Merkel’s WilkommensKultur was a total catastrophe. Taken with her Putinism she must go down as the most overrated German Chancellor in history
7 years after she threw open the doors, 65% of Syrians are still on benefits
Ah Sunday morning, the day totally free and open before me…think I’ll poach a few eggs and spend me a bit of time on hate-Twitter.
It’s absolutely relevant to the thread. Will we want to rejoin the EU if it is wracked, in places, by migrant violence and struggling with millions more refugees?
To find out, you have to go on Twitter. Because so much of this stuff - Sweden, Ireland, Germany - does not make our media
The store of local human misery is surely more than enough without trawling through Twitter on some kind of dystopian Club Med tour.
Translation: you shouldn’t talk about it, because it confuses my tiny liberal brain
Wes gave an excellent answer to the private healthcare question I thought.
"It's a free country, people can make that choice [between private and public healthcare] but I want to make sure that people - whether they can afford it or not - have access to great, free healthcare at the point of need."
This is an entirely different kind of Labour Party from one we have seen for over a decade. This is the right way to tackle these questions. Go Wes!
But the country is not quite so free when people choose to spend their hard earned on education for their kids, is it?
I don't think that Labour plan to abolish private education, just remove some of its tax breaks.
So, when I was paying £10k a year for education for a child, on which I had paid £4,200 of IT and in respect of which I had been an unpaid tax collector of £2k of tax in the form of VAT, to save my local authority the £5k of costs they would otherwise have incurred in teaching my child I was benefitting from tax breaks? Every day is a learning day on PB, right enough.
My guess is that you did not educate your child privately to save the local authority money. You made a choice based on what you felt was best for your child and what you could afford. Removing tax breaks for private schools will not change the equation, but it may change the answer. The state may end up spending more on education as a result, but there will be more parents demanding high-quality outcomes too. That seems like a net societal benefit to me.
From being a notably peaceful country, 20 years ago, Sweden now has more rapes than any other European country, and it is nearing the top of the table for bombings and shootings
“From Europe's lowest crime rates to being the region's homicide capital - we look at the deterioration of Sweden's security landscape and what the government and law enforcement is doing to tackle the issue: hubs.ly/Q01wC7Zk0”
Stuart Dickson never speaks of this. Odd
On the plus side, where would Scandi-noir be without it?
It is quite extraordinary, how BADLY multiculturalism and “integration” are proceeding in the EU. Even in Ireland. Ten minutes on Twitter turns up stories you don’t get on MSM. Who knew Berlin had massive riots on NYE?
A mighty storm is potentially brewing, Sweden is simply a pioneer. One of the first social democracies might become a hard/far right fortress
I am presuming in France place likes Paris had their annual car fire bombing to bring in the New Year?
I think their rioters exhausted themselves during the World Cup
Merkel’s WilkommensKultur was a total catastrophe. Taken with her Putinism she must go down as the most overrated German Chancellor in history
7 years after she threw open the doors, 65% of Syrians are still on benefits
Ah Sunday morning, the day totally free and open before me…think I’ll poach a few eggs and spend me a bit of time on hate-Twitter.
It’s absolutely relevant to the thread. Will we want to rejoin the EU if it is wracked, in places, by migrant violence and struggling with millions more refugees?
To find out, you have to go on Twitter. Because so much of this stuff - Sweden, Ireland, Germany - does not make our media
The store of local human misery is surely more than enough without trawling through Twitter on some kind of dystopian Club Med tour.
Translation: you shouldn’t talk about it, because it confuses my tiny liberal brain
Who said you can’t talk about it? Just don’t expect the rest of us to avoid wondering why this is how you want to spend your free time.
From being a notably peaceful country, 20 years ago, Sweden now has more rapes than any other European country, and it is nearing the top of the table for bombings and shootings
“From Europe's lowest crime rates to being the region's homicide capital - we look at the deterioration of Sweden's security landscape and what the government and law enforcement is doing to tackle the issue: hubs.ly/Q01wC7Zk0”
Stuart Dickson never speaks of this. Odd
On the plus side, where would Scandi-noir be without it?
It is quite extraordinary, how BADLY multiculturalism and “integration” are proceeding in the EU. Even in Ireland. Ten minutes on Twitter turns up stories you don’t get on MSM. Who knew Berlin had massive riots on NYE?
