You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
It is terrible.
But there's another problem. For a British person claiming housing benefit, the marginal tax rate on working at Pret is probably close to 80%.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
It will be the native Brits soft skills that make them unemployable in Pret, rather than their educational attainment.
Leaving the EU was OK, it will be the breakup of the UK that will make it bitter.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
This is not a new problem. I live in the ward of Islington that adjoins the City. At the 2001 census, over 40% of households in the ward had no one in work.
London has special problems.
It offers so much and caters for every taste and need. But because London is so big, busy and convoluted, it's hard sometimes to find what you want/need. It could be on your doorstep, but you might never know.
I'd like an Aston Martin but I don't expect it to be paid for by the general public.
I'd say the same should be true for people wanting to have children.
Indeed. People having children up to a point benefits society, but how much should everyone contribute to child focused things. Why should pacifists pay toward the cost of the army, republicans the monarchy, and so on andcso on.
It's all very well saying you didn't vote for X so why should you pay for it, but what people are suggesting therefore is we all need to get a checklist of things we want to pay for and only pay those. What's that, a new childrens centre building programme? Well, it may well be of more obvious worthgsn many things voted on, but I dont have kids, I'm not paying for it. Motorway construction? I work 10 minutes from my house, have no car and travel by train, I'm not paying for it. A cure cancer programme? Well. It is a good idea, but I voted for a party which didn't have it in its manifesto and in any case lost, so I'm not paying for it.
Ridiculous, isn't it? And those suggesting such things know it. That they feel Brexit was obviously going to be a disaster, and time could prove them right though let's hope not, doesn't make it less ridiculous.
The long-awaited hearing of the legal challenge to the government’s intention to trigger Article 50 began on Thursday. Hoisted outside the High Court was a placard: “Article 50 is a suicide note!” But inside, it was the question, “Ah, but who holds the pen?” that occupied the judges.
Yep - as many Leave voters have noted, there are some things that are more important than money.
So perhaps the costs of Brexit should actually be borne by those who place such a high value on Nigel Farage's and Boris Johnson's slogans? Any takers?
No - we've been through this. When you have a dissatisfied demos and an enriched metropolitan elite, there is only one group with something to lose. They (we) pay up - for the sake of all our people.
How very convenient for you that you believe that the thing you passionately want should be paid for by other people.
Grotesquely self-serving.
The same argument could be turned on Remainers. For instance, those in the City who want to be in the Single Market and have the financial passport and expect others to bear the costs i.e. free movement of doing so. It is not just leavers who are self-serving.
And the City and all those who benefit from its existence have not been very good at explaining to others why their interests should be more important than the interests of others in the country. Saying that they produce tax revenues is a part of this but is not sufficient. The City is not popular, is arrogant, has a woeful tin ear for how it comes across to those not within its orbit, resembles pre-1979 unions rather more than it might think and, like those unions, risks failing to adapt to a changing world.
spot on Miss Cycle
too many of the finance dependent community have forgotten they are attached to the rest of the country and draw their living from it.
What a relief it must be for the PB Brexitories to take a break from whining about Project Fear 2.0 and telling every man and his dog that it wasn't about the money, but sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom. That they've reverted to pushing Project Fear 1.1 and telling the poor, old bloke with the collie that for Scotland it's all about the economics and an Indy Scotland would be a worse basket case than Greece is proof of the old adage that a change is as good as a rest.
To be fair, there were several leavers on here who did push the sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom line before the referendum. And some, generally a subset of the above, who rubbished some of leave's financial claims.
Yep - as many Leave voters have noted, there are some things that are more important than money.
So perhaps the costs of Brexit should actually be borne by those who place such a high value on Nigel Farage's and Boris Johnson's slogans? Any takers?
No - we've been through this. When you have a dissatisfied demos and an enriched metropolitan elite, there is only one group with something to lose. They (we) pay up - for the sake of all our people.
How very convenient for you that you believe that the thing you passionately want should be paid for by other people.
Grotesquely self-serving.
The same argument could be turned on Remainers. For instance, those in the City who want to be in the Single Market and have the financial passport and expect others to bear the costs i.e. free movement of doing so. It is not just leavers who are self-serving.
And the City and all those who benefit from its existence have not been very good at explaining to others why their interests should be more important than the interests of others in the country. Saying that they produce tax revenues is a part of this but is not sufficient. The City is not popular, is arrogant, has a woeful tin ear for how it comes across to those not within its orbit, resembles pre-1979 unions rather more than it might think and, like those unions, risks failing to adapt to a changing world.
The City generates big revenues, but it's activities are underwritten by the country as a whole.
Mr. Jonathan, an intriguing way to shift even more spending towards areas of the highest wealth.
Stark raving mad, of course.
Do you also support the right of those with private medical insurance to opt out of funding the NHS? Or pacifists not to pay for the military? Or the childless not to fund schools?
The last of those is widely supported in this forum.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
It's not a matter of Pret being prejudiced against British nationals, it's a matter of their customers preferring to be served by someone with an interesting foreign accent than by someone who looks and sounds like they are from a council estate.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
This is not a new problem. I live in the ward of Islington that adjoins the City. At the 2001 census, over 40% of households in the ward had no one in work.
London has special problems.
It offers so much and caters for every taste and need. But because London is so big, busy and convoluted, it's hard sometimes to find what you want/need. It could be on your doorstep, but you might never know.
It's only not visible if you don't look
That's bollocks.
Well I guess it's easy to miss sign advertising for staff. When I needed work I went to the job centre. Plenty of work for those who want to work. Plenty of ads in the paper and online it's not rocket science
What a relief it must be for the PB Brexitories to take a break from whining about Project Fear 2.0 and telling every man and his dog that it wasn't about the money, but sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom. That they've reverted to pushing Project Fear 1.1 and telling the poor, old bloke with the collie that for Scotland it's all about the economics and an Indy Scotland would be a worse basket case than Greece is proof of the old adage that a change is as good as a rest.
To be fair, there were several leavers on here who did push the sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom line before the referendum. And some, generally a subset of the above, who rubbished some of leave's financial claims.
That category of leaver seems to have increased substantially in number over the last few weeks, can't think why.
It's not a matter of Pret being prejudiced against British nationals, it's a matter of their customers preferring to be served by someone with an interesting foreign accent than by someone who looks and sounds like they are from a council estate.
Ah yes... does Emily Thornberry get lunch there I wonder.
