Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
We've had this debate before. There simply isn't a surplus of teachers in any subject anywhere these days. The pay of English teachers wouldn't fall. If you let the market decide the rate of teachers' pay to fill every post with a permanent member of staff, you are proposing either a massive increase in the education budget, or hundreds, if not thousands of bankrupted schools.
Then what's the harm in abolishing national pay scales? Lets try it and see.
Indeed, linking to OKC comment above, if physics teachers pay goes up because physics graduates are in high demand, then that would attract better candidates to become physics teachers, which means more students learn about and develop an interest in physics, which means more future physics graduates, which means more people able to work as a physics graduate and to be the physics teachers of the future. You might almost call that . . . the invisible hand.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
In physics teachers produce more good quality physics students for universities isn't that an increase in productivity?
What about if they raise everyone up a Grade at GCSE?
What a farce. Only 48 hours until deadline for producers @lornaslater has just said on BBC that giving small producers a one year delay “is absolutely something we are actively considering”. Total shambles. We deserve better than this incompetence.
The other day, @Dura_Ace said that the online maps of the Ukraine war not being updated, is an indication that things are not going well for Ukraine. Despite, from my memory, them not being updated during last autumn's offensives. Or actually, at random intervals anyway.
It now seems that there may be some actions around Bakhmut that are not to Russia's advantage. Whilst I would take these claims with a pinch of salt, some Russian channels (*) are claiming the Poles are taking part in this new Ukrainian offensive.
Some of the Russian cheerleaders are appearing rattled. I take this as a positive-ish sign for Ukraine. Let's hope my spider-senses are working well.
(*) I won't link to their Twitter, as it'll just give them the oxygen of publicity.
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never have introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
Certainly better than what came before but far from ideal, we are still sending England our money and getting less back plus having to fund their mindless borrowing.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
We've had this debate before. There simply isn't a surplus of teachers in any subject anywhere these days. The pay of English teachers wouldn't fall. If you let the market decide the rate of teachers' pay to fill every post with a permanent member of staff, you are proposing either a massive increase in the education budget, or hundreds, if not thousands of bankrupted schools.
Then what's the harm in abolishing national pay scales? Lets try it and see.
Indeed, linking to OKC comment above, if physics teachers pay goes up because physics graduates are in high demand, then that would attract better candidates to become physics teachers, which means more students learn about and develop an interest in physics, which means more future physics graduates, which means more people able to work as a physics graduate and to be the physics teachers of the future. You might almost call that . . . the invisible hand.
I'm not opposed to that. (Incidentally. There aren't National Pay Scales. There's a thing called London Weighting). Edit. And of course Academy chains as @eek points out. I'm also somewhat sceptical of ringfenced subject specialisms. A crap teacher with a physics degree, is worse to teach physics than an excellent teacher of drama, or anything else, especially at KS 3. Nevertheless. All this would require you to pay more tax to fund it. And you don't want to. Neither does the government. And that applies across the public sector. So here we are.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
You didn't ask for changes for the better, just lasting changes. Devolution certainly is a lasting change, even if it hasn't improved things.
On the same basis, perhaps you could include our indebtedness now as a lasting change brought about by Labour, but I don't know anyone from Labour who admits that was intentional, unlike devolution.
Increase in debt under last Labour government: £681bn. Increase in debt under current Tory government: £1,543bn. And counting.
That's a legacy of the deficit that Labour bequeathed.
Unless you think the Tories could or should have implemented a form of austerity so severe they ran a neutral budget from year one?
It was a legacy of the worst global financial crisis since WW2.
Which thanks to Brown's decade of preparation we were uniquely well-placed to weather?
You think Gordon Brown should have shut down the City and dug a big hole in the Midlands to sell commodities to China? Well, it worked for Australia.
If he'd been running a budget surplus as he should have for that stage of the economic cycle, then the deficit spending would have been far less significant afterwards and purely cyclical.
I’d say that Labour’s biggest long-term failure was letting house prices rip from 1999 to 2007.
2007 was the year that levels of home ownership began falling.
Not sure Labour could have donw much about it.
Banks shifted their lending criteria from 3x+1x earnings to 4x joint earnings and prices across the country increased to reflect the additional money people could borrow (for good and bad).I watched it happen down south in 2001/2 and then up north between 2003/4....
Brown wasn't shy about regulating the banks.
The problem is, he regulated all the wrong things...
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
And that's who to primarily blame for crashing the financial system. Those who did it, not those who supposedly provoked it by being lax or complacent. Similar to Putin and Ukraine.
In the case of my profession, it's a company based in the Republic of Cyrpus, whose holding company is based in Panama, wants to buy an expensive property in Barnet. The directors are too busy to meet you face to face, and they are not interested in you performing the usual searches and enquiries on the property they want to buy.
The blame lies both with the solicitor who takes on that business, but also with the regulatory system that treats white collar crime in this country as a pecadillo.
To continue, I'd say that they worst thing this government has done is to run down the criminal justice system, in the apparent belief that it's a luxury, rather than a necessity.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
I'm not sure you'd get away with it. After all, working for a supermarket in a warehouse and working for a supermarket on the tills are officially the same job that need to be paid the same.
Not quite true (I believe warehouse workers receive more than shop stackers) but sex discrimination legislation has made a lot of jobs that seem different identical in pay.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
I'm not sure you'd get away with it. After all, working for a supermarket in a warehouse and working for a supermarket on the tills are officially the same job that need to be paid the same.
Not quite true (I believe warehouse workers receive more than shop stackers) but sex discrimination legislation has made a lot of jobs that seem different identical in pay.
Extra 50p an hour at Lidl. For working in cold temperatures.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
In physics teachers produce more good quality physics students for universities isn't that an increase in productivity?
All this discussion of physics teachers is taking me back to my school days and my incredibly beautiful and glamorous physics teacher, who made a great impression on my 16 year old self!
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
But they do (pay staff more than the national pay scale). At least, they do at the one my wife works at. Particularly for hard-to-recruit subjects.
Sunak should put it to a vote and let the headbangers lose. They need to face up to the reality that no one outside of their bubble cares about their concerns. On my estimation they have about 7 more years to make Brexit work and improve their levels of support amongst the working age population otherwise rejoin will come back on to the political agenda in a big way. As every year goes by, Leave/ERG lose a large tranche of their impassioned supporters because they are overwhelmingly old.
The issue is that the vast majority of the potential benefits are not being taken, and the constant prioritisation of the NI stuff doesn’t help. Where’s the serious deregulation, the free zones, the incentives for businesses and startups to locate in the UK? Every damn government department should have a massive Bill up for debate this year, and there should be a minister on the news every morning with a positive vision for the future. Yet nothing.
But Treasury authodoxy, and managed declinism, are still ruling the roost in No.10. If the government want to see a 1997 result, rather than a 1992 result, they’re going exactly the right way about it.
Easy. It's the same reason that Lexiteers haven't got the Socialist Republic of Britain that they voted Leave to secure.
EU regulations weren't the only thing stopping the UK deregulating massively, or swinging hard to the left. They were the visible roadblock, but they weren't the only factor. Massive deregulation hasn't got a mandate from the British public and probably wouldn't be all that popular. Consider the way that the government can't loosen up planning restrictions, even thoughs have never had anything to do with Europe.