But people often complain about how much train drivers are paid! The implication being that they're paid too much for the work they do.
I guess my question is, would they be paid what they are regardless of unions in which case the outcries about being paid too much are a misnomer, or is it that unions have ensured their pay is good over time?
Pay has never been decided primarily by difficulty or importance of the work, regardless of how much many peoples' instinctive moral sense might desire it to be. My impression for train drivers in particular is that there was a boom time when there just weren't enough trained drivers and so operating companies were offering higher salaries to tempt drivers away from each other. This Scottish Daily Express article has some figures -- it's hard to keep paying your drivers 50K if West Coast or LNER will offer 5K more. The union negotiation is probably more significant in the down times, and for all those staff who aren't the well-paid and in-demand drivers.
Of course, the companies could have invested in training and recruiting new drivers, but in the short-term it's quicker and easier to just poach your neighbour's employees, who are already trained and happy with the hours/job conditions/overtime and weekend working...
If one was hypothetically looking to move to Asia, with their small business, probably looking at some point to hire from the local population, thus requiring English to be fairly widely spoken, some high tech skilled labour pool, decent rule of law in order to have some level of confidence in operating there....PB brain trust suggestions?
Singapore?
No brainer, or for a slightly cheaper but still English speaking option (but more bureaucratic) Malaysia.
It’s a tragedy that nobody in their right mind would recommend Hong Kong these days, and few would risk Taiwan.
Having had personal “rule of law” issues in Malaysia, I would not recommend it. My direct, work-related experience is that powerful people can get courts to deliver beneficial outcomes. There’s also the growing danger of Islamic fundamentalism gaining a hold. Indonesia is the same. When we went into Asia a decade ago the choice was Hong Kong or Singapore, we chose the former. We wouldn’t make the same choice now. Taiwan is, sadly, pretty much off-limits. It’s a wonderful place.
The EU needs to be flexible if it wants a constructive collaborative long-term relationship with the UK, and vice-versa, and sensitive to the politics.
We got here because of its dogmatic one-size-fits-all position, that brooked no criticism, and its arrogance in unceremoniously ignoring any democratic rejection.
Have they learnt their lesson?
I don't think it's quite as black-and-white as that. The EU did allow various opt-outs to various countries in various areas. After all, neither Denmark nor the Czech Republic use the Euro.
In terms of the Single Market, there is a logic to having both Freedom of Capital and Freedom of Labour if you are genuinely trying to create a Single Market rather than just a free trade area or a customs union. The idea of being able to live and work elsewhere is nothing new - whether it's the Industrial Revolution or Norman Tebbit telling us to get on our bikes and look for work. The idea of taking your skills to another country or coming here to hone and improve existing skills is not unattractive.
Indeed, I'd go further and a pre-1975 EEC might have been able to introduce a Single Market without any real fuss. The economic disparity in 2004 between the newer arrivals and the more established and developed economies meant people are always going to where the money was - as they always had. That was a change from an EEC which spent money to help the poorer peripheries (including Cornwall and parts of Wales) back in the day.
Merkel’s WilkommensKultur was a total catastrophe. Taken with her Putinism she must go down as the most overrated German Chancellor in history
7 years after she threw open the doors, 65% of Syrians are still on benefits
Ah Sunday morning, the day totally free and open before me…think I’ll poach a few eggs and spend me a bit of time on hate-Twitter.
It’s absolutely relevant to the thread. Will we want to rejoin the EU if it is wracked, in places, by migrant violence and struggling with millions more refugees?
To find out, you have to go on Twitter. Because so much of this stuff - Sweden, Ireland, Germany - does not make our media
The store of local human misery is surely more than enough without trawling through Twitter on some kind of dystopian Club Med tour.
Translation: you shouldn’t talk about it, because it confuses my tiny liberal brain
Who said you can’t talk about it? Just don’t expect the rest of us to avoid wondering why this is how you want to spend your free time.