Some, yes, others said a certain level of cost would force them to say they made a mistske, but mr. Meeks for one has seriously suggested only leavers bear the costs of Brexit. Since plenty of people even in leave areas voted remain, that means we need to establish which way every single person in the country voted to decide their level of cost, not use administrative boundaries to punish. At least not on a flat scale, a close Brexit region punished less than a heavy brexitvregion.
No, obviously we're stuck with it, and obviously the people as a whole are going to pay any consequences.
I just find the political claptrap irritating. Even the most gullible Brexit believer must have an inkling of the irony involved, when the great new era of British Democracy is going to be inaugurated by using the royal prerogative to take the decision out of parliament's hands.
But Brexiters don't want a great new era of British Democracy, they want their old one back, and under the old one some things are subject to the royal prerogative and some not, and the clever judges are going to tell us which is which. I don't see that the exercise of prerogative powers by an elected executive is undemocratic; and if it is, the answer is OK, fine, the UK never had a system of pure democracy, and that is one of the impurities.
Can 2016 get any stranger? Will Elvis be discovered alive and well?
Trust in the media has taken a massive shock - and many Establishment types who previously appeared quite affable have become almost unhinged. I don't like Paddy much - but thought he's fairly harmless and decent chappy... he's linked my Brexit vote with Oswald Mosley
Ashdown's an ignoramus. Mosley was an enthusiast for a European superstate.
There will be a zillion articles going through the potential impact on the UK of a hard Brexit, ranging from the tumbleweed apocalypse to the liberating trade expansion new dawn ends of the spectrum.
I'd like to know what the collective PB commentariat's wisdom says about the impact of a hard Brexit on the rest of the EU. Personally I think the very survival of the EU hangs in the balance - not because of Brexit but because of the debt situation and the Euro. If something can't last forever it won't. I'm far from convinced the EU and its financial system can survive the coming downturn. Brexit is salt in the wound, but may be a tipping point in an already shite situation. Can Germany pick up the UK's contribution gap and suffer the job losses a hard Brexit would force upon Siemens, BMW, Mercedes, etc? Hmm....How've Deutsche Bank shares been doing lately?
QE debt will never be repaid. (And this is true, whether it is in the US, the UK, the Japan or the EU.)
Which means there is no debt problem*.
* With the exception of Greece, which still needs to leave the Euro.
Now, it is quite possible that the Eurozone tips back into recession (although right now, the surveys all point to growth continuing at anaemic but steady 1.5-1.6%). In which case, I think the stresses in places like Italy could be very severe.
But it is worth remembering that the Eurozone does have a number of major advantages compared to the UK. Firstly, there is no personal debt problem. In France, Germany and Italy, household debt-to-GDP is less than 60% of GDP. In the UK it's close to 200%. Secondly, unlike the UK, the Eurozone does not live beyond its means. Other than France, I think every Eurozone country now exports more than it imports. It is therefore has less 'funding' risk. Finally, even ignoring QE debt, government debt-to-GDP is in decline in every Eurozone country except Greece. And EZ budget deficits are much lower than ours. This does mean that - if there is consensus in Europe, which is by no means a given - most Eurozone countries have the ability to respond with fiscal stimulus.
Does your household debt to GDP ratio take into account household assets? It was my understanding that UK household debt to GDP is higher as we have a higher proportion of home owners, but our assets are higher as a result. If I have a mortgage of two times my annual income that's 200% but if my house is worth 4 times my annual income and I can afford mortgage repayments then that is a good thing not a bad one.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
Surely the missing link here is the social and economic environment 'back home' for these young Europeans? (As well as the element of adventure, and learning, from working abroad when you are young). If you come from somewhere with extremely high youth unemployment and so no opportunities, or from one of the more deprived parts of Eastern Europe where living standards are still very low, a low-income job somewhere like London (and of course London is actually almost unique, another part of the attraction) has a pull that isn't there for someone in a council block twenty minutes away? For the young European the job is a means not just of very modest income, but to experience life in London, learn English, or whatever.
There is a parallel with students who (used to, certainly in my time) take low paid or even voluntary jobs abroad - fruit picking and the like - in order to finance a holiday or gap year; things we would never dream of considering as occupations in the U.K.
I've still to receive an answer as to why freedom of movement is an essential to a non-tariff trading area. You can't have one without the other, as the old song goes. It was talking about love and marriage and was just as logical.
The idea of free movement was part of a grand scheme to create one country in Europe. A post-war and idealistic response to the traumas suffered. Despite all the pretence in 1975, that's always been the cunning plan.
Some people believe in this concept and I have no argument with this - they are welcome to their views. It happens to be unpopular so it is never directly spoken of. That is where the deceit causes friction.
In a nutshell, the establishment want A but it's unpopular so we'll package it up as a necessary requirement for B, which they want, and hope the voters will be persuaded to swallow both.
What a relief it must be for the PB Brexitories to take a break from whining about Project Fear 2.0 and telling every man and his dog that it wasn't about the money, but sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom. That they've reverted to pushing Project Fear 1.1 and telling the poor, old bloke with the collie that for Scotland it's all about the economics and an Indy Scotland would be a worse basket case than Greece is proof of the old adage that a change is as good as a rest.
We're looking forward to the SNP explaining why its important to (get out of/stay in) a Union that receives (60%/15%) of Scotland's trade and (pays into/wants payment from) Scotland's coffers.....
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
This is not a new problem. I live in the ward of Islington that adjoins the City. At the 2001 census, over 40% of households in the ward had no one in work.
But it is a problem that your pet EU project, because of free movement, is preventing us from solving...
There are lots of things we could have done that would ameliorated the problem even without Brexit. As my friend Kwasi Kwerteng has suggested, you could make all benefits contributory based: in other words, you need to have actually paid into the system to draw out. That would have almost completely stopped EU citizens coming here and claiming in-work benefits.
And, as Max has written about on here, we could and should have done a lot more with our education system. The utter fixation on grammar schools as the solution to all problems misses the fact that our education system utterly fails the bottom 50% of academic achievers. Germany and Switzerland have fabulous vocational education systems, which results in much, much high labour participation rates*.