The bulk of the Brexit vote, the bulk of the VL campaign was a mandate to divert EU subs to the NHS, mostly a vote by pensioners for pensioners. Oh, and less Eastern Europeans on the streets too.
So to those who voted leave to get more dramatic change, sorry. You have to dance with the one who brung ya.
For those who want more dramatic change, they now need to win a General Election.
Boris Johnson may be the one who led the Leave campaign and got us over the line for Brexit, but he won't be PM forever. *checks notes* Actually he's already not PM, so the 'one who brung ya' has already disappeared into the sunset.
That's the whole point of 'taking back control'. We decide, democratically, who we want in Parliament at the elections. And if our Parliamentarians do a bad job, we can change them at the next election, as is likely as it stands in many seats next time.
That's democracy, and that's why Brexit was a good idea. Sacrificing democracy is not worthwhile.
Some truth in that, but I was really responding to the "why hasn't the government radically deregulated" question. And as you say, there's no mandate so far for that. But it does leave two questions.
First one goes like this. A lot of the Brexit vote came from retired homeowners, who I think you and I would agree are doing a reasonable job of running the country into the ground because they're not interested in anything beyond their lifespan. From their point of view, Parliamentarians can be doing an excellent job, as long as they turn the national seedcorn into cake for tomorrow. When Brexit backers allied themselves with a bunch of selfish shortighted fools to get the vote over the line, what did they think was going to happen?
Second, suppose that what the UK actually wants is a somewhat different flavour of Butskellism to our near neighbours, and that our input into the democratic processes of Europe aren't enough to secure that. (After all, you can say that the democracy of the EU is incomplete or fuzzy, but it's a stretch to say that it's not democratic. And if the UK doesn't always get its way... well, that's democracy.) At what does separation become more hassle than it's worth?
Worth remembering that, in the latest YouGov opinion poll, that gave Labour a 50-22 lead among the population as a whole, the Tories still led by 40-30 in the 65+ age group.
If Labour do win the next election it will be the first time the oldies have lost a national UK vote for, well, almost a generation. That would in many respects be a greater political shift than the partisan one from Tories to Labour.
Bigger question- when was the last time that that cohort (born in the 50s Boomers) lost a vote?
Eurovision?
2001 and 2005, both 55+ voted Tory, and Labour won.
Sure - the data doesn't break down precisely where you'd want!
It seems reasonable to assume on those numbers that the majority of those in the 65+ cohort today certainly *didn't* vote with the election winners in 2005.
(2001 is definitely more marginal - but the question was "when was the last time" and that would be 2005.)
Right, but still, our friend from Romford changed the question slightly - to focus on the baby boomer generation specifically, rather than on the 65+ age cohort at any time.
The baby boomer cohort only includes those aged up to 77 at the moment. It's true to say that those aged 65+ now will have voted for the Tories in 2005, but I think if we consider the baby boomer cohort specifically, those born between 1946 and 1964, then they will still have voted Labour in 2005.
So if the baby boomers do lose in 2024, it looks like it will be the first time that the baby boomers have lost a UK election. That's quite something.
Ah, yes - reconstituting it that way I entirely agree (as per my previous comment on why people forget who the Boomers are!) The Boomers were absolutely Blair's generation.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
I’m looking forward to meeting @vonderleyen in Windsor today for further talks on the shared, practical solutions to the range of complex challenges around the Northern Ireland Protocol.
I’m glad to be in the UK today to meet with Prime Minister @RishiSunak. I’m looking forward to turning a page and opening a new chapter with our partner and friend.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
You didn't ask for changes for the better, just lasting changes. Devolution certainly is a lasting change, even if it hasn't improved things.
On the same basis, perhaps you could include our indebtedness now as a lasting change brought about by Labour, but I don't know anyone from Labour who admits that was intentional, unlike devolution.
Increase in debt under last Labour government: £681bn. Increase in debt under current Tory government: £1,543bn. And counting.
That's a legacy of the deficit that Labour bequeathed.
Unless you think the Tories could or should have implemented a form of austerity so severe they ran a neutral budget from year one?
It was a legacy of the worst global financial crisis since WW2.
Which thanks to Brown's decade of preparation we were uniquely well-placed to weather?
You think Gordon Brown should have shut down the City and dug a big hole in the Midlands to sell commodities to China? Well, it worked for Australia.
If he'd been running a budget surplus as he should have for that stage of the economic cycle, then the deficit spending would have been far less significant afterwards and purely cyclical.
I’d say that Labour’s biggest long-term failure was letting house prices rip from 1999 to 2007.
2007 was the year that levels of home ownership began falling.
Not sure Labour could have donw much about it.
Banks shifted their lending criteria from 3x+1x earnings to 4x joint earnings and prices across the country increased to reflect the additional money people could borrow (for good and bad).I watched it happen down south in 2001/2 and then up north between 2003/4....
Brown wasn't shy about regulating the banks.
The problem is, he regulated all the wrong things...
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
And that's who to primarily blame for crashing the financial system. Those who did it, not those who supposedly provoked it by being lax or complacent. Similar to Putin and Ukraine.
In the case of my profession, it's a company based in the Republic of Cyrpus, whose holding company is based in Panama, wants to buy an expensive property in Barnet. The directors are too busy to meet you face to face, and they are not interested in you performing the usual searches and enquiries on the property they want to buy.
The blame lies both with the solicitor who takes on that business, but also with the regulatory system that treats white collar crime in this country as a pecadillo.
To continue, I'd say that they worst thing this government has done is to run down the criminal justice system, in the apparent belief that it's a luxury, rather than a necessity.
As long as they increase sentences every few years the Daily Mail are happy even if there are not enough judges, lawyers, prison staff or police to cope.
Betty Boothroyd anecdote….very many moons ago on the 82 bus Miss Boothroyd boarded just by the Hilton. One of those buses which had bench seats facing each other, she was on the opposite bench facing me and my friend. She looked momentarily discomfited and hurriedly put on a pair of gloves, then shortly after alighted. My friend, who had no idea who she was remarked “wow! Did you see those diamond rings?” They’d evidently been a little too obviously appreciative of Ms Boothroyd’s jewellery causing her some alarm!
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
Apparently the Russian AF only have nine of these specialised AWACS aircraft. If that’s correct, then losing one is a big deal for them. They’re 1970s vintage, based on IL-76, and must be a right pain to keep serviceable at the best of times. Well done to the saboteurs.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
I'm not sure you'd get away with it. After all, working for a supermarket in a warehouse and working for a supermarket on the tills are officially the same job that need to be paid the same.
Not quite true (I believe warehouse workers receive more than shop stackers) but sex discrimination legislation has made a lot of jobs that seem different identical in pay.
That's exactly the example I was talking about - shop floor workers now get to claim compensation because they "were doing an equivalent job" even though that's obviously bollocks.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
Are supply staff cheaper?
If yes, look into why.
If no, then no the schools aren't operating on a proper per pupil budget.