Tomorrow it will be aliens, AI, Wokeness, what3words, my favourite Brie, the necklace, fine wines, ChatGPT, Armenian strip clubs, or photos of my best ever breakfast
Today it is migration and multiculti in Europe. As befits a thread on Europe. There are some remarkable almost-untold stories out there
Merkel’s WilkommensKultur was a total catastrophe. Taken with her Putinism she must go down as the most overrated German Chancellor in history
7 years after she threw open the doors, 65% of Syrians are still on benefits
Ah Sunday morning, the day totally free and open before me…think I’ll poach a few eggs and spend me a bit of time on hate-Twitter.
It’s absolutely relevant to the thread. Will we want to rejoin the EU if it is wracked, in places, by migrant violence and struggling with millions more refugees?
To find out, you have to go on Twitter. Because so much of this stuff - Sweden, Ireland, Germany - does not make our media
The store of local human misery is surely more than enough without trawling through Twitter on some kind of dystopian Club Med tour.
Translation: you shouldn’t talk about it, because it confuses my tiny liberal brain
Who said you can’t talk about it? Just don’t expect the rest of us to avoid wondering why this is how you want to spend your free time.
Tomorrow it will be aliens, AI, Wokeness, what3words, my favourite Brie, the necklace, fine wines, ChatGPT, Armenian strip clubs, or photos of my best ever breakfast
Today it is migration and multiculti in Europe. As befits a thread on Europe. There are some remarkable almost-untold stories out there
I’m genuinely saddened that I seem to have missed the favourite Brie and Armenian strip club posts.
And we've got another condescending arse having a go at people for asking questions - the only way to educate yourself is to say when you don't know something. I will be avoiding said user in the future.
For you, condescension is whenever you come off worse in an argument - sometimes you end it with personal abuse for good measure as well.
I am aware of your personal issues, and sensitive to them, so have decided to simply ignore your provocations, but you'd do well to recognise and reflect on that.
You’d do well to think about the way you come across in posts. You come across extremely condescendingly and rude.
Why do care workers get paid so little? Is it lack of demand for these jobs?
I can’t help but think train drivers would be on minimum wage if it weren’t for unions. Although then again pilots get paid well and they’re not going on strike.
Somebody please educate me
There is no way to answer this question without offending the common-sense morality that says low-skilled medical carers are the most important people in the world. But care workers are often substituting for the work done in previous generations by families, whereas planes and trains don't go without the approval of the principal in charge.
What about nurses then?
In the US doctors get paid a shit tonne, is this because it's all privatised?
Nurses are somewhat in the same position. We professionalise nursing, but ultimately it's not a role with much executive decision-making like a consultant has. Yanks spend far more per person, and a lot of doctors' pay goes on student debt and malpractice lawyers.
Train drivers don't have a lot of decision making either? Unions?
Train drivers, pilots and doctors can kill people if they make a mistake. Care workers can contribute to the death of other people. Accountants and lawyers not so much. Using that as an indication of value, train drivers, pilots and doctors should get paid more than care workers, who, in turn, should get paid more than accountants and lawyers.
Why do care workers get paid so little? Is it lack of demand for these jobs?
I can’t help but think train drivers would be on minimum wage if it weren’t for unions. Although then again pilots get paid well and they’re not going on strike.
Somebody please educate me
Scarcity.
Pilots are most scarce followed by train drivers then care workers. Only a few of us are equipped educationally, technically and intelligence-wise to be a pilot. Many more could, in theory, be a care worker.
You might be startled by how little some commercial airline pilots are paid.
In some cases, they are, pretty much, paying to fly to get the experience to get a better job. While nursing vast debts incurred learning to fly.
I've just completed my second marathon of 2023: 5hrs 30 minutes, a full 45 minutes faster than last week's effort.
I'm feeling a lot better than last week as well. The weather was a bit worse as well, particularly towards the end, as it felt slightly cooler with a biting strong wind and intermittent drizzle.
Still, two down, fifty to go. I'm starting to think I might be able to do this...
There's a good book about this addiction by one of my favourite writers Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
And we've got another condescending arse having a go at people for asking questions - the only way to educate yourself is to say when you don't know something. I will be avoiding said user in the future.
For you, condescension is whenever you come off worse in an argument - sometimes you end it with personal abuse for good measure as well.
I am aware of your personal issues, and sensitive to them, so have decided to simply ignore your provocations, but you'd do well to recognise and reflect on that.
You’d do well to think about the way you come across in posts. You come across extremely condescendingly and rude.
