopped.
As Sir Stuart Rose remarked at the start of the Remain campaign, if we left the EU “wages might have to rise”.
And people think Leave voters were stupid…..
I don’t care about Dublin and Amsterdam.
I’m merely noting that the UK airport industry has less labour to call upon, and likely 50% of the reason is the end of FOM.
Most (but of course not all) economists believe, by the way, that immigration increases wages rather than decreases them, at least in the long run. I appreciate this is vigorously contested on PB, mostly by people who have given up looking for Brexit benefits anywhere else.
Wages at airports have been driven down....you won't get any sort of real premium now for working in things llke retail or hospitality simply because its at the airport, security pays as little as 20k a year (average 30k) for gatwick. So long anti-social hours dealing with pissed off passengers at 5am in the morning while living in Crawley for 20k a year....
Agreed. The industry laid a load of people off last year even when they were still able to claim furlough for them, assuming they could re-recruit (on worse conditions). People have since found there are other jobs they can do, with better hours. And that in the days of low-cost travel, jobs in air travel aren't at all glamorous.
And not all airlines are the same. Had an email from Ryanair this morning and was worried, but they were just bringing my flight home from Berlin forward by 10 minutes. So far I don't think they have had cancellations in the latest round. Either they planned better, or it is easier to recruit around Stansted.
A news report I heard is that they avoided making large redundancies (but cut wages instead). So they still have staff on payroll and aren't having to recruit as hard.
Paul Waugh @paulwaugh · 49m Includes this: fresh chatter among Tory MPs that 1922 ctter exc could change the leadership rules "in an afternoon" to scrap convention that only one confidence vote can be held per year.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
No. The point is that the ending of FOM can’t have contributed to delays at Amsterdam and Dublin - it looks like globally an industry that paid its staff poorly and treated them badly is reaping the rewards of that behaviour, except to some it must be because of Brexit….
A chunk of people travelling through Amsterdam and Dublin are coming or going to the UK, so the UK ending FOM will have had some impact there too. (If Tokyo and Houston are having problems, then, sure, ending FOM can't have contributed there.)
I guess we should be grateful for anyone who contributes to trying to bring down this PM, however indirectly. So a shout out to whoever has been going around impregnating women. Thank you for your service.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
The loss of FOM is not the only cause, see my post upthread. But it sure hasn’t helped.
If it was ANY cause, why would Amsterdam and Dublin be in as big, if not bigger messes?
Net migration into the UK has stayed flat. It’s uncontrolled (and quite probably low skilled/waged) immigration from the EU that has stopped.
As Sir Stuart Rose remarked at the start of the Remain campaign, if we left the EU “wages might have to rise”.
And people think Leave voters were stupid…..
I don’t care about Dublin and Amsterdam.
I’m merely noting that the UK airport industry has less labour to call upon, and likely 50% of the reason is the end of FOM.
Most (but of course not all) economists believe, by the way, that immigration increases wages rather than decreases them, at least in the long run. I appreciate this is vigorously contested on PB, mostly by people who have given up looking for Brexit benefits anywhere else.
Wages at airports have been driven down....you won't get any sort of real premium now for working in things llke retail or hospitality simply because its at the airport, security pays as little as 20k a year (average 30k) for gatwick.
The first question is why - you suggest a mechanism upthread but there could be other reasons.
The second question might be is it even a bad thing if it supports profitability elsewhere in the economy and/or if it allows UK natives to “move up” into better paying jobs.
Permanently bringing in immigrant labour to do jobs the locals don't want to do is a ponzi scheme dependent on maintaining a world with countries poorer than us.
I'm in favour of the least possible immigration restrictions on the basis of increasing people's freedom, but all work should pay well enough that it allows the person doing it to live with dignity and a decent quality of life in the society in which they work.
I disagree about the Ponzi scheme, especially given Britain’s poor demographic outlook.
Of course people should be paid a decent salary etc. I presume airport security workers were paid above the UK-set minimum wage, but I don’t know. Security is not known to to be a high-skill job, but I take the point that there ought to be a premium for the hours and the unique environment.
As was briefly discussed, I don't remember a rise in inflation automatically meaning the government must do something about it by shovelling money at the voters. It might be good politics, but there's now an assumption it's the voters' right not to be inconvenienced
When were the holiday companies taken into public ownership? They used to be private companies as were the airlines. Now the government is responsible for hiring and firing.