Shifting staff from permanent to supply shouldn't liberate any budget, quite the opposite in fact. Supply budget should come from the exact same budget as permanent does.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
It's a funny one, to be sure. I think it's exploiting one of those human quirks where we over-value now and under-value the future. Not quite about education as having the willpower to ignore instincts. It's why "pay no deposit, take X away today" promotions are so potent. You see the same thing in pay scales; the tendency over the last decade has been to raise the starting salary much faster than the long-term top of the classroom teacher scale. Improve recruitment and hope that inertia will look after retention.
All the evidence is that it doesn't. After all, it's a bit galling when a trainee teacher (with a hefty tax free bursary) ends up with more pocket money than their taxpaying mentor.
I’m looking forward to meeting @vonderleyen in Windsor today for further talks on the shared, practical solutions to the range of complex challenges around the Northern Ireland Protocol.
I’m glad to be in the UK today to meet with Prime Minister @RishiSunak. I’m looking forward to turning a page and opening a new chapter with our partner and friend.
I’m looking forward to meeting @vonderleyen in Windsor today for further talks on the shared, practical solutions to the range of complex challenges around the Northern Ireland Protocol.
I’m glad to be in the UK today to meet with Prime Minister @RishiSunak. I’m looking forward to turning a page and opening a new chapter with our partner and friend.
Interesting choice of language. Seems far more conciliatory.
The worry is that to a certain (not so small) portion of the Tory backbenches anything that implies the EU are happy with the outcome is bad news. Implies the UK has been weak. I'm not sure Sunak will be able completely to suppress this because it's a reflex.
Ultimately however, it was the issue of gender reform that would be Sturgeon’s undoing. When Scottish Secretary Alister Jack announced the UK Government would block the Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill, the first minister attempted to turn it into a constitutional crisis. In truth, very few were up for that particular fight.
Famously assured and fleet of foot, Sturgeon was completely caught off guard by the case of Isla Bryson, a trans prisoner who had been jailed for the rape of two women when still known as Adam Graham. Pictures of Bryson arriving at court wearing a blonde wig and leggings almost perfectly represented the concerns around self-ID, concerns Sturgeon had memorably dismissed as “not valid”. When the issue of whether Bryson was a man or a woman was repeatedly raised by the press and at First Minister’s Questions, it became clear that Sturgeon had painted herself into a corner. There was only one way out.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
Are supply staff cheaper?
If yes, look into why.
If no, then no the schools aren't operating on a proper per pupil budget.
Shifting staff from permanent to supply shouldn't liberate any budget, quite the opposite in fact. Supply budget should come from the exact same budget as permanent does.
No. Supply staff are available. Sort of. Increasingly less so, because of the competition. (Agency staff are being offered the choice of 2, or even 3 schools to go to). Because pay and (particularly) conditions for permanent staff are simply uncompetitive. Hence the strikes. You seem to be arguing that the system should work on an entirely free market basis without any increase in budgets, despite a labour shortage.
I’m looking forward to meeting @vonderleyen in Windsor today for further talks on the shared, practical solutions to the range of complex challenges around the Northern Ireland Protocol.
I’m glad to be in the UK today to meet with Prime Minister @RishiSunak. I’m looking forward to turning a page and opening a new chapter with our partner and friend.
The other day, @Dura_Ace said that the online maps of the Ukraine war not being updated, is an indication that things are not going well for Ukraine. Despite, from my memory, them not being updated during last autumn's offensives. Or actually, at random intervals anyway.
It now seems that there may be some actions around Bakhmut that are not to Russia's advantage. Whilst I would take these claims with a pinch of salt, some Russian channels (*) are claiming the Poles are taking part in this new Ukrainian offensive.
Some of the Russian cheerleaders are appearing rattled. I take this as a positive-ish sign for Ukraine. Let's hope my spider-senses are working well.
(*) I won't link to their Twitter, as it'll just give them the oxygen of publicity.
The Russians cannot accept losing to Ukranians, so do tend to put down any reverses as the work of Poles, or NATO. Which suggests to me a significant counterattack by Ukraine.
Whether it is diversionary to allow an orderly withdrawal from Bakhmut or something more, I suppose time will tell.
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
You didn't ask for changes for the better, just lasting changes. Devolution certainly is a lasting change, even if it hasn't improved things.
On the same basis, perhaps you could include our indebtedness now as a lasting change brought about by Labour, but I don't know anyone from Labour who admits that was intentional, unlike devolution.
Increase in debt under last Labour government: £681bn. Increase in debt under current Tory government: £1,543bn. And counting.
That's a legacy of the deficit that Labour bequeathed.
Unless you think the Tories could or should have implemented a form of austerity so severe they ran a neutral budget from year one?
It was a legacy of the worst global financial crisis since WW2.
Which thanks to Brown's decade of preparation we were uniquely well-placed to weather?
You think Gordon Brown should have shut down the City and dug a big hole in the Midlands to sell commodities to China? Well, it worked for Australia.
If he'd been running a budget surplus as he should have for that stage of the economic cycle, then the deficit spending would have been far less significant afterwards and purely cyclical.
I’d say that Labour’s biggest long-term failure was letting house prices rip from 1999 to 2007.
2007 was the year that levels of home ownership began falling.
Not sure Labour could have donw much about it.
Banks shifted their lending criteria from 3x+1x earnings to 4x joint earnings and prices across the country increased to reflect the additional money people could borrow (for good and bad).I watched it happen down south in 2001/2 and then up north between 2003/4....
Brown wasn't shy about regulating the banks.
The problem is, he regulated all the wrong things...
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
And that's who to primarily blame for crashing the financial system. Those who did it, not those who supposedly provoked it by being lax or complacent. Similar to Putin and Ukraine.
In the case of my profession, it's a company based in the Republic of Cyrpus, whose holding company is based in Panama, wants to buy an expensive property in Barnet. The directors are too busy to meet you face to face, and they are not interested in you performing the usual searches and enquiries on the property they want to buy.
The blame lies both with the solicitor who takes on that business, but also with the regulatory system that treats white collar crime in this country as a pecadillo.
Yep. But imo there's generally a little too much straining to blame 'the system' for a Crash caused primarily by cultural and behavioural not structural factors. The implied notion is that bankers are intrinsically wild beasts whose nature is to misbehave and so the real blame lies with those meant to police them - I don't like this way of thinking.
I’m looking forward to meeting @vonderleyen in Windsor today for further talks on the shared, practical solutions to the range of complex challenges around the Northern Ireland Protocol.
I’m glad to be in the UK today to meet with Prime Minister @RishiSunak. I’m looking forward to turning a page and opening a new chapter with our partner and friend.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
Are supply staff cheaper?
If yes, look into why.
If no, then no the schools aren't operating on a proper per pupil budget.
Shifting staff from permanent to supply shouldn't liberate any budget, quite the opposite in fact. Supply budget should come from the exact same budget as permanent does.
No. Supply staff are available. Sort of. Increasingly less so, because of the competition. (Agency staff are being offered the choice of 2, or even 3 schools to go to). Because pay and (particularly) conditions for permanent staff are simply uncompetitive. Hence the strikes. You seem to be arguing that the system should work on an entirely free market basis without any increase in budgets, despite a labour shortage.
Last time we had this conversation someone involved with school governance said that schools liked to use supply staff because supply staff wages don't come from the same budget as permanent staff.
That is an absurd situation. No sensible, small, private sector firm worth its salt would systematically use supply staff instead of permanent staff because of an accounting trick, as its their money at the end of the day either way. Schools should not get an additional budget because they've been using supply staff.