If it helps, I find Casino’s posts to be even funnier if I imagine them read in the style of “Brian Butterfield”
I’m reading Douglas Murray’s “The strange death of Europe”
It’s not for the faint hearted or Woke. It is also rather good, and a devastating analysis of the migrant crisis of the 2010s
Which makes it relevant to this debate. I am pretty sure we will soon be looking at another, even bigger migrant crisis. Something that will dwarf the last. Climate change isn’t going away, Africa and the MENA are still in bad shape, in the main
The EU will be flooded with unwanted migrants. At that point Schengen, Free Movement and the EU as a whole might look like really bad news, and Brexit might seem an inspired choice
Events, dear boy. Events
Interesting piece in The Observer today on just that topic.
Certainly interesting but the main conclusion I drew from it is that the left has been incredibly silly going down the identity politics rabbit hole. It also does the classic Guardian thing of not actually engaging with an issue but merely offering commentary on the nasty reaction from the right. London has been transformed by mass immigration. Birmingham too. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? What have the benefits or challenges been?
As for the great replacement theory of course it is absurd to think there is an organised conspiracy. However there was a book from 2004 called The Emerging Democratic Majority. It makes clear that increasingly racial diversity will benefit the democrats electorally. It would be naive to think there isn't at least an element of political calculation involved in immigration policies. I also vividly remember listening to a talk at a Davos type event where Americans were talking about the decline of Europe but believed that the US would be okay because of the continual supply of aspirational immigrants, even as 3rd or 4th generation migrants tended to become slothful. Not exactly 'great replacement' but hardly a complimentary view of old stock inhabitants.
The comments that U.K. nationals are lazy, because of their reluctance to work zero hour minimum wages jobs in nasty conditions, are standard on PB…..
I've just completed my second marathon of 2023: 5hrs 30 minutes, a full 45 minutes faster than last week's effort.
I'm feeling a lot better than last week as well. The weather was a bit worse as well, particularly towards the end, as it felt slightly cooler with a biting strong wind and intermittent drizzle.
Still, two down, fifty to go. I'm starting to think I might be able to do this...
There's a good book about this addiction by one of my favourite writers Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
Is it worth getting?
My real addiction is long-distance walking; but my life doesn't really allow me to do that atm.
But yeah, sometimes it feels like I'm trying to escape from something - the only problem is that I always end up back where I started...
Wes gave an excellent answer to the private healthcare question I thought.
"It's a free country, people can make that choice [between private and public healthcare] but I want to make sure that people - whether they can afford it or not - have access to great, free healthcare at the point of need."
This is an entirely different kind of Labour Party from one we have seen for over a decade. This is the right way to tackle these questions. Go Wes!
But the country is not quite so free when people choose to spend their hard earned on education for their kids, is it?
I don't think that Labour plan to abolish private education, just remove some of its tax breaks.
So, when I was paying £10k a year for education for a child, on which I had paid £4,200 of IT and in respect of which I had been an unpaid tax collector of £2k of tax in the form of VAT, to save my local authority the £5k of costs they would otherwise have incurred in teaching my child I was benefitting from tax breaks? Every day is a learning day on PB, right enough.
No, though the school was benefiting from tax breaks, as indeed do some other businesses such as the Nuffield Hospitals.
I think it very reasonable to set out how much public benefit there has to be for an enterprise to retain charitable status.
I've just completed my second marathon of 2023: 5hrs 30 minutes, a full 45 minutes faster than last week's effort.
I'm feeling a lot better than last week as well. The weather was a bit worse as well, particularly towards the end, as it felt slightly cooler with a biting strong wind and intermittent drizzle.
Still, two down, fifty to go. I'm starting to think I might be able to do this...
There's a good book about this addiction by one of my favourite writers Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
Glorious morning here in Manhattan, but I missed my run because the three year old wanted to play a bit of rough and tumble.
Back on topic, although I continue to be a remainer, Brexit needs to be given a chance. We don’t yet know for sure how many of our current problems are due to Brexit, and how many are due to the incompetent, extremist government we have suffered since Brexit. The only way we will know for certain is if the current government are replaced by a sensible one. The policies suggested upthread by @DavidL and @RochdalePioneers would help. They would need a minimum of two terms of sensible government to implement. PR, so that there is less chance of extreme right policies being followed by extreme left policies, would give us a chance.