I went to Denmark a few weeks ago, and Manchester airport was chaos. What passes for management then said it wouldn't be solved in a few weeks, it would take months. It obviously would.
Is it nostalgia on my part? When adults were adults, and six-year-olds were treated as children. What bigots we once were. No wonder everyone has mental health issues. So many rights and no one ever grows up.
Great post, its sad how people expect the Government to resolve everything for them There have been calls on here today for the Government to "sort out"the issues at the airports this week which have been casued by the travel companies and airlines. I wonder what they think the government can do.
Re-establish FOM?
If it was just FOM neither Amsterdam nor Dublin would be in the mess they are in…..
The loss of FOM is not the only cause, see my post upthread. But it sure hasn’t helped.
If it was ANY cause, why would Amsterdam and Dublin be in as big, if not bigger messes?
Net migration into the UK has stayed flat. It’s uncontrolled (and quite probably low skilled/waged) immigration from the EU that has stopped.
As Sir Stuart Rose remarked at the start of the Remain campaign, if we left the EU “wages might have to rise”.
And people think Leave voters were stupid…..
From what I've seen, quite a few employers have an interesting approach to the new world, where they need to treat their low end staff better.
Some of them have an attitude that recalls stories of ex-steel workers waiting in the pubs for the "real" jobs at the steal mills to reappear.
I think the airport situation is quite simple. 20 years ago working at an airport paid really well, stupidly so in many respects for all the retail, cleaning etc etc, supposed making up for all that inconvenience of weird shifts and anti-social hours.
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
I had no idea that airport work was ever particularly attractive in terms of pay. That's news to me.
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
Still at least we can manage having a football match unlike the french
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
No. The point is that the ending of FOM can’t have contributed to delays at Amsterdam and Dublin - it looks like globally an industry that paid its staff poorly and treated them badly is reaping the rewards of that behaviour, except to some it must be because of Brexit….
Not Brexit but the ending of FOM which has shrunk the workforce. It’s just a fact, Carlotta, however you want to blather.
Not clear I’m the one blathering….
The most timely estimate of payrolled employees for April 2022 shows a monthly increase, up 121,000 on the revised March 2022, to a record 29.5 million.
The UK employment rate was estimated at 75.7%, 0.1 percentage points higher than the previous three-month period and 0.9 percentage points lower than before the coronavirus pandemic (December 2019 to February 2020).
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
Still at least we can manage having a football match unlike the french
I take it you didnt follow the England v Italy final then?
Thing is though. Your average punter likes paying £40 for a flight. Make it £100 and they won't. Personally. I reckon that's on balance a good thing if folk get decent pay and conditions. But most won't.
I think the airport situation is quite simple. 20 years ago working at an airport paid really well, stupidly so in many respects for all the retail, cleaning etc etc, supposed making up for all that inconvenience of weird shifts and anti-social hours.
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
I had no idea that airport work was ever particularly attractive in terms of pay. That's news to me.
Mrs U as a teenager worked at one. Her retail job paid a very large premium compared to working in the same shop in the local town. The pay was so good it was very difficult to ever actually get your foot in the door, it was a closed shop of my mate knows such and such you says they have an opening coming up, I will give you the managers number.
Perhaps the ridiculous @Gardenwalker, who is convinced that Brexit is to blame for everything, including Barbary slavers and execrable Georgian supermarket tonic water, might explain the frazzled and veteran Greek tour operator I met in preveza about ten days ago.
We sat down to chat all things travel over some tsiporou and after her third class she went into a very amusing rant about all her young staff - 100s of people - leaving her restaurants and hotels “because they got used to doing nothing during the plague and now they won’t work”
Brexit impact on her staff? Zero. She told me she doesn’t even get British tourists, her biz Is all Dutch and German. Yet somehow she had exactly the same staffing problem as everywhere else in the world, including Britain
I think the airport situation is quite simple. 20 years ago working at an airport paid really well, stupidly so in many respects for all the retail, cleaning etc etc, supposed making up for all that inconvenience of weird shifts and anti-social hours.
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
Still at least we can manage having a football match unlike the french
That Wembley match preceded by the bloke with flare in his trousers (or wheresoever his trousers should have been covering) waves hello.