As for what I'm arguing on a free market basis, I'm saying that any increase in budgets should happen if necessary separately to reforming to a sensible basis for free market wages. You can't solve the problems with having national pay scales by either raising or cutting the budget.
Personally I think and have said before the education budget to schools needs to be going up, overall teachers should be getting at least as much of a pay rise as pensioners are, but that's a separate issue to the fact that in-demand and not-so-in-demand subjects are attracting the same pay rate despite completely different supply and demand levels.
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
Apparently the Russian AF only have nine of these specialised AWACS aircraft. If that’s correct, then losing one is a big deal for them. They’re 1970s vintage, based on IL-76, and must be a right pain to keep serviceable at the best of times. Well done to the saboteurs.
Not cheap, either. I think they sold a couple to India for somewhere around $1bn.
I’m looking forward to meeting @vonderleyen in Windsor today for further talks on the shared, practical solutions to the range of complex challenges around the Northern Ireland Protocol.
I’m glad to be in the UK today to meet with Prime Minister @RishiSunak. I’m looking forward to turning a page and opening a new chapter with our partner and friend.
Interesting choice of language. Seems far more conciliatory.
Can someone explain why there seems to be this splenetic reaction to UVdL meeting HMK? Seems entirely reasonable to me.
I think there was concern that Charles was being deployed to somehow aid progress of the negotiation itself and thereby involve him in politics.
But I thought the pixie dust of the monarchy was a good thing to unlock trade deals- see campaigns for a New Royal Yacht passim ad nauseum.
If the DUP and ERG are unhappy, it's more likely that their version of Brexit (or the other stuff they wanted to use Brexit to unlock) look like they are about to be deadded.
I’m looking forward to meeting @vonderleyen in Windsor today for further talks on the shared, practical solutions to the range of complex challenges around the Northern Ireland Protocol.
I’m glad to be in the UK today to meet with Prime Minister @RishiSunak. I’m looking forward to turning a page and opening a new chapter with our partner and friend.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
Are supply staff cheaper?
If yes, look into why.
If no, then no the schools aren't operating on a proper per pupil budget.
Shifting staff from permanent to supply shouldn't liberate any budget, quite the opposite in fact. Supply budget should come from the exact same budget as permanent does.
They don't do the same job - as has been noted many times.
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
In a village nearby work has stopped on a small new estate; the first houses were built, put on the market (about a year ago) and are still unsold! They are priced at around £450,000, though.
And a belated good morning to one and all.
The current planning environment also encourages building of the ‘wrong’ type of housing, concentrating on the top end of the market, and social housing, rather than the middle where most people want to buy.
My suggestion would be for government to take a good look at the various companies building modular housing units, which are much cheaper than regular construction and more energy-efficient. The role of government being to set standards of construction and warranty, that make these properties mortgageable. You can build a million houses really quite quickly, if they come off a production line.
I don't think that's actually true: the big housebuilders, who built the majority of homes in the UK, are all about the middle.
It's only in London where there's this big bifurcation between very expensive and social housing.
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
Apparently the Russian AF only have nine of these specialised AWACS aircraft. If that’s correct, then losing one is a big deal for them. They’re 1970s vintage, based on IL-76, and must be a right pain to keep serviceable at the best of times. Well done to the saboteurs.
Not cheap, either. I think they sold a couple to India for somewhere around $1bn.
*If* this was done by partisans, it'd be interesting to know how it was done (when the war's over, obvs.). If it had been an attack on the airfield, I might have expected to see more planes or infrastructure damaged. I do wonder if someone was given access to the aircraft to do some work, and left a few presents inside...
Whatever, it's an action that complicates things for Russian and Belarus. Every man, every SAM system, every tank, they leave outside Ukraine to guard infrastructure is one that cannot be used in Ukraine.
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
We have vast amounts of training on Ethics in auditing. It's all bollocks.
You're either ethical, and realise what you are doing isn't right. Or you're not.
You can't 'train' ethics.
Of course, if you don't do it, someone else will, so it'll happen either way.
Quite.
The training I’ve seen boils down to ticking the “I’m not a criminal” option on all the multiple choice answers.
Strangely, this doesn’t affect outcomes.
Regulation that actually regulates is apparently too difficult or something.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
Are supply staff cheaper?
If yes, look into why.
If no, then no the schools aren't operating on a proper per pupil budget.
Shifting staff from permanent to supply shouldn't liberate any budget, quite the opposite in fact. Supply budget should come from the exact same budget as permanent does.
They don't do the same job - as has been noted many times.
They can do, as @dixiedean said, they've got supply staff doing what could/should be permanent staff roles.
So they certainly still should come from the same labour budget.
Any supply staff should be paid for from the same labour budget as permanent staff. If a school is using very little in the way of supply staff, that should free up more money to increase the pay of permanent staff - and vice versa. Give the schools the freedom and flexibility to address their issues as they see fit with their budget.
If all schools are struggling, then the budget may need to then be increased across the board, but if only a tiny number are, then they should be allowed to fail.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
Are supply staff cheaper?
If yes, look into why.
If no, then no the schools aren't operating on a proper per pupil budget.
Shifting staff from permanent to supply shouldn't liberate any budget, quite the opposite in fact. Supply budget should come from the exact same budget as permanent does.
No. Supply staff are available. Sort of. Increasingly less so, because of the competition. (Agency staff are being offered the choice of 2, or even 3 schools to go to). Because pay and (particularly) conditions for permanent staff are simply uncompetitive. Hence the strikes. You seem to be arguing that the system should work on an entirely free market basis without any increase in budgets, despite a labour shortage.
Last time we had this conversation someone involved with school governance said that schools liked to use supply staff because supply staff wages don't come from the same budget as permanent staff.
That is an absurd situation. No sensible, small, private sector firm worth its salt would systematically use supply staff instead of permanent staff because of an accounting trick, as its their money at the end of the day either way. Schools should not get an additional budget because they've been using supply staff.
As for what I'm arguing on a free market basis, I'm saying that any increase in budgets should happen if necessary separately to reforming to a sensible basis for free market wages. You can't solve the problems with having national pay scales by either raising or cutting the budget.
Personally I think and have said before the education budget to schools needs to be going up, overall teachers should be getting at least as much of a pay rise as pensioners are, but that's a separate issue to the fact that in-demand and not-so-in-demand subjects are attracting the same pay rate despite completely different supply and demand levels.
Hmm. The question of supply and the economics of it seem to be shrouded in secrecy. I recently discovered, quite by accident, that my agency has a contract which stipulates no school can take on more than 3 of its workers permanently per academic year. I also spoke with someone very senior in a supply agency who predicted that in five years everyone below Year and Subject Head would be on supply. They'd write the schemes of work and lesson plans, source all resources, and do all the marking and pastoral work. And a surprise guest would deliver. But this is the way the government increasingly seems to be squaring the circle in education, health, social work, etc. What on Earth it does for standards in general I've no idea. But logically, and self evidently, it isn't improving them.
That is an absurd situation. No sensible, small, private sector firm worth its salt would systematically use supply staff instead of permanent staff because of an accounting trick, as its their money at the end of the day either way.