Why do care workers get paid so little? Is it lack of demand for these jobs?
I can’t help but think train drivers would be on minimum wage if it weren’t for unions. Although then again pilots get paid well and they’re not going on strike.
Somebody please educate me
There is no way to answer this question without offending the common-sense morality that says low-skilled medical carers are the most important people in the world. But care workers are often substituting for the work done in previous generations by families, whereas planes and trains don't go without the approval of the principal in charge.
What about nurses then?
In the US doctors get paid a shit tonne, is this because it's all privatised?
Nurses are somewhat in the same position. We professionalise nursing, but ultimately it's not a role with much executive decision-making like a consultant has. Yanks spend far more per person, and a lot of doctors' pay goes on student debt and malpractice lawyers.
Train drivers don't have a lot of decision making either? Unions?
Train drivers, pilots and doctors can kill people if they make a mistake. Care workers can contribute to the death of other people. Accountants and lawyers not so much. Using that as an indication of value, train drivers, pilots and doctors should get paid more than care workers, who, in turn, should get paid more than accountants and lawyers.
[the ghost of Roland Freisler has joined the conversation]
But people often complain about how much train drivers are paid! The implication being that they're paid too much for the work they do.
I guess my question is, would they be paid what they are regardless of unions in which case the outcries about being paid too much are a misnomer, or is it that unions have ensured their pay is good over time?
Pay has never been decided primarily by difficulty or importance of the work, regardless of how much many peoples' instinctive moral sense might desire it to be. My impression for train drivers in particular is that there was a boom time when there just weren't enough trained drivers and so operating companies were offering higher salaries to tempt drivers away from each other. This Scottish Daily Express article has some figures -- it's hard to keep paying your drivers 50K if West Coast or LNER will offer 5K more. The union negotiation is probably more significant in the down times, and for all those staff who aren't the well-paid and in-demand drivers.
Of course, the companies could have invested in training and recruiting new drivers, but in the short-term it's quicker and easier to just poach your neighbour's employees, who are already trained and happy with the hours/job conditions/overtime and weekend working...
If only we didn’t have a privatised railway system with multiple operators…..
Wes gave an excellent answer to the private healthcare question I thought.
"It's a free country, people can make that choice [between private and public healthcare] but I want to make sure that people - whether they can afford it or not - have access to great, free healthcare at the point of need."
This is an entirely different kind of Labour Party from one we have seen for over a decade. This is the right way to tackle these questions. Go Wes!
But the country is not quite so free when people choose to spend their hard earned on education for their kids, is it?
I don't think that Labour plan to abolish private education, just remove some of its tax breaks.
So, when I was paying £10k a year for education for a child, on which I had paid £4,200 of IT and in respect of which I had been an unpaid tax collector of £2k of tax in the form of VAT, to save my local authority the £5k of costs they would otherwise have incurred in teaching my child I was benefitting from tax breaks? Every day is a learning day on PB, right enough.
My guess is that you did not educate your child privately to save the local authority money. You made a choice based on what you felt was best for your child and what you could afford. Removing tax breaks for private schools will not change the equation, but it may change the answer. The state may end up spending more on education as a result, but there will be more parents demanding high-quality outcomes too. That seems like a net societal benefit to me.
The idea that I could have got my local academy to provide an adequate education to my children by being, I don't know, bolshie? is frankly absurd. The net societal loss from this policy is that there will be fewer children adequately educated, that those children will be drawn from an even more elite group, vesting privilege, and that the cost to the country of providing education will increase. The fact that this is the one policy that Labour seems united behind is depressing.
Merkel’s WilkommensKultur was a total catastrophe. Taken with her Putinism she must go down as the most overrated German Chancellor in history
7 years after she threw open the doors, 65% of Syrians are still on benefits
Ah Sunday morning, the day totally free and open before me…think I’ll poach a few eggs and spend me a bit of time on hate-Twitter.
It’s absolutely relevant to the thread. Will we want to rejoin the EU if it is wracked, in places, by migrant violence and struggling with millions more refugees?