* The fixation on unemployment numbers misses the massive hidden unemployment we have relative to other countries.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
Not sure how are you are Garden (and that is not in any way meant as a slight, just a comment on potential different generational attitudes) but when I was a teenager I would take any and all work I could get - stacking shelves, picking fruit, table service work - admittedly not as common back in the 70s and 80s as it is today. When I left uni in the mid 80s with a geology degree in the middle of a huge slump in work opportunities I spent two years working for Tarmac building roads and later as a shotfirer in the quarries.
Basically we should be teaching our young that any job at all outside of porn and drug dealing is better than no job. It is the way generations were brought up in the past and something we need to return to.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
This is not a new problem. I live in the ward of Islington that adjoins the City. At the 2001 census, over 40% of households in the ward had no one in work.
But it is a problem that your pet EU project, because of free movement, is preventing us from solving...
There are lots of things we could have done that would ameliorated the problem even without Brexit. As my friend Kwasi Kwerteng has suggested, you could make all benefits contributory based: in other words, you need to have actually paid into the system to draw out. That would have almost completely stopped EU citizens coming here and claiming in-work benefits.
And, as Max has written about on here, we could and should have done a lot more with our education system. The utter fixation on grammar schools as the solution to all problems misses the fact that our education system utterly fails the bottom 50% of academic achievers. Germany and Switzerland have fabulous vocational education systems, which results in much, much high labour participation rates*.
* The fixation on unemployment numbers misses the massive hidden unemployment we have relative to other countries.
Contributory benefits would of course reduce immigration, but it would also take benefits away from several generations who have had poor education at a time when free movement has allowed mass migration from Eastern Europe - how would we ameliorate that?
I agree entirely on vocational education. It is a scandal that we don't teach people the skills they need for life, but focus on academic subjects that only a small subset will ever benefit from. Selection is probably the easiest way to solve that - combined, of course, with actually opening technical colleges.
Does your household debt to GDP ratio take into account household assets? It was my understanding that UK household debt to GDP is higher as we have a higher proportion of home owners, but our assets are higher as a result. If I have a mortgage of two times my annual income that's 200% but if my house is worth 4 times my annual income and I can afford mortgage repayments then that is a good thing not a bad one.
No, just debt.
Household assets in the UK is property. Literally, just property. It makes us uniquely vulnerable to a housing slowdown. Imagine if - as happened in 1990 - real house prices fell 40%. We currently owe a lot more than we did then, and a drop of that magnitude would (a) send household savings rates soaring, (b) crucify domestic demand, and (c) screw the UK banking sector again, and (d) destroy labour market mobility.
What a relief it must be for the PB Brexitories to take a break from whining about Project Fear 2.0 and telling every man and his dog that it wasn't about the money, but sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom. That they've reverted to pushing Project Fear 1.1 and telling the poor, old bloke with the collie that for Scotland it's all about the economics and an Indy Scotland would be a worse basket case than Greece is proof of the old adage that a change is as good as a rest.
We're looking forward to the SNP explaining why its important to (get out of/stay in) a Union that receives (60%/15%) of Scotland's trade and (pays into/wants payment from) Scotland's coffers.....
I'd imagine that the amount of fecks given by the SNP about what you're looking forward to is a very, very, small number.
On the EU's potentially imminent demise, (I forget who wrote of that), even if there's the worst case collapse of Deutsche Bank and so forth and some other members peel off, it'll stagger on for a while yet. Both the Western and Eastern Empires kept just about afloat for a couple of centuries when the writing was on the wall, and though the EU won't match that, it'll still be here in a decade or two, whatever happens.
That said, I do think I'll outlive it.
Frexit would turn the EU into the deutschmark zone in all but name.
Some, yes, others said a certain level of cost would force them to say they made a mistske, but mr. Meeks for one has seriously suggested only leavers bear the costs of Brexit. Since plenty of people even in leave areas voted remain, that means we need to establish which way every single person in the country voted to decide their level of cost, not use administrative boundaries to punish. At least not on a flat scale, a close Brexit region punished less than a heavy brexitvregion.
No, obviously we're stuck with it, and obviously the people as a whole are going to pay any consequences.
I just find the political claptrap irritating. Even the most gullible Brexit believer must have an inkling of the irony involved, when the great new era of British Democracy is going to be inaugurated by using the royal prerogative to take the decision out of parliament's hands.
But Brexiters don't want a great new era of British Democracy, they want their old one back, and under the old one some things are subject to the royal prerogative and some not, and the clever judges are going to tell us which is which. I don't see that the exercise of prerogative powers by an elected executive is undemocratic; and if it is, the answer is OK, fine, the UK never had a system of pure democracy, and that is one of the impurities.
So really the Democracy part isn't essential - it's the British part that's key.
I'd like an Aston Martin but I don't expect it to be paid for by the general public.
I'd say the same should be true for people wanting to have children.
Indeed. People having children up to a point benefits society, but how much should everyone contribute to child focused things. Why should pacifists pay toward the cost of the army, republicans the monarchy, and so on andcso on.
It's all very well saying you didn't vote for X so why should you pay for it, but what people are suggesting therefore is we all need to get a checklist of things we want to pay for and only pay those. What's that, a new childrens centre building programme? Well, it may well be of more obvious worthgsn many things voted on, but I dont have kids, I'm not paying for it. Motorway construction? I work 10 minutes from my house, have no car and travel by train, I'm not paying for it. A cure cancer programme? Well. It is a good idea, but I voted for a party which didn't have it in its manifesto and in any case lost, so I'm not paying for it.
Ridiculous, isn't it? And those suggesting such things know it. That they feel Brexit was obviously going to be a disaster, and time could prove them right though let's hope not, doesn't make it less ridiculous.
I attended the British Society of Population Studies annual conference a few years ago. The plenary speaker was some lefty woman telling everyone how terribly unfair Britain was because child benefit wasn't as high as it is France (or something like that). She ended her speech by asking "why would anyone want to have kids in Britain?"
This made me a bit angry because at the time my sister was having trouble conceiving and I had to bite my lip to suggest some people want to have kids simply for the joy they bring to their lives and that it's natural that normal* people would want to have kids.
For what it's worth I certainly don't have a problem with my tax going towards schools, for example. But as you've pointed out, there is a lot of grey between Mr Meeks wanting an Aston Martin and state funded education.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
Not sure how are you are Garden (and that is not in any way meant as a slight, just a comment on potential different generational attitudes) but when I was a teenager I would take any and all work I could get - stacking shelves, picking fruit, table service work - admittedly not as common back in the 70s and 80s as it is today. When I left uni in the mid 80s with a geology degree in the middle of a huge slump in work opportunities I spent two years working for Tarmac building roads and later as a shotfirer in the quarries.