In my experience it's quite common for private sector firms to use contractors instead of permanent staff for some work, or to contract out catering or cleaning rather than employing cooks and janitors as would likely have been done in the distant past; in both cases essentially as an "accounting trick", since they pay for the work to be done either way.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
In physics teachers produce more good quality physics students for universities isn't that an increase in productivity?
From talking to teachers - primary and secondary - there is a great deal of non-teaching crap they get stuck with. Same with the medics.
If we improve the support system, maybe teachers could spend more time teaching or something crazy like that?
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
Apparently the Russian AF only have nine of these specialised AWACS aircraft. If that’s correct, then losing one is a big deal for them. They’re 1970s vintage, based on IL-76, and must be a right pain to keep serviceable at the best of times. Well done to the saboteurs.
Not cheap, either. I think they sold a couple to India for somewhere around $1bn.
*If* this was done by partisans, it'd be interesting to know how it was done (when the war's over, obvs.). If it had been an attack on the airfield, I might have expected to see more planes or infrastructure damaged. I do wonder if someone was given access to the aircraft to do some work, and left a few presents inside...
Whatever, it's an action that complicates things for Russian and Belarus. Every man, every SAM system, every tank, they leave outside Ukraine to guard infrastructure is one that cannot be used in Ukraine.
It also makes the task of triangulating the location of hidden Ukrainian airbases (which is probably why it was in Belarus) more difficult.
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
Apparently the Russian AF only have nine of these specialised AWACS aircraft. If that’s correct, then losing one is a big deal for them. They’re 1970s vintage, based on IL-76, and must be a right pain to keep serviceable at the best of times. Well done to the saboteurs.
Not cheap, either. I think they sold a couple to India for somewhere around $1bn.
*If* this was done by partisans, it'd be interesting to know how it was done (when the war's over, obvs.). If it had been an attack on the airfield, I might have expected to see more planes or infrastructure damaged. I do wonder if someone was given access to the aircraft to do some work, and left a few presents inside...
Whatever, it's an action that complicates things for Russian and Belarus. Every man, every SAM system, every tank, they leave outside Ukraine to guard infrastructure is one that cannot be used in Ukraine.
The previous post said it was by drones, so assuem they flew drones over it and either dropped explosives or did kamikaze by drones.
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
Are supply staff cheaper?
If yes, look into why.
If no, then no the schools aren't operating on a proper per pupil budget.
Shifting staff from permanent to supply shouldn't liberate any budget, quite the opposite in fact. Supply budget should come from the exact same budget as permanent does.
Do supply teachers have todo all the tedious and unnecessary paperwork that permanent teachers are requird to do? And endless meetings? If not,that would explain why supply teaching is more popular.
We need to get rid of thisTory government and all its red tape.
The other day, @Dura_Ace said that the online maps of the Ukraine war not being updated, is an indication that things are not going well for Ukraine. Despite, from my memory, them not being updated during last autumn's offensives. Or actually, at random intervals anyway.
It now seems that there may be some actions around Bakhmut that are not to Russia's advantage. Whilst I would take these claims with a pinch of salt, some Russian channels (*) are claiming the Poles are taking part in this new Ukrainian offensive.
Some of the Russian cheerleaders are appearing rattled. I take this as a positive-ish sign for Ukraine. Let's hope my spider-senses are working well.
(*) I won't link to their Twitter, as it'll just give them the oxygen of publicity.
Hearing that the northern Russian pincer on Bakhmut may have been broken. This might allow a significant push back from the city centre. That would be a serious defeat for the Russians, given the huge resources they have devoted to this small section of the line. Also, Prigrozhin had better avoid third floor windows...
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
Are supply staff cheaper?
If yes, look into why.
If no, then no the schools aren't operating on a proper per pupil budget.
Shifting staff from permanent to supply shouldn't liberate any budget, quite the opposite in fact. Supply budget should come from the exact same budget as permanent does.
Do supply teachers have todo all the tedious and unnecessary paperwork that permanent teachers are requird to do? And endless meetings? If not,that would explain why supply teaching is more popular.
We need to get rid of thisTory government and all its red tape.
Of all the reasons to bring in a Labour government, the desire for less red tape is not usually high up the list.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
In physics teachers produce more good quality physics students for universities isn't that an increase in productivity?
From talking to teachers - primary and secondary - there is a great deal of non-teaching crap they get stuck with. Same with the medics.
If we improve the support system, maybe teachers could spend more time teaching or something crazy like that?
That's roughly the issue, for me anyway. Teaching itself is enormous fun; it's the nonsense that has been added (partly because of internal and external audit and the resulting managerialism, partly the sense that schools are the last social service left standing) that makes it unsustainable.
But I know that my "enough pay" threshold is relatively low, and I started buying a house when they were still cheap. I'm unusual. I suspect that more money is going to be part of the solution to the current pickle.
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
You didn't ask for changes for the better, just lasting changes. Devolution certainly is a lasting change, even if it hasn't improved things.
On the same basis, perhaps you could include our indebtedness now as a lasting change brought about by Labour, but I don't know anyone from Labour who admits that was intentional, unlike devolution.
Increase in debt under last Labour government: £681bn. Increase in debt under current Tory government: £1,543bn. And counting.
That's a legacy of the deficit that Labour bequeathed.
Unless you think the Tories could or should have implemented a form of austerity so severe they ran a neutral budget from year one?
It was a legacy of the worst global financial crisis since WW2.
Which thanks to Brown's decade of preparation we were uniquely well-placed to weather?
You think Gordon Brown should have shut down the City and dug a big hole in the Midlands to sell commodities to China? Well, it worked for Australia.
If he'd been running a budget surplus as he should have for that stage of the economic cycle, then the deficit spending would have been far less significant afterwards and purely cyclical.
I’d say that Labour’s biggest long-term failure was letting house prices rip from 1999 to 2007.
2007 was the year that levels of home ownership began falling.
Not sure Labour could have donw much about it.
Banks shifted their lending criteria from 3x+1x earnings to 4x joint earnings and prices across the country increased to reflect the additional money people could borrow (for good and bad).I watched it happen down south in 2001/2 and then up north between 2003/4....
Brown wasn't shy about regulating the banks.
The problem is, he regulated all the wrong things...
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
And that's who to primarily blame for crashing the financial system. Those who did it, not those who supposedly provoked it by being lax or complacent. Similar to Putin and Ukraine.
Just as those who are primarily to blame for crashing our national Treasury accounts are those who did it (ie Gordon Brown), not those who supposedly provoked it like the Americans, or the financial sector or anyone else.
Brown was responsible for the Treasury, borrowed in the good times, then when the bad times came he inevitably had to borrow more but had no room left to manoeuvre. You can try and pin the blame on anyone else if you want a scapegoat, but those who did it, are the Treasury.
Ah I see. So 'he didn't fix the roof when the sun was shining' then?
This really is the most frightful tosh but I'm minded to cut some slack - because I sense your take on the Crash derives mainly from the Tory GE campaign of 2010. You swallowed it hook line & sinker at an impressionable time of life.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
In physics teachers produce more good quality physics students for universities isn't that an increase in productivity?
From talking to teachers - primary and secondary - there is a great deal of non-teaching crap they get stuck with. Same with the medics.