To find out, you have to go on Twitter. Because so much of this stuff - Sweden, Ireland, Germany - does not make our media
The store of local human misery is surely more than enough without trawling through Twitter on some kind of dystopian Club Med tour.
Translation: you shouldn’t talk about it, because it confuses my tiny liberal brain
Who said you can’t talk about it? Just don’t expect the rest of us to avoid wondering why this is how you want to spend your free time.
Tomorrow it will be aliens, AI, Wokeness, what3words, my favourite Brie, the necklace, fine wines, ChatGPT, Armenian strip clubs, or photos of my best ever breakfast
Today it is migration and multiculti in Europe. As befits a thread on Europe. There are some remarkable almost-untold stories out there
But what's the point of banging on about it? Like you keep saying, it's a dangerous experiment - this people of different races all living together business - and all we can do is pray.
And we've got another condescending arse having a go at people for asking questions - the only way to educate yourself is to say when you don't know something. I will be avoiding said user in the future.
For you, condescension is whenever you come off worse in an argument - sometimes you end it with personal abuse for good measure as well.
I am aware of your personal issues, and sensitive to them, so have decided to simply ignore your provocations, but you'd do well to recognise and reflect on that.
You’d do well to think about the way you come across in posts. You come across extremely condescendingly and rude.
You called me a Karen earlier today, despite me not saying a word against you.
You are happy to dish it out, but scream blue murder if you get it back.
Wes gave an excellent answer to the private healthcare question I thought.
"It's a free country, people can make that choice [between private and public healthcare] but I want to make sure that people - whether they can afford it or not - have access to great, free healthcare at the point of need."
This is an entirely different kind of Labour Party from one we have seen for over a decade. This is the right way to tackle these questions. Go Wes!
But the country is not quite so free when people choose to spend their hard earned on education for their kids, is it?
I don't think that Labour plan to abolish private education, just remove some of its tax breaks.
So, when I was paying £10k a year for education for a child, on which I had paid £4,200 of IT and in respect of which I had been an unpaid tax collector of £2k of tax in the form of VAT, to save my local authority the £5k of costs they would otherwise have incurred in teaching my child I was benefitting from tax breaks? Every day is a learning day on PB, right enough.
My guess is that you did not educate your child privately to save the local authority money. You made a choice based on what you felt was best for your child and what you could afford. Removing tax breaks for private schools will not change the equation, but it may change the answer. The state may end up spending more on education as a result, but there will be more parents demanding high-quality outcomes too. That seems like a net societal benefit to me.
The idea that I could have got my local academy to provide an adequate education to my children by being, I don't know, bolshie? is frankly absurd. The net societal loss from this policy is that there will be fewer children adequately educated, that those children will be drawn from an even more elite group, vesting privilege, and that the cost to the country of providing education will increase. The fact that this is the one policy that Labour seems united behind is depressing.
You alone, maybe not. Parents demanding together, absolutely. I believe state education is worth investing in and that it can deliver. Don’t let that depress you!
I've just completed my second marathon of 2023: 5hrs 30 minutes, a full 45 minutes faster than last week's effort.
I'm feeling a lot better than last week as well. The weather was a bit worse as well, particularly towards the end, as it felt slightly cooler with a biting strong wind and intermittent drizzle.
Still, two down, fifty to go. I'm starting to think I might be able to do this...
There's a good book about this addiction by one of my favourite writers Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
Is it worth getting?
My real addiction is long-distance walking; but my life doesn't really allow me to do that atm.
But yeah, sometimes it feels like I'm trying to escape from something - the only problem is that I always end up back where I started...
Well I like all his stuff but, yes, as a running freak you'd find it fascinating imo. Slim, so can be read in no time. That was my Xmas Day in fact.
Wes gave an excellent answer to the private healthcare question I thought.
"It's a free country, people can make that choice [between private and public healthcare] but I want to make sure that people - whether they can afford it or not - have access to great, free healthcare at the point of need."
This is an entirely different kind of Labour Party from one we have seen for over a decade. This is the right way to tackle these questions. Go Wes!
But the country is not quite so free when people choose to spend their hard earned on education for their kids, is it?
I don't think that Labour plan to abolish private education, just remove some of its tax breaks.