Basically we should be teaching our young that any job at all outside of porn and drug dealing is better than no job. It is the way generations were brought up in the past and something we need to return to.
Oh yeah I agree. Not proud. Just trying to say we need to look at the class issues here.
A culture of low aspiration meets a culture of middle class snobbery. The UK has always been terrible at customer service (though not as bad as the French?) and Pret has fixed that with ruthless process efficiency and importation of very pleasant Europeans.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
Not sure how are you are Garden (and that is not in any way meant as a slight, just a comment on potential different generational attitudes) but when I was a teenager I would take any and all work I could get - stacking shelves, picking fruit, table service work - admittedly not as common back in the 70s and 80s as it is today. When I left uni in the mid 80s with a geology degree in the middle of a huge slump in work opportunities I spent two years working for Tarmac building roads and later as a shotfirer in the quarries.
Basically we should be teaching our young that any job at all outside of porn and drug dealing is better than no job. It is the way generations were brought up in the past and something we need to return to.
What's wrong with a career in porn? Is it the stiff competition?
Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
I have to wonder how you can tell that. Do you mean they speak with foreign accents and have foreign names on their badges?
They have little flags on their chests to show their country of origin.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
They do this all over London for tourists who struggle with English, just in case anyone thought Pret had already implemented Amber Rudd's register!
Related to this conversation, a few years back I sailed to Dublin. Whilst there I visited a couple of 'Irish' shops - the sort that sells country-related tat to tourists. I was amused that all the staff in the shops seemed to be Eastern Europeans.
If you cannot even staff shops that are supposed to show the 'best' of your country with natives ...
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
Not sure how are you are Garden (and that is not in any way meant as a slight, just a comment on potential different generational attitudes) but when I was a teenager I would take any and all work I could get - stacking shelves, picking fruit, table service work - admittedly not as common back in the 70s and 80s as it is today. When I left uni in the mid 80s with a geology degree in the middle of a huge slump in work opportunities I spent two years working for Tarmac building roads and later as a shotfirer in the quarries.
Basically we should be teaching our young that any job at all outside of porn and drug dealing is better than no job. It is the way generations were brought up in the past and something we need to return to.
I still think we are missing the simple fact that this is London. When I was 20, would I have considered doing a shit job to experience living in New York for a year? Very probably. Would I have considered the same job around the corner from my parents' house? No.
Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
I have to wonder how you can tell that. Do you mean they speak with foreign accents and have foreign names on their badges?
They have little flags on their chests to show their country of origin.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
I wonder if a UK employee wore a union flag badge, they would be branded as racist
The flags are there to show what languages they speak. Given that it is prerequisite at Pret to speak English, why would they need to wear a Union Flag badge?
Yep - as many Leave voters have noted, there are some things that are more important than money.
So perhaps the costs of Brexit should actually be borne by those who place such a high value on Nigel Farage's and Boris Johnson's slogans? Any takers?
No - we've been through this. When you have a dissatisfied demos and an enriched metropolitan elite, there is only one group with something to lose. They (we) pay up - for the sake of all our people.
How very convenient for you that you believe that the thing you passionately want should be paid for by other people.
Grotesquely self-serving.
The same argument could be turned on Remainers. For instance, those in the City who want to be in the Single Market and have the financial passport and expect others to bear the costs i.e. free movement of doing so. It is not just leavers who are self-serving.
And the City and all those who benefit from its existence have not been very good at explaining to others why their interests should be more important than the interests of others in the country. Saying that they produce tax revenues is a part of this but is not sufficient. The City is not popular, is arrogant, has a woeful tin ear for how it comes across to those not within its orbit, resembles pre-1979 unions rather more than it might think and, like those unions, risks failing to adapt to a changing world.
This affects how they think (and trade) as well because they think Brexit is utterly insane and stupid, and can't help but get emotional about it. That's why Sterling is now undervalued.
My trader friend said all the talk in his bank yesterday was of Marmite and how it had led him to go from disliking Brexit to now f**king hating it, when anyone with a cool head and their wits about them would have realised it was a nonsense story.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
... when I was a teenager I would take any and all work I could get - stacking shelves, picking fruit, table service work - ... When I left uni in the mid 80s with a geology degree in the middle of a huge slump in work opportunities I spent two years working for Tarmac building roads and later as a shotfirer in the quarries. Basically we should be teaching our young that any job at all outside of porn and drug dealing is better than no job. It is the way generations were brought up in the past and something we need to return to.
I agree with all of that. I worked from 11 part time and holidays and it gave me a real appreciation of working life for most people.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
This is not a new problem. I live in the ward of Islington that adjoins the City. At the 2001 census, over 40% of households in the ward had no one in work.
But it is a problem that your pet EU project, because of free movement, is preventing us from solving...
There are lots of things we could have done that would ameliorated the problem even without Brexit. As my friend Kwasi Kwerteng has suggested, you could make all benefits contributory based: in other words, you need to have actually paid into the system to draw out. That would have almost completely stopped EU citizens coming here and claiming in-work benefits.
And, as Max has written about on here, we could and should have done a lot more with our education system. The utter fixation on grammar schools as the solution to all problems misses the fact that our education system utterly fails the bottom 50% of academic achievers. Germany and Switzerland have fabulous vocational education systems, which results in much, much high labour participation rates*.
* The fixation on unemployment numbers misses the massive hidden unemployment we have relative to other countries.
What I find even more interesting is why this is so. It's not as if our problems are unknown. In education we've been talking about our relative failures since the 1860s!
It's almost as if it suits one class of people to ignore this inconvenient information.
Does your household debt to GDP ratio take into account household assets? It was my understanding that UK household debt to GDP is higher as we have a higher proportion of home owners, but our assets are higher as a result. If I have a mortgage of two times my annual income that's 200% but if my house is worth 4 times my annual income and I can afford mortgage repayments then that is a good thing not a bad one.
No, just debt.
Household assets in the UK is property. Literally, just property. It makes us uniquely vulnerable to a housing slowdown. Imagine if - as happened in 1990 - real house prices fell 40%. We currently owe a lot more than we did then, and a drop of that magnitude would (a) send household savings rates soaring, (b) crucify domestic demand, and (c) screw the UK banking sector again, and (d) destroy labour market mobility.