If we improve the support system, maybe teachers could spend more time teaching or something crazy like that?
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
Are supply staff cheaper?
If yes, look into why.
If no, then no the schools aren't operating on a proper per pupil budget.
Shifting staff from permanent to supply shouldn't liberate any budget, quite the opposite in fact. Supply budget should come from the exact same budget as permanent does.
Do supply teachers have todo all the tedious and unnecessary paperwork that permanent teachers are requird to do? And endless meetings? If not,that would explain why supply teaching is more popular.
We need to get rid of thisTory government and all its red tape.
This is spot on why. Turn up. 8:30. Teach. Clock off 3:30 go home. Why wouldn't you? Unfortunately. All administrative procedures break down if everyone does it. So now. My school is paying extra to agencies to have supply stay till 4:30 to attend meetings and do marking and paperwork.
The other day, @Dura_Ace said that the online maps of the Ukraine war not being updated, is an indication that things are not going well for Ukraine. Despite, from my memory, them not being updated during last autumn's offensives. Or actually, at random intervals anyway.
It now seems that there may be some actions around Bakhmut that are not to Russia's advantage. Whilst I would take these claims with a pinch of salt, some Russian channels (*) are claiming the Poles are taking part in this new Ukrainian offensive.
Some of the Russian cheerleaders are appearing rattled. I take this as a positive-ish sign for Ukraine. Let's hope my spider-senses are working well.
(*) I won't link to their Twitter, as it'll just give them the oxygen of publicity.
Hearing that the northern Russian pincer on Bakhmut may have been broken. This might allow a significant push back from the city centre. That would be a serious defeat for the Russians, given the huge resources they have devoted to this small section of the line. Also, Prigrozhin had better avoid third floor windows...
Do you have any sources please? Hopefully confirmed soon.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Yes. That’s it. It’s an elf. Not often caught on camera. I used to see them all the time back in Yorkshire, only after a midnight walk back from the pub where I had been all night.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
The Queen lost all support when she agreed to Boris Johnson's unlawful prorogation.
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
You didn't ask for changes for the better, just lasting changes. Devolution certainly is a lasting change, even if it hasn't improved things.
On the same basis, perhaps you could include our indebtedness now as a lasting change brought about by Labour, but I don't know anyone from Labour who admits that was intentional, unlike devolution.
Increase in debt under last Labour government: £681bn. Increase in debt under current Tory government: £1,543bn. And counting.
That's a legacy of the deficit that Labour bequeathed.
Unless you think the Tories could or should have implemented a form of austerity so severe they ran a neutral budget from year one?
It was a legacy of the worst global financial crisis since WW2.
Which thanks to Brown's decade of preparation we were uniquely well-placed to weather?
You think Gordon Brown should have shut down the City and dug a big hole in the Midlands to sell commodities to China? Well, it worked for Australia.
If he'd been running a budget surplus as he should have for that stage of the economic cycle, then the deficit spending would have been far less significant afterwards and purely cyclical.
I’d say that Labour’s biggest long-term failure was letting house prices rip from 1999 to 2007.
2007 was the year that levels of home ownership began falling.
Not sure Labour could have donw much about it.
Banks shifted their lending criteria from 3x+1x earnings to 4x joint earnings and prices across the country increased to reflect the additional money people could borrow (for good and bad).I watched it happen down south in 2001/2 and then up north between 2003/4....
Brown wasn't shy about regulating the banks.
The problem is, he regulated all the wrong things...
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
And that's who to primarily blame for crashing the financial system. Those who did it, not those who supposedly provoked it by being lax or complacent. Similar to Putin and Ukraine.
Not really, since there isn't anybody whose job it really was to stop Putin invading Ukraine in the way that it was J. Gordon Brown's job to regulate the City,
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
The other day, @Dura_Ace said that the online maps of the Ukraine war not being updated, is an indication that things are not going well for Ukraine. Despite, from my memory, them not being updated during last autumn's offensives. Or actually, at random intervals anyway.
It now seems that there may be some actions around Bakhmut that are not to Russia's advantage. Whilst I would take these claims with a pinch of salt, some Russian channels (*) are claiming the Poles are taking part in this new Ukrainian offensive.
Some of the Russian cheerleaders are appearing rattled. I take this as a positive-ish sign for Ukraine. Let's hope my spider-senses are working well.
(*) I won't link to their Twitter, as it'll just give them the oxygen of publicity.
Hearing that the northern Russian pincer on Bakhmut may have been broken. This might allow a significant push back from the city centre. That would be a serious defeat for the Russians, given the huge resources they have devoted to this small section of the line. Also, Prigrozhin had better avoid third floor windows...
Claiming that foreign-NATO-Woke-Gay-Mercenaries are responsible for all Russian defeats has been a bit of a theme.
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
Apparently the Russian AF only have nine of these specialised AWACS aircraft. If that’s correct, then losing one is a big deal for them. They’re 1970s vintage, based on IL-76, and must be a right pain to keep serviceable at the best of times. Well done to the saboteurs.
Not cheap, either. I think they sold a couple to India for somewhere around $1bn.
*If* this was done by partisans, it'd be interesting to know how it was done (when the war's over, obvs.). If it had been an attack on the airfield, I might have expected to see more planes or infrastructure damaged. I do wonder if someone was given access to the aircraft to do some work, and left a few presents inside...
Whatever, it's an action that complicates things for Russian and Belarus. Every man, every SAM system, every tank, they leave outside Ukraine to guard infrastructure is one that cannot be used in Ukraine.
It also makes the task of triangulating the location of hidden Ukrainian airbases (which is probably why it was in Belarus) more difficult.
I heard a claim (by Lazerpig, so take that into account...) that Russia are using Loran-C for some navigation, and have a big mast in Crimea as part of the Loran system.
Whilst use of Loran might explain some of the poor accuracy of Russia's missiles, it'd also relatively 'easy' to implement electronically. It might also make that site in Crimea a juicy target.
The other day, @Dura_Ace said that the online maps of the Ukraine war not being updated, is an indication that things are not going well for Ukraine. Despite, from my memory, them not being updated during last autumn's offensives. Or actually, at random intervals anyway.
It now seems that there may be some actions around Bakhmut that are not to Russia's advantage. Whilst I would take these claims with a pinch of salt, some Russian channels (*) are claiming the Poles are taking part in this new Ukrainian offensive.
Some of the Russian cheerleaders are appearing rattled. I take this as a positive-ish sign for Ukraine. Let's hope my spider-senses are working well.
(*) I won't link to their Twitter, as it'll just give them the oxygen of publicity.
Hearing that the northern Russian pincer on Bakhmut may have been broken. This might allow a significant push back from the city centre. That would be a serious defeat for the Russians, given the huge resources they have devoted to this small section of the line. Also, Prigrozhin had better avoid third floor windows...
Claiming that foreign-NATO-Woke-Gay-Mercenaries are responsible for all Russian defeats has been a bit of a theme.
Is this why Leon has taken to working abroad nowadays?
The other day, @Dura_Ace said that the online maps of the Ukraine war not being updated, is an indication that things are not going well for Ukraine. Despite, from my memory, them not being updated during last autumn's offensives. Or actually, at random intervals anyway.