I think the airport situation is quite simple. 20 years ago working at an airport paid really well, stupidly so in many respects for all the retail, cleaning etc etc, supposed making up for all that inconvenience of weird shifts and anti-social hours.
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
I had no idea that airport work was ever particularly attractive in terms of pay. That's news to me.
Mrs U as a teenager worked at one. Her retail job paid a very large premium compared to working in the same shop in the local town. The pay was so good it was very difficult to ever actually get your foot in the door, it was always my mate knows such and such will give you in.
And this should continue because?
Of course people should be paid properly and to the extent airport managers have been shafting lower paid workers they deserve what has come to the them,
But consumers have to pay for this somewhere down the line - in higher landing charges or higher prices.
I think the airport situation is quite simple. 20 years ago working at an airport paid really well, stupidly so in many respects for all the retail, cleaning etc etc, supposed making up for all that inconvenience of weird shifts and anti-social hours.
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
I had no idea that airport work was ever particularly attractive in terms of pay. That's news to me.
Mrs U as a teenager worked at one. Her retail job paid a very large premium compared to working in the same shop in the local town. The pay was so good it was very difficult to ever actually get your foot in the door, it was always my mate knows such and such will give you in.
And this should continue because?
Of course people should be paid properly and to the extent airport managers have been shafting lower paid workers they deserve what has come to the them,
But consumers have to pay for this somewhere down the line - in higher landing charges or higher prices.
Did I say it was right? The point is it used to be the other extreme, a closed shop of very cushy gig for many of these customer facing roles, now its minimum wage....but with all the extra hassle, poor quality of life and cost of living near an airport. So it doesn't surprise me that they are struggling to recruit quickly.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
No. The point is that the ending of FOM can’t have contributed to delays at Amsterdam and Dublin - it looks like globally an industry that paid its staff poorly and treated them badly is reaping the rewards of that behaviour, except to some it must be because of Brexit….
Not Brexit but the ending of FOM which has shrunk the workforce. It’s just a fact, Carlotta, however you want to blather.
Yet net migration is close to record highs again.
I’m not sure this has anything to do with FoM. It’s a universal problem across the planet, post pandemic
eg when I first noticed UK pubs and restaurants and hotels struggling for staff after covid I confess my immediate reaction was: this must be Brexit. All the nice Slovenian waitresses have gone home
They may have gone home, but since then I have travelled to the USA and Sri Lanka, Georgia and Turkey, Greece and Spain - and literally everywhere is the same. New Orleans was so bad one oyster house in the French Quarter had one waitress serving 200 people and the poor woman was in tears, and they had to shut the door to any more customers.
The pandemic has completely fucked the labour market, worldwide, in multiple ways. It will probably take years to settle down again
Brexit is just a tiny part of this, if it has any impact at all
Of course. I think you are going a bit too easy on Brexit, but to be fair you at least are one of the honest Brexiters who concede that there is an economic cost to increased political autonomy.
Most deny it, because they voted for the sunny uplands.
It's interesting that some of those on the right on here, when anybody points out stuff in the UK that isn't going well (and there's a lot), are instantly responding with "yeah, but it's just as bad, if not worse, in x, y and z countries". Passport delays? Worse elsewhere. Flight cancellations? Dublin/Amsterdam. And so on.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
No. The point is that the ending of FOM can’t have contributed to delays at Amsterdam and Dublin - it looks like globally an industry that paid its staff poorly and treated them badly is reaping the rewards of that behaviour, except to some it must be because of Brexit….
A chunk of people travelling through Amsterdam and Dublin are coming or going to the UK, so the UK ending FOM will have had some impact there too. (If Tokyo and Houston are having problems, then, sure, ending FOM can't have contributed there.)
The greatest number of cancellations are in China, but ignoring them:
Poor Dom R. He doesn't stand a chance in E&W in 23/24. And it's not as if the Gross Canine has ever shown him any loyalty in return for the pitiful obeisance.
Indeed, getting demoted from Foreign Secretary to Justice and spinning it as a promotion with the sinecure of Deputy Prime Minister was amusing.
He's Geoffrey Howe de nos jours, it's like actually being savaged by a dead sheep.
If only Raab were like Howe - mild mannered sheep transformed into The Avenged Maggie Slayer.