It's possible sure but it's not the end of the world. The UK recovered quicker after 1990 than it did after 2007/8. In my scenario where I have a mortgage of 2x income and a house of 4x income, even if the house value drops 40% I'm still not in negative equity. I'm not convinced by your argument that the continentals are in a much healthier position just because they rent.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
Not sure how are you are Garden (and that is not in any way meant as a slight, just a comment on potential different generational attitudes) but when I was a teenager I would take any and all work I could get - stacking shelves, picking fruit, table service work - admittedly not as common back in the 70s and 80s as it is today. When I left uni in the mid 80s with a geology degree in the middle of a huge slump in work opportunities I spent two years working for Tarmac building roads and later as a shotfirer in the quarries.
Basically we should be teaching our young that any job at all outside of porn and drug dealing is better than no job. It is the way generations were brought up in the past and something we need to return to.
What's wrong with a career in porn? Is it the stiff competition?
Bukake ruins people's carpets, that's why people don't go for careers in porn.
Some, yes, others said a certain level of cost would force them to say they made a mistske, but mr. Meeks for one has seriously suggested only leavers bear the costs of Brexit. Since plenty of people even in leave areas voted remain, that means we need to establish which way every single person in the country voted to decide their level of cost, not use administrative boundaries to punish. At least not on a flat scale, a close Brexit region punished less than a heavy brexitvregion.
No, obviously we're stuck with it, and obviously the people as a whole are going to pay any consequences.
I just find the political claptrap irritating. Even the most gullible Brexit believer must have an inkling of the irony involved, when the great new era of British Democracy is going to be inaugurated by using the royal prerogative to take the decision out of parliament's hands.
But Brexiters don't want a great new era of British Democracy, they want their old one back, and under the old one some things are subject to the royal prerogative and some not, and the clever judges are going to tell us which is which. I don't see that the exercise of prerogative powers by an elected executive is undemocratic; and if it is, the answer is OK, fine, the UK never had a system of pure democracy, and that is one of the impurities.
So really the Democracy part isn't essential - it's the British part that's key.
Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
I have to wonder how you can tell that. Do you mean they speak with foreign accents and have foreign names on their badges?
They have little flags on their chests to show their country of origin.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
I wonder if a UK employee wore a union flag badge, they would be branded as racist
The flags are there to show what languages they speak. Given that it is prerequisite at Pret to speak English, why would they need to wear a Union Flag badge?
How about preferring to be served by someone with a British accent?
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
Not sure how are you are Garden (and that is not in any way meant as a slight, just a comment on potential different generational attitudes) but when I was a teenager I would take any and all work I could get - stacking shelves, picking fruit, table service work - admittedly not as common back in the 70s and 80s as it is today. When I left uni in the mid 80s with a geology degree in the middle of a huge slump in work opportunities I spent two years working for Tarmac building roads and later as a shotfirer in the quarries.
Basically we should be teaching our young that any job at all outside of porn and drug dealing is better than no job. It is the way generations were brought up in the past and something we need to return to.
I think this is a major issue, I remember growing up and doing a part time job in a local newsagency for under the minimum wage, cash in hand. I did it so I could go out on the weekend and buy a PS2 since my parents didn't believe in pocket money. Not to go to Pythonesque, but in my day work of any kind was encouraged. I don't think that's the truth.
What a relief it must be for the PB Brexitories to take a break from whining about Project Fear 2.0 and telling every man and his dog that it wasn't about the money, but sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom. That they've reverted to pushing Project Fear 1.1 and telling the poor, old bloke with the collie that for Scotland it's all about the economics and an Indy Scotland would be a worse basket case than Greece is proof of the old adage that a change is as good as a rest.
We're looking forward to the SNP explaining why its important to (get out of/stay in) a Union that receives (60%/15%) of Scotland's trade and (pays into/wants payment from) Scotland's coffers.....
I'd imagine that the amount of fecks given by the SNP about what you're looking forward to is a very, very, small number.
What a relief it must be for the PB Brexitories to take a break from whining about Project Fear 2.0 and telling every man and his dog that it wasn't about the money, but sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom. That they've reverted to pushing Project Fear 1.1 and telling the poor, old bloke with the collie that for Scotland it's all about the economics and an Indy Scotland would be a worse basket case than Greece is proof of the old adage that a change is as good as a rest.
To be fair, there were several leavers on here who did push the sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom line before the referendum. And some, generally a subset of the above, who rubbished some of leave's financial claims.
That category of leaver seems to have increased substantially in number over the last few weeks, can't think why.
Well, yes. There is a certain amount of denial amongst leavers about certain aspects of Brexit. Again, to be fair, some say they think Brexit is worth it whatever the financial costs. I don't agree with that, but at least there's some consistency there.
However, there is also some denial amongst supporters of Scottish Independence, particularly towards the financials.
Any thoughts on when the Article 50 court case will be settled? (The initial result, at least, not any possible appeal).
We should hear a ruling on Monday, I believe.
My understanding was the learned Judges took a relatively sceptical view of the case. But, as always, Jack of Kent is your friend.
Won't whoever loses inevitably appeal to the Supreme Court dragging it out?
I think that is inevitable. I suspect that there will be an appeal to the ECJ that it was not constitutionally delivered to the EU too.
I still don't understand why there was not a one paragraph "Article 50 Enabling Bill" put through parliament, given it would force people to nail their colours to the mast, and would pass 550-to-100.
Yep - as many Leave voters have noted, there are some things that are more important than money.
So perhaps the costs of Brexit should actually be borne by those who place such a high value on Nigel Farage's and Boris Johnson's slogans? Any takers?
No - we've been through this. When you have a dissatisfied demos and an enriched metropolitan elite, there is only one group with something to lose. They (we) pay up - for the sake of all our people.
How very convenient for you that you believe that the thing you passionately want should be paid for by other people.
Grotesquely self-serving.
The same argument could be turned on Remainers. For instance, those in the City who want to be in the Single Market and have the financial passport and expect others to bear the costs i.e. free movement of doing so. It is not just leavers who are self-serving.
And the City and all those who benefit from its existence have not been very good at explaining to others why their interests should be more important than the interests of others in the country. Saying that they produce tax revenues is a part of this but is not sufficient. The City is not popular, is arrogant, has a woeful tin ear for how it comes across to those not within its orbit, resembles pre-1979 unions rather more than it might think and, like those unions, risks failing to adapt to a changing world.