It now seems that there may be some actions around Bakhmut that are not to Russia's advantage. Whilst I would take these claims with a pinch of salt, some Russian channels (*) are claiming the Poles are taking part in this new Ukrainian offensive.
Some of the Russian cheerleaders are appearing rattled. I take this as a positive-ish sign for Ukraine. Let's hope my spider-senses are working well.
(*) I won't link to their Twitter, as it'll just give them the oxygen of publicity.
When the Ukrainians have made advances it's normally taken one day, tops, until the evidence is all over twitter. The pattern of the news about Bakhmut now is similar to the pattern of the news about Severodonetsk or Popasna at the time when Ukraine were withdrawing from those areas. I'm expecting to hear within the next couple of days that the Ukrainians have successfully managed to withdraw from Bakhmut, after making Russia pay a disproportionately heavy price for the meagre advance.
Just as when Russia made those advances last year, there will be a lot of tosh written about the inevitable eventual Russian victory. I hope that the coming Ukrainian counteroffensive is as successful as the Kharkiv and Kherson offensives were in making such predictions look ridiculous - but I think Ukraine will give ground in Bakhmut and preserve their reserves for an offensive in a different location. Melitopol and Svatove are more important axes for Ukraine to make advances along.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
The bolded part is extraordinary. Sunak's testicle-free No. 10 operation can't even take responsibility for deploying the King in the way that they clearly have (see Buck House statement).
HOWEVER, the news on the deal seems good - if both ERG and DUP are satisfied, everyone will be delighted, and Sunak will deserve plenty of credit (along with Truss and Bojo it must be said, who provided the 'bad cop' of the Protocol bill).
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
This is constitutional authority Rees-Mogg we're talking about. It would be a genuine surprise if it made sense.
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
If the DUP claim that their hard line has won, that will be interesting.
What would be even more interesting is them settling into Storming as second fiddle to Sinn Fein. Hell will have indeed frozen over and Sunak deserves a by for the next five GEs.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
This is constitutional authority Rees-Mogg we're talking about. It would be a genuine surprise if it made sense.
Are you saying you don't understand his comments? The concept seems a fairly simple one to me.
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
Apparently the Russian AF only have nine of these specialised AWACS aircraft. If that’s correct, then losing one is a big deal for them. They’re 1970s vintage, based on IL-76, and must be a right pain to keep serviceable at the best of times. Well done to the saboteurs.
Not cheap, either. I think they sold a couple to India for somewhere around $1bn.
*If* this was done by partisans, it'd be interesting to know how it was done (when the war's over, obvs.). If it had been an attack on the airfield, I might have expected to see more planes or infrastructure damaged. I do wonder if someone was given access to the aircraft to do some work, and left a few presents inside...
Whatever, it's an action that complicates things for Russian and Belarus. Every man, every SAM system, every tank, they leave outside Ukraine to guard infrastructure is one that cannot be used in Ukraine.
The previous post said it was by drones, so assuem they flew drones over it and either dropped explosives or did kamikaze by drones.
The claim was further that it was a U model IL-76 - the modernised one, which has a useful look down capability (looking for low flying aircraft and missiles from above).
The older models are much less capable.
Russia has 7 of these U models, I believe. You’d need 4 to maintain a 24/7 patrol (might manage with 3). So losing even one is a chunk of capability.
They are supposed to work in conjunction with MIg-31 interceptors. Apparently a lot of he Russian suppression of the Ukrainian airforce has been from Mig-31 lobbing ultra long range AAMs at low flying Ukrainian planes, from Russian airspace. Low hit rate, but the attrition rate adds up, over time.
The Mig-31 can use its own radar to find targets - but this would be much less effective than getting data from an IL-76U
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
I tell you why he's moving towards the mainstream.
He's got a 4,000 vote majority in a seat that voted Remain, oh and Labour have 6,000 Lib Dem voters to squeeze.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
This is constitutional authority Rees-Mogg we're talking about. It would be a genuine surprise if it made sense.
Are you saying you don't understand his comments? The concept seems a fairly simple one to me.
What the Brexiteers should be saying, to make hay, is “see, she’s being treated as a head of State - it is a superstate and we’re well out of it”.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Especially since many eurosceptics voted Remain. Nick Clegg thought of himself as a eurosceptic, for example.
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Too religious.
We'll soon find out if that is a barrier to high office.
DavidL brings this up on occasion; I think there is a chance it blows up by the next GE.
And yet the voting public will continue to vote for the politician that promises the harshest sentences, not the ones that provide adequate resources.
At some point we need have a proper debate about restructuring the police (far fewer forces) and getting bang for our buck. Numbers are now more or less back where they were, so they can’t blame that. They need to get more efficient.
Comments
Indeed, linking to OKC comment above, if physics teachers pay goes up because physics graduates are in high demand, then that would attract better candidates to become physics teachers, which means more students learn about and develop an interest in physics, which means more future physics graduates, which means more people able to work as a physics graduate and to be the physics teachers of the future. You might almost call that . . . the invisible hand.
It now seems that there may be some actions around Bakhmut that are not to Russia's advantage. Whilst I would take these claims with a pinch of salt, some Russian channels (*) are claiming the Poles are taking part in this new Ukrainian offensive.
Some of the Russian cheerleaders are appearing rattled. I take this as a positive-ish sign for Ukraine. Let's hope my spider-senses are working well.
(*) I won't link to their Twitter, as it'll just give them the oxygen of publicity.
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
(Incidentally. There aren't National Pay Scales. There's a thing called London Weighting). Edit. And of course Academy chains as @eek points out. I'm also somewhat sceptical of ringfenced subject specialisms. A crap teacher with a physics degree, is worse to teach physics than an excellent teacher of drama, or anything else, especially at KS 3.
Nevertheless. All this would require you to pay more tax to fund it. And you don't want to. Neither does the government. And that applies across the public sector.
So here we are.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
But they do (pay staff more than the national pay scale). At least, they do at the one my wife works at. Particularly for hard-to-recruit subjects.
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲
- primary 15% lower than same time last year
- secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
https://twitter.com/JackWorthNFER/status/1630150284683911171
BYPOL, the Belarusian partisan organisation, said it had used drones to strike the Machulishchy airfield 12km from Minsk, severely damaging a Beriev A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft (Awacs).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/27/belarus-anti-war-partisans-russian-plane-drones-machulishchy-damage-claim
https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1630173293624844291?s=20
I’m glad to be in the UK today to meet with Prime Minister @RishiSunak. I’m looking forward to turning a page and opening a new chapter with our partner and friend.
https://twitter.com/vonderleyen/status/1630163589402095616?s=20
Who let the grown ups back in?
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
His high kicking in stockings and suspenders was truly a thing of beauty for the ages.
Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate.
As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you.
We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year.
So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled.
That's a market failure.
https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1799149/latest-equal-pay-claims-against-supermarkets
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-64784053
Remembering the soundtrack to my time in Nablus, many years ago;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzwoZsD3MUs
Israel/Palestine just goes from bad to worse.
The worlds nastiest - and longest running - real estate dispute.
If yes, look into why.
If no, then no the schools aren't operating on a proper per pupil budget.
Shifting staff from permanent to supply shouldn't liberate any budget, quite the opposite in fact. Supply budget should come from the exact same budget as permanent does.