But Johnson wouldn't sit there and take his medicine like she did. He'd hide in the nearest fridge, under the pretext he was unloading that suitcase full of wine for the celebratory drinks.
I've been toying with a piece for this weekend.
Imagine if Boris Johnson loses the confidence it takes 2-3 months for a Tory leadership contest to take place.
I can see him flouncing out because I don't think he could cope with being a lame duck PM, having to do all the hard work and having the piss taken out of him during the interregnum.
We will have a new temporary PM before we get the winner of the Tory leadership contest takes place.
This is going to wreak havoc with the betting markets.
He could introduce a poison pill by reshuffling some absolute arse (yes more than Raab) in as deputy PM so the horror of that person being acting PM made people think twice - maybe JRM or Daniel Kawczynsci.
What about that Chope chappy....the one who opposed the legislation to prevent female mutilation.
Nothing like skirting around the unpleasant realities of life. (I mean Mr C, not you, Peter!).
I made an #FOI request to the @cabinetofficeuk about Jacob Rees Mogg’s ‘sorry you were out’ cards. He went to one building, left three cards, and it was national news. They claim someone made them on an office printer.
It was always said that a Johnson government made up of 100% Brexit Ultras would have no excuses. We're now seeing the results. The police don't function The NHS doesn't function People can't afford heating or petrol. You can't even get a plane to take you out of here. The country has never been in a more shambolic state..... It's not even funny anymore.........I just heard Nadine Dorries saying how loved Boris Johnson is...... I'll never make fun of Long Bailey again...
Still at least we can manage having a football match unlike the french
Comments
I see that Dominic Cummings has just described Liz Truss as "close to properly crackers" and would be even worse than Boris Johnson.
Something I agree with him about.
You're right. They 'could' contrive to choose someone like her who would be even worse than Boris Johnson. Otherwise they have every opportunity to get this right, win back the centre-right ground, and make a serious challenge to Sir Keir Starmer who is not exactly setting the electorate alight.
That said, you'd not say anything other than "a win's a win" at this stage, but it's hard to see a long life as PM after a tight vote. May won her confidence vote 200-117 in December 2018 (which was narrow but not that close) and had made it clear she was off to the 1922 by March 2019. May was a different character, of course.
I mean, in some ways as a socialist I don't mind. But they are nothing like any Conservative Gov't I've ever known. Out-and-out spendthrifts with high and rising levels of taxation. Extraordinary.
https://twitter.com/murdo_fraser/status/1532003498547609600
Surely Easy Jet and TUI should have not sold so many seats when they did not have the facility to carry everyone.
Its like my firm promising to do the work of 100 electricians when it only has access to 50.
Covid, yes, but at the very highest level Covid was a one-off crisis which should have largely been put on the never-never.
(And politicians generally have to have a slice of mad swaggering gambler in them, or they would persue a more reliable career. And becuase of the weird shapes of the probability distributions, the most vulnerable MPs might be better off personally with Bozza.)
With the influx of cheap labour its now nowhere near as well paid but still all downside including extremely high cost of housing near airports. Then everything stopped and people have gone why the hell do i actually do this, and very difficult to attract them back.
The FOM aspect is a bit of a red herring, remember any EU national working here could easily have got right to remain and millions did. Its more likely went back to home country during covid, reevaluated living 10 to a house in Crawley to earn poor wages while having to start work at 4am every day.
The Conservatives could still win the next GE or get close to it IF they change leader, win back the centre and centre-right and ABOVE ALL start behaving like a Conservative Gov't i.e. get spending under control and taxation DOWN not up.
They have managed to piss-off the whole of middle England and that's not even about partygate.
All of this, 'there's no one obvious to take over' is just Boris fanboi guff. There are plenty of highly capable Conservative MPs waiting their opportunity to show what good governance is all about. Two years is enough time, even with the worsening economic situation, to show that they are serious about leading this country as it bloody-well should be led.
I'm no economist but I suspect they'd have already gone for interest rate rises if they could. Other possibilities are the sudden death of Putin, on the assumption the successor might be less of a warmonger. I can't see a UK PM having much of an input there. Tony started wars, he didn't stop many. Pass me the shovel, Rishi.
Queues at airports? We could nationalise the holiday industry and bring in the army. But I can see a whole host of problems there.