This affects how they think (and trade) as well because they think Brexit is utterly insane and stupid, and can't help but get emotional about it. That's why Sterling is now undervalued.
My trader friend said all the talk in his bank yesterday was of Marmite and how it had led him to go from disliking Brexit to now f**king hating it, when anyone with a cool head and their wits about them would have realised it was a nonsense story.
Do traders ever touch something as humble as marmite?
What a relief it must be for the PB Brexitories to take a break from whining about Project Fear 2.0 and telling every man and his dog that it wasn't about the money, but sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom. That they've reverted to pushing Project Fear 1.1 and telling the poor, old bloke with the collie that for Scotland it's all about the economics and an Indy Scotland would be a worse basket case than Greece is proof of the old adage that a change is as good as a rest.
We're looking forward to the SNP explaining why its important to (get out of/stay in) a Union that receives (60%/15%) of Scotland's trade and (pays into/wants payment from) Scotland's coffers.....
I'd imagine that the amount of fecks given by the SNP about what you're looking forward to is a very, very, small number.
Great to see Nats engaging with the argument.....
That worked so well last time.....
I was perfectly relaxed about not having your vote the last time, and will be similarly philosophical the next time.
Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
I have to wonder how you can tell that. Do you mean they speak with foreign accents and have foreign names on their badges?
They have little flags on their chests to show their country of origin.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
I wonder if a UK employee wore a union flag badge, they would be branded as racist
The flags are there to show what languages they speak. Given that it is prerequisite at Pret to speak English, why would they need to wear a Union Flag badge?
Do the flags represent country of origin or languages spoken? Because those are not the same thing.
Yep - as many Leave voters have noted, there are some things that are more important than money.
So perhaps the costs of Brexit should actually be borne by those who place such a high value on Nigel Farage's and Boris Johnson's slogans? Any takers?
No - we've been through this. When you have a dissatisfied demos and an enriched metropolitan elite, there is only one group with something to lose. They (we) pay up - for the sake of all our people.
How very convenient for you that you believe that the thing you passionately want should be paid for by other people.
Grotesquely self-serving.
The same argument could be turned on Remainers. For instance, those in the City who want to be in the Single Market and have the financial passport and expect others to bear the costs i.e. free movement of doing so. It is not just leavers who are self-serving.
And the City and all those who benefit from its existence have not been very good at explaining to others why their interests should be more important than the interests of others in the country. Saying that they produce tax revenues is a part of this but is not sufficient. The City is not popular, is arrogant, has a woeful tin ear for how it comes across to those not within its orbit, resembles pre-1979 unions rather more than it might think and, like those unions, risks failing to adapt to a changing world.
This affects how they think (and trade) as well because they think Brexit is utterly insane and stupid, and can't help but get emotional about it. That's why Sterling is now undervalued.
My trader friend said all the talk in his bank yesterday was of Marmite and how it had led him to go from disliking Brexit to now f**king hating it, when anyone with a cool head and their wits about them would have realised it was a nonsense story.
Do traders ever touch something as humble as marmite?
When I worked at Goldman, toast with marmite was a favourite breakfast in the canteen!
My instinct tells me that there is a flaw in this argument that Scotland would never vote to leave its biggest market.
If you are a Leaver it is a very flawed argument. It seems to be mainly Remainers who are sympathetic to Scotland going it alone. Wrong way round, maybe, on both counts
Oh yeah I agree. Not proud. Just trying to say we need to look at the class issues here.
A culture of low aspiration meets a culture of middle class snobbery. The UK has always been terrible at customer service (though not as bad as the French?) and Pret has fixed that with ruthless process efficiency and importation of very pleasant Europeans.
To be fair Pret are also a different class of business when it comes to their position in the community. Simple ideas like giving all left over food at the end of the day to local homeless shelters - with the added benefit that you know your food is fresh that day as a result - do tend to set them apart.
But on the main point I would ask why it is that we have moved from a position of high aspiration 30 or 40 years ago to one of low aspiration now. I am not going to at I know the answer to that, but someone needs to work it out and find a way to change attitudes again.
Golly, Mike Cernovich had over 29k watching his last Periscope for Trump activists.
Given these are without any warning and streams of consciousness - I'm stunned. I know people are pissed off - but he's jumped from 2k a time to 29k. The whole election isn't about Donald vs Hillary anymore. It's about People vs Establishment/Media.
Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
I have to wonder how you can tell that. Do you mean they speak with foreign accents and have foreign names on their badges?
They have little flags on their chests to show their country of origin.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
I wonder if a UK employee wore a union flag badge, they would be branded as racist
The flags are there to show what languages they speak. Given that it is prerequisite at Pret to speak English, why would they need to wear a Union Flag badge?
Do the flags represent country of origin or languages spoken? Because those are not the same thing.
Probably languages spoken. But I reckon the chances of the pretty Italian speaking girl being English are minimal.
Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
I have to wonder how you can tell that. Do you mean they speak with foreign accents and have foreign names on their badges?
They have little flags on their chests to show their country of origin.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
I wonder if a UK employee wore a union flag badge, they would be branded as racist
The flags are there to show what languages they speak. Given that it is prerequisite at Pret to speak English, why would they need to wear a Union Flag badge?
How about preferring to be served by someone with a British accent?
Seriously why? What the hell difference does it make what accent they have as long as they speak coherent English.
Maybe we should have them wear flags to show when they come from Newcastle or Glasgow as I am far more likely to have problems understanding people from those cities than someone from Lithuania.
Some, yes, others said a certain level of cost would force them to say they made a mistske, but mr. Meeks for one has seriously suggested only leavers bear the costs of Brexit. Since plenty of people even in leave areas voted remain, that means we need to establish which way every single person in the country voted to decide their level of cost, not use administrative boundaries to punish. At least not on a flat scale, a close Brexit region punished less than a heavy brexitvregion.
No, obviously we're stuck with it, and obviously the people as a whole are going to pay any consequences.
I just find the political claptrap irritating. Even the most gullible Brexit believer must have an inkling of the irony involved, when the great new era of British Democracy is going to be inaugurated by using the royal prerogative to take the decision out of parliament's hands.
Parliament is not required to take an opinion. I have already instructed the Government how to act. Parliament is a legislative, not executive, body.
Given Sturgeon's speech yesterday, might an EU wanting a certain amount of vengeance on the UK offer Scotland a one-time-only offer that cannot be refused?