So, when I was paying £10k a year for education for a child, on which I had paid £4,200 of IT and in respect of which I had been an unpaid tax collector of £2k of tax in the form of VAT, to save my local authority the £5k of costs they would otherwise have incurred in teaching my child I was benefitting from tax breaks? Every day is a learning day on PB, right enough.
My guess is that you did not educate your child privately to save the local authority money. You made a choice based on what you felt was best for your child and what you could afford. Removing tax breaks for private schools will not change the equation, but it may change the answer. The state may end up spending more on education as a result, but there will be more parents demanding high-quality outcomes too. That seems like a net societal benefit to me.
The idea that I could have got my local academy to provide an adequate education to my children by being, I don't know, bolshie? is frankly absurd. The net societal loss from this policy is that there will be fewer children adequately educated, that those children will be drawn from an even more elite group, vesting privilege, and that the cost to the country of providing education will increase. The fact that this is the one policy that Labour seems united behind is depressing.
You alone, maybe not. Parents demanding together, absolutely. I believe state education is worth investing in and that it can deliver. Don’t let that depress you!
I think you know your argument is a silly one @SouthamObserver, it's a very tired and well-worn socialist trope, but a comforting one so you cling to it.
When you think it through it makes virtually no sense at all. Investing more in state education, however, does.
Wes gave an excellent answer to the private healthcare question I thought.
"It's a free country, people can make that choice [between private and public healthcare] but I want to make sure that people - whether they can afford it or not - have access to great, free healthcare at the point of need."
This is an entirely different kind of Labour Party from one we have seen for over a decade. This is the right way to tackle these questions. Go Wes!
But the country is not quite so free when people choose to spend their hard earned on education for their kids, is it?
I don't think that Labour plan to abolish private education, just remove some of its tax breaks.
So, when I was paying £10k a year for education for a child, on which I had paid £4,200 of IT and in respect of which I had been an unpaid tax collector of £2k of tax in the form of VAT, to save my local authority the £5k of costs they would otherwise have incurred in teaching my child I was benefitting from tax breaks? Every day is a learning day on PB, right enough.
My guess is that you did not educate your child privately to save the local authority money. You made a choice based on what you felt was best for your child and what you could afford. Removing tax breaks for private schools will not change the equation, but it may change the answer. The state may end up spending more on education as a result, but there will be more parents demanding high-quality outcomes too. That seems like a net societal benefit to me.
Yep, the more that affluent influencers opt into state education rather buy out of it, the better on every level. There are 7 killer arguments against private schools and this - skin in the game - is one of them.
Comments
Just don’t expect the rest of us to avoid wondering why this is how you want to spend your free time.
Of course, the companies could have invested in training and recruiting new drivers, but in the short-term it's quicker and easier to just poach your neighbour's employees, who are already trained and happy with the hours/job conditions/overtime and weekend working...
In terms of the Single Market, there is a logic to having both Freedom of Capital and Freedom of Labour if you are genuinely trying to create a Single Market rather than just a free trade area or a customs union. The idea of being able to live and work elsewhere is nothing new - whether it's the Industrial Revolution or Norman Tebbit telling us to get on our bikes and look for work. The idea of taking your skills to another country or coming here to hone and improve existing skills is not unattractive.
Indeed, I'd go further and a pre-1975 EEC might have been able to introduce a Single Market without any real fuss. The economic disparity in 2004 between the newer arrivals and the more established and developed economies meant people are always going to where the money was - as they always had. That was a change from an EEC which spent money to help the poorer peripheries (including Cornwall and parts of Wales) back in the day.
Today it is migration and multiculti in Europe. As befits a thread on Europe. There are some remarkable almost-untold stories out there
I also misread Armenian. Never mind...
In some cases, they are, pretty much, paying to fly to get the experience to get a better job. While nursing vast debts incurred learning to fly.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Chreswuv9lA
My real addiction is long-distance walking; but my life doesn't really allow me to do that atm.
But yeah, sometimes it feels like I'm trying to escape from something - the only problem is that I always end up back where I started...
I think it very reasonable to set out how much public benefit there has to be for an enterprise to retain charitable status.
NEW THREAD
Serotonin beats dopamine I guess.
You are happy to dish it out, but scream blue murder if you get it back.
When you think it through it makes virtually no sense at all. Investing more in state education, however, does.