You're better off in opposition. Stand on the sidelines and carp. I could do that. Gissa a job.
That's not a staunch defence of Truss, by the way. She has a lot of flaws as a potential Tory leader and PM, but the rather dodgy suggestion she's unstable probably isn't one of them. Indeed, she's arguably just a rather cold careerist and has a high opinion of her own talents, which isn't terribly unusual.
Net migration into the UK has stayed flat. It’s uncontrolled (and quite probably low skilled/waged) immigration from the EU that has stopped.
As Sir Stuart Rose remarked at the start of the Remain campaign, if we left the EU “wages might have to rise”.
And people think Leave voters were stupid…..
I mean the narrative is that that's a close race and all, my view is the Tories are going to lose it badly.
However, you're probably right that it's all careerist pandering to the membership.
I’m merely noting that the UK airport industry has less labour to call upon, and likely 50% of the reason is the end of FOM.
Most (but of course not all) economists believe, by the way, that immigration increases wages rather than decreases them, at least in the long run. I appreciate this is vigorously contested on PB, mostly by people who have given up looking for Brexit benefits anywhere else.
Those odds are not great.
Exactly where Johnson 2024 would rank is unknown, but we have to acknowledge that he had a rare quality of relationship with the electorate, and the chances of the Tories picking that well (in terms of their electoral performance) are slim.
If the Tories win either of the two by-elections before a confidence vote is triggered, then he may not have to face one.
But assuming they are going to lose, I think the PM would rather the confidence vote was after Tiverton/Wakefield as it's easier to draw a line if he ekes out a win amongst MPs. The line is then, "Look, I took a beating like I've not had since Eton, and know I must do better... and my MPs have kindly said they think I can and will regain the trust of the good people of Devon and wherever the hell the other one was".
If he narrowly survives a confidence vote among MPs before Tiverton/Wakefield, it's harder to draw the line. The narrative is then that the by-elections are the "People's Confidence Vote" and they've said that no matter what MPs say, you have to go. It's harder to deal with.
This is not a UK specific problem.
The Chief Executive of [Dublin] airport operator daa has said that its predictions on the rate of recovery post-pandemic were "wildly wrong".
Appearing before the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications, Dalton Philips said that the rate of passenger increases from March of this year "took off" at a level that "we were not expecting".
Mr Philips told Committee Chair Kieran O'Donnell that the airport let too many people go during the height of the pandemic.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0601/1302351-airport-committee/
https://uk.flightaware.com/live/cancelled/today
% Cancelled
El Al 7%
Austrian 6%
KLM 5%
Qantas 5%
IcelandAir 3%
EasyJet 2%
"But travel bosses say they spent the pandemic warning ministers that unless they got sector specific support and funding, the significant cuts they made to their businesses would be incredibly damaging. They say that’s the damage we’re seeing now.
One boss says getting back to the levels of skills and training "doesn’t happen at the flick of a switch" and said being blamed now for it - when they had told the government they needed support - was "very distressing"."
The simple question is if they didn't have the staff to facilitate taking these people on planes, why did they sell tickets for flights that could not happen.
.
The second question might be is it even a bad thing if it supports profitability elsewhere in the economy and/or if it allows UK natives to “move up” into better paying jobs.
https://twitter.com/AlexofBrown/status/1531969453306654721
The airline industry has never tried to recruit so many people so quickly before. Given the unemployment rate it shouldn't be a surprise that it's difficult.
Whatever happened to the self-confidence of folk that the UK was "world-beating" and that the whole point of living here was that we were better than anywhere else?
And not all airlines are the same. Had an email from Ryanair this morning and was worried, but they were just bringing my flight home from Berlin forward by 10 minutes. So far I don't think they have had cancellations in the latest round. Either they planned better, or it is easier to recruit around Stansted.
Don't promise holidays or flights unless you're sure you can deliver them. It's not difficult.
Yes, the world over is facing an inflationary shock.
But UK “performance” on inward investment, currency strength, export performance, inflation projections, and GDP growth stand out.
It behoves us ALL to listen to such anguished personal testimony
The airline industry is in chaos across Europe and the US, the energy crisis is Putin made, yesterday Germany announced high inflation figures, and all governments are wrestling with an economic crisis
Yes Boris must go, but he handled covid well and he has shamed the leaders of Germany and France , (or should I say the appeasers) over Ukraine
The reply includes some guff about he's in politics to help make people's lives better.