All the evidence is that it doesn't. After all, it's a bit galling when a trainee teacher (with a hefty tax free bursary) ends up with more pocket money than their taxpaying mentor.
Ultimately however, it was the issue of gender reform that would be Sturgeon’s undoing. When Scottish Secretary Alister Jack announced the UK Government would block the Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill, the first minister attempted to turn it into a constitutional crisis. In truth, very few were up for that particular fight.
Famously assured and fleet of foot, Sturgeon was completely caught off guard by the case of Isla Bryson, a trans prisoner who had been jailed for the rape of two women when still known as Adam Graham. Pictures of Bryson arriving at court wearing a blonde wig and leggings almost perfectly represented the concerns around self-ID, concerns Sturgeon had memorably dismissed as “not valid”. When the issue of whether Bryson was a man or a woman was repeatedly raised by the press and at First Minister’s Questions, it became clear that Sturgeon had painted herself into a corner. There was only one way out.
https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,nicola-sturgeon-a-politician-who-promised-so-much-has-left-behind-a-country-divided-and-a-party-at-war
Supply staff are available. Sort of. Increasingly less so, because of the competition. (Agency staff are being offered the choice of 2, or even 3 schools to go to).
Because pay and (particularly) conditions for permanent staff are simply uncompetitive. Hence the strikes.
You seem to be arguing that the system should work on an entirely free market basis without any increase in budgets, despite a labour shortage.
Whether it is diversionary to allow an orderly withdrawal from Bakhmut or something more, I suppose time will tell.
That is an absurd situation. No sensible, small, private sector firm worth its salt would systematically use supply staff instead of permanent staff because of an accounting trick, as its their money at the end of the day either way. Schools should not get an additional budget because they've been using supply staff.
As for what I'm arguing on a free market basis, I'm saying that any increase in budgets should happen if necessary separately to reforming to a sensible basis for free market wages. You can't solve the problems with having national pay scales by either raising or cutting the budget.
Personally I think and have said before the education budget to schools needs to be going up, overall teachers should be getting at least as much of a pay rise as pensioners are, but that's a separate issue to the fact that in-demand and not-so-in-demand subjects are attracting the same pay rate despite completely different supply and demand levels.
I think they sold a couple to India for somewhere around $1bn.
If the DUP and ERG are unhappy, it's more likely that their version of Brexit (or the other stuff they wanted to use Brexit to unlock) look like they are about to be deadded.
It's only in London where there's this big bifurcation between very expensive and social housing.
“We're saying you're not going to get on the debate stage unless you make this pledge,” Ronna McDaniel said.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/26/gop-primary-loyalty-pledge-ronna-mcdaniel-00084467
Whatever, it's an action that complicates things for Russian and Belarus. Every man, every SAM system, every tank, they leave outside Ukraine to guard infrastructure is one that cannot be used in Ukraine.
The training I’ve seen boils down to ticking the “I’m not a criminal” option on all the multiple choice answers.
Strangely, this doesn’t affect outcomes.
Regulation that actually regulates is apparently too difficult or something.
So they certainly still should come from the same labour budget.
Any supply staff should be paid for from the same labour budget as permanent staff. If a school is using very little in the way of supply staff, that should free up more money to increase the pay of permanent staff - and vice versa. Give the schools the freedom and flexibility to address their issues as they see fit with their budget.
If all schools are struggling, then the budget may need to then be increased across the board, but if only a tiny number are, then they should be allowed to fail.
Mexican president posts photo of what he claims is an elf
https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-strange-news/ap-mexican-president-posts-photo-of-what-he-claims-is-an-elf/
I recently discovered, quite by accident, that my agency has a contract which stipulates no school can take on more than 3 of its workers permanently per academic year.
I also spoke with someone very senior in a supply agency who predicted that in five years everyone below Year and Subject Head would be on supply. They'd write the schemes of work and lesson plans, source all resources, and do all the marking and pastoral work. And a surprise guest would deliver.
But this is the way the government increasingly seems to be squaring the circle in education, health, social work, etc.
What on Earth it does for standards in general I've no idea.
But logically, and self evidently, it isn't improving them.
If we improve the support system, maybe teachers could spend more time teaching or something crazy like that?
We need to get rid of thisTory government and all its red tape.
Big news if true
https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/1630190318489411587?t=6e0c0IWL4g6B9VMRwYfNFw&s=19
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brexit-deal-rishi-sunak-latest-news-eu-northern-ireland-protocol-qpwv9wbf0
That's all. I have nothing more to add.
But I know that my "enough pay" threshold is relatively low, and I started buying a house when they were still cheap. I'm unusual. I suspect that more money is going to be part of the solution to the current pickle.
This really is the most frightful tosh but I'm minded to cut some slack - because I sense your take on the Crash derives mainly from the Tory GE campaign of 2010. You swallowed it hook line & sinker at an impressionable time of life.
Turn up. 8:30. Teach. Clock off 3:30 go home. Why wouldn't you?
Unfortunately. All administrative procedures break down if everyone does it.
So now. My school is paying extra to agencies to have supply stay till 4:30 to attend meetings and do marking and paperwork.
NEW: Irish News reporting that DUP likely to accept deal (going against all expectations locally). Dinner with supporters tonight.
https://twitter.com/lisaocarroll/status/1630194890821840901
If so, it's game over, isn't it?
POBJWAS
Here is an astonishing example from Scotland: https://twitter.com/AlanMyles8/status/1629990008064036865?t=EkAE5yFTO_yAsoxX4fo-ww&s=19
DavidL brings this up on occasion; I think there is a chance it blows up by the next GE.
Whilst use of Loran might explain some of the poor accuracy of Russia's missiles, it'd also relatively 'easy' to implement electronically. It might also make that site in Crimea a juicy target.
Edit:
https://www.gpsworld.com/russia-expected-to-ditch-glonass-for-loran-in-ukraine-invasion/
Orcs.
Just as when Russia made those advances last year, there will be a lot of tosh written about the inevitable eventual Russian victory. I hope that the coming Ukrainian counteroffensive is as successful as the Kharkiv and Kherson offensives were in making such predictions look ridiculous - but I think Ukraine will give ground in Bakhmut and preserve their reserves for an offensive in a different location. Melitopol and Svatove are more important axes for Ukraine to make advances along.
HOWEVER, the news on the deal seems good - if both ERG and DUP are satisfied, everyone will be delighted, and Sunak will deserve plenty of credit (along with Truss and Bojo it must be said, who provided the 'bad cop' of the Protocol bill).
It would be a genuine surprise if it made sense.
The older models are much less capable.
Russia has 7 of these U models, I believe. You’d need 4 to maintain a 24/7 patrol (might manage with 3). So losing even one is a chunk of capability.
They are supposed to work in conjunction with MIg-31 interceptors. Apparently a lot of he Russian suppression of the Ukrainian airforce has been from Mig-31 lobbing ultra long range AAMs at low flying Ukrainian planes, from Russian airspace. Low hit rate, but the attrition rate adds up, over time.
The Mig-31 can use its own radar to find targets - but this would be much less effective than getting data from an IL-76U
He's got a 4,000 vote majority in a seat that voted Remain, oh and Labour have 6,000 Lib Dem voters to squeeze.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IEwBrJzhlg