"Leave the UK and join us on these really advantageous terms."
I find it hard to think what those terms might be, but I can imagine it might prove tempting to some on both sides.
Yep - as many Leave voters have noted, there are some things that are more important than money.
So perhaps the costs of Brexit should actually be borne by those who place such a high value on Nigel Farage's and Boris Johnson's slogans? Any takers?
No - we've been through this. When you have a dissatisfied demos and an enriched metropolitan elite, there is only one group with something to lose. They (we) pay up - for the sake of all our people.
How very convenient for you that you believe that the thing you passionately want should be paid for by other people.
Grotesquely self-serving.
The same argument could be turned on Remainers. For instance, those in the City who want to be in the Single Market and have the financial passport and expect others to bear the costs i.e. free movement of doing so. It is not just leavers who are self-serving.
And the City and all those who benefit from its existence have not been very good at explaining to others why their interests should be more important than the interests of others in the country. Saying that they produce tax revenues is a part of this but is not sufficient. The City is not popular, is arrogant, has a woeful tin ear for how it comes across to those not within its orbit, resembles pre-1979 unions rather more than it might think and, like those unions, risks failing to adapt to a changing world.
This affects how they think (and trade) as well because they think Brexit is utterly insane and stupid, and can't help but get emotional about it. That's why Sterling is now undervalued.
My trader friend said all the talk in his bank yesterday was of Marmite and how it had led him to go from disliking Brexit to now f**king hating it, when anyone with a cool head and their wits about them would have realised it was a nonsense story.
Do traders ever touch something as humble as marmite?
When I worked at Goldman, toast with marmite was a favourite breakfast in the canteen!
To remind people of the consequences of bad trades and advice?
Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
I have to wonder how you can tell that. Do you mean they speak with foreign accents and have foreign names on their badges?
They have little flags on their chests to show their country of origin.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
I wonder if a UK employee wore a union flag badge, they would be branded as racist
The flags are there to show what languages they speak. Given that it is prerequisite at Pret to speak English, why would they need to wear a Union Flag badge?
Do the flags represent country of origin or languages spoken? Because those are not the same thing.
Probably languages spoken. But I reckon the chances of the pretty Italian speaking girl being English are minimal.
Because she's pretty?
English people can be fluent in multiple languages.
If Pret has a policy of hiring multilingual or bilingual servers then the odds of having any monolingual servers there are pretty slim.
What a relief it must be for the PB Brexitories to take a break from whining about Project Fear 2.0 and telling every man and his dog that it wasn't about the money, but sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom. That they've reverted to pushing Project Fear 1.1 and telling the poor, old bloke with the collie that for Scotland it's all about the economics and an Indy Scotland would be a worse basket case than Greece is proof of the old adage that a change is as good as a rest.
To be fair, there were several leavers on here who did push the sovereignty, democratic accountability, taking back control and freedom line before the referendum. And some, generally a subset of the above, who rubbished some of leave's financial claims.
That category of leaver seems to have increased substantially in number over the last few weeks, can't think why.
Well, yes. There is a certain amount of denial amongst leavers about certain aspects of Brexit. Again, to be fair, some say they think Brexit is worth it whatever the financial costs. I don't agree with that, but at least there's some consistency there.
However, there is also some denial amongst supporters of Scottish Independence, particularly towards the financials.
(dons flameproof coat)
There was also a lot of denial on the part of those wanting to Remain in the EU. As we have seen with some comments on here the last few days their image of the EU and its direction of travel was seriously at odds with reality.
Some, yes, others said a certain level of cost would force them to say they made a mistske, but mr. Meeks for one has seriously suggested only leavers bear the costs of Brexit. Since plenty of people even in leave areas voted remain, that means we need to establish which way every single person in the country voted to decide their level of cost, not use administrative boundaries to punish. At least not on a flat scale, a close Brexit region punished less than a heavy brexitvregion.
No, obviously we're stuck with it, and obviously the people as a whole are going to pay any consequences.
I just find the political claptrap irritating. Even the most gullible Brexit believer must have an inkling of the irony involved, when the great new era of British Democracy is going to be inaugurated by using the royal prerogative to take the decision out of parliament's hands.
Oh yeah I agree. Not proud. Just trying to say we need to look at the class issues here.
A culture of low aspiration meets a culture of middle class snobbery. The UK has always been terrible at customer service (though not as bad as the French?) and Pret has fixed that with ruthless process efficiency and importation of very pleasant Europeans.
To be fair Pret are also a different class of business when it comes to their position in the community. Simple ideas like giving all left over food at the end of the day to local homeless shelters - with the added benefit that you know your food is fresh that day as a result - do tend to set them apart.
But on the main point I would ask why it is that we have moved from a position of high aspiration 30 or 40 years ago to one of low aspiration now. I am not going to at I know the answer to that, but someone needs to work it out and find a way to change attitudes again.
Simples. De industrialisation. Good honest factory jobs replaced with service ones. Male WWC especially on the back foot.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
This is not a new problem. I live in the ward of Islington that adjoins the City. At the 2001 census, over 40% of households in the ward had no one in work.
But it is a problem that your pet EU project, because of free movement, is preventing us from solving...
There are lots of things we could have done that would ameliorated the problem even without Brexit. As my friend Kwasi Kwerteng has suggested, you could make all benefits contributory based: in other words, you need to have actually paid into the system to draw out. That would have almost completely stopped EU citizens coming here and claiming in-work benefits.
And, as Max has written about on here, we could and should have done a lot more with our education system. The utter fixation on grammar schools as the solution to all problems misses the fact that our education system utterly fails the bottom 50% of academic achievers. Germany and Switzerland have fabulous vocational education systems, which results in much, much high labour participation rates*.
* The fixation on unemployment numbers misses the massive hidden unemployment we have relative to other countries.
I agree entirely on vocational education. It is a scandal that we don't teach people the skills they need for life, but focus on academic subjects that only a small subset will ever benefit from. Selection is probably the easiest way to solve that - combined, of course, with actually opening technical colleges.
There was a really good slot on R4 last night about Apprenticeships. We should be doing a lot more of that too.
Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
I have to wonder how you can tell that. Do you mean they speak with foreign accents and have foreign names on their badges?
They have little flags on their chests to show their country of origin.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
I wonder if a UK employee wore a union flag badge, they would be branded as racist
The flags are there to show what languages they speak. Given that it is prerequisite at Pret to speak English, why would they need to wear a Union Flag badge?
Do the flags represent country of origin or languages spoken? Because those are not the same thing.
Probably languages spoken. But I reckon the chances of the pretty Italian speaking girl being English are minimal.
Because she's pretty?
English people can be fluent in multiple languages.
If Pret has a policy of hiring multilingual or bilingual servers then the odds of having any monolingual servers there are pretty slim.
I shall ask her at lunch
This is just for the purposes of research, understand.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
... when I was a teenager I would take any and all work I could get - stacking shelves, picking fruit, table service work - ... When I left uni in the mid 80s with a geology degree in the middle of a huge slump in work opportunities I spent two years working for Tarmac building roads and later as a shotfirer in the quarries. Basically we should be teaching our young that any job at all outside of porn and drug dealing is better than no job. It is the way generations were brought up in the past and something we need to return to.
I agree with all of that. I worked from 11 part time and holidays and it gave me a real appreciation of working life for most people.
Typical of this Forum - boasting about breaking the law
Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
I have to wonder how you can tell that. Do you mean they speak with foreign accents and have foreign names on their badges?
They have little flags on their chests to show their country of origin.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
I wonder if a UK employee wore a union flag badge, they would be branded as racist
The flags are there to show what languages they speak. Given that it is prerequisite at Pret to speak English, why would they need to wear a Union Flag badge?
How about preferring to be served by someone with a British accent?
Seriously why? What the hell difference does it make what accent they have as long as they speak coherent English.
Maybe we should have them wear flags to show when they come from Newcastle or Glasgow as I am far more likely to have problems understanding people from those cities than someone from Lithuania.
You're right I have recently been in Vilnius and had little problem being understood, occasionally had to attempt Russian but mostly even older people speak good English.
Yep - as many Leave voters have noted, there are some things that are more important than money.
So perhaps the costs of Brexit should actually be borne by those who place such a high value on Nigel Farage's and Boris Johnson's slogans? Any takers?
No - we've been through this. When you have a dissatisfied demos and an enriched metropolitan elite, there is only one group with something to lose. They (we) pay up - for the sake of all our people.
How very convenient for you that you believe that the thing you passionately want should be paid for by other people.
Grotesquely self-serving.
The same argument could be turned on Remainers. For instance, those in the City who want to be in the Single Market and have the financial passport and expect others to bear the costs i.e. free movement of doing so. It is not just leavers who are self-serving.
And the City and all those who benefit from its existence have not been very good at explaining to others why their interests should be more important than the interests of others in the country. Saying that they produce tax revenues is a part of this but is not sufficient. The City is not popular, is arrogant, has a woeful tin ear for how it comes across to those not within its orbit, resembles pre-1979 unions rather more than it might think and, like those unions, risks failing to adapt to a changing world.
This affects how they think (and trade) as well because they think Brexit is utterly insane and stupid, and can't help but get emotional about it. That's why Sterling is now undervalued.
My trader friend said all the talk in his bank yesterday was of Marmite and how it had led him to go from disliking Brexit to now f**king hating it, when anyone with a cool head and their wits about them would have realised it was a nonsense story.
Do traders ever touch something as humble as marmite?
When I worked at Goldman, toast with marmite was a favourite breakfast in the canteen!
To remind people of the consequences of bad trades and advice?
I think it just went very well with extremely strong coffee. This was about 5:50am.
Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
I have to wonder how you can tell that. Do you mean they speak with foreign accents and have foreign names on their badges?
They have little flags on their chests to show their country of origin.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
I wonder if a UK employee wore a union flag badge, they would be branded as racist
The flags are there to show what languages they speak. Given that it is prerequisite at Pret to speak English, why would they need to wear a Union Flag badge?
Do the flags represent country of origin or languages spoken? Because those are not the same thing.
Probably languages spoken. But I reckon the chances of the pretty Italian speaking girl being English are minimal.
Because she's pretty?
English people can be fluent in multiple languages.
If Pret has a policy of hiring multilingual or bilingual servers then the odds of having any monolingual servers there are pretty slim.
They don't as far as I know. But typically, store managers hire compatriots. So you get a whole branch of Poles, or Brazilians or whatever.
Yep - as many Leave voters have noted, there are some things that are more important than money.
So perhaps the costs of Brexit should actually be borne by those who place such a high value on Nigel Farage's and Boris Johnson's slogans? Any takers?
No - we've been through this. When you have a dissatisfied demos and an enriched metropolitan elite, there is only one group with something to lose. They (we) pay up - for the sake of all our people.
How very convenient for you that you believe that the thing you passionately want should be paid for by other people.
Grotesquely self-serving.
The same argument could be turned on Remainers. For instance, those in the City who want to be in the Single Market and have the financial passport and expect others to bear the costs i.e. free movement of doing so. It is not just leavers who are self-serving.
And the City and all those who benefit from its existence have not been very good at explaining to others why their interests should be more important than the interests of others in the country. Saying that they produce tax revenues is a part of this but is not sufficient. The City is not popular, is arrogant, has a woeful tin ear for how it comes across to those not within its orbit, resembles pre-1979 unions rather more than it might think and, like those unions, risks failing to adapt to a changing world.
This affects how they think (and trade) as well because they think Brexit is utterly insane and stupid, and can't help but get emotional about it. That's why Sterling is now undervalued.
My trader friend said all the talk in his bank yesterday was of Marmite and how it had led him to go from disliking Brexit to now f**king hating it, when anyone with a cool head and their wits about them would have realised it was a nonsense story.
Do traders ever touch something as humble as marmite?
When I worked at Goldman, toast with marmite was a favourite breakfast in the canteen!
To remind people of the consequences of bad trades and advice?
I think it just went very well with extremely strong coffee. This was about 5:50am.
Marmite is a food of the gods, as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't be without it, no matter what the time of day.
Golly, Cernovich has 140m Twitter views a month. I'm amazed he hasn't been banned yet. They shadow banned Scott Adams last week until they were shamed out of it.
Given Sturgeon's speech yesterday, might an EU wanting a certain amount of vengeance on the UK offer Scotland a one-time-only offer that cannot be refused?
"Leave the UK and join us on these really advantageous terms."
I find it hard to think what those terms might be, but I can imagine it might prove tempting to some on both sides.
I think Spain might take a dim view of promoting secession.....
Golly, Cernovich has 140m Twitter views a