Many politicians are in it for that reason - more than the public will ever believe as @NickPalmer reminds us occasionally.
Johnson 'aint one of them.
Fundamentally though there are too many non-jobs where people at best get exploited as an independent contractor slave under pressure to deliver food / groceries / parcels in to short a time. Too many vacancies that are unfillable due to a combination of businesses unable to pay more and a lack of unemployed / wanting a change people to attract - and the airports have been hit hard.
When you are a cafe or tourist spot who simply can't pay more because costs and income don't allow for it, I have sympathy. But the mahoosive PLC airports who have worked really hard to turn them into horrible forced shopping environments? Nope.
Unsurprisingly, those employees who have found stable employment elsewhere, even for notionally the same wages, are not keen on returning to an industry that historically treated them like dirt on the bottom of a shoe.
I'm in favour of the least possible immigration restrictions on the basis of increasing people's freedom, but all work should pay well enough that it allows the person doing it to live with dignity and a decent quality of life in the society in which they work.
And nobody mentioned stupid racist plebs except you, which is perhaps a form of projection, I don’t know.
I'm trying not to cry, as there is a shortage of tissues in my local shops at the moment.
I’m not sure this has anything to do with FoM. It’s a universal problem across the planet, post pandemic
eg when I first noticed UK pubs and restaurants and hotels struggling for staff after covid I confess my immediate reaction was: this must be Brexit. All the nice Slovenian waitresses have gone home
They may have gone home, but since then I have travelled to the USA and Sri Lanka, Georgia and Turkey, Greece and Spain - and literally everywhere is the same. New Orleans was so bad one oyster house in the French Quarter had one waitress serving 200 people and the poor woman was in tears, and they had to shut the door to any more customers.
The pandemic has completely fucked the labour market, worldwide, in multiple ways. It will probably take years to settle down again
Brexit is just a tiny part of this, if it has any impact at all
The most timely estimate of payrolled employees for April 2022 shows a monthly increase, up 121,000 on the revised March 2022, to a record 29.5 million.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/may2022
Paul Waugh
@paulwaugh
·
49m
Includes this: fresh chatter among Tory MPs that 1922 ctter exc could change the leadership rules "in an afternoon" to scrap convention that only one confidence vote can be held per year.
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh
I’m sorry that you take that as a “sneer”.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/28/business/memorial-day-flight-cancellations/index.html
I guess we should be grateful for anyone who contributes to trying to bring down this PM, however indirectly. So a shout out to whoever has been going around impregnating women. Thank you for your service.
Of course people should be paid a decent salary etc. I presume airport security workers were paid above the UK-set minimum wage, but I don’t know. Security is not known to to be a high-skill job, but I take the point that there ought to be a premium for the hours and the unique environment.
Some of them have an attitude that recalls stories of ex-steel workers waiting in the pubs for the "real" jobs at the steal mills to reappear.
Looks good, almost recovered.
Make it £100 and they won't.
Personally. I reckon that's on balance a good thing if folk get decent pay and conditions. But most won't.
We sat down to chat all things travel over some tsiporou and after her third class she went into a very amusing rant about all her young staff - 100s of people - leaving her restaurants and hotels “because they got used to doing nothing during the plague and now they won’t work”
Brexit impact on her staff? Zero. She told me she doesn’t even get British tourists, her biz Is all Dutch and German. Yet somehow she had exactly the same staffing problem as everywhere else in the world, including Britain
https://twitter.com/cusackandrew/status/1531216628653899776
Of course people should be paid properly and to the extent airport managers have been shafting lower paid workers they deserve what has come to the them,
But consumers have to pay for this somewhere down the line - in higher landing charges or higher prices.
I think you are going a bit too easy on Brexit, but to be fair you at least are one of the honest Brexiters who concede that there is an economic cost to increased political autonomy.
Most deny it, because they voted for the sunny uplands.
Cape Town: 14%
Hamburg: 7%
Newark: 6%
Jakarta: 6%
Sydney: 3%
Brisbane: 2%
Manchester: 1%
https://twitter.com/tim2040/status/1532017834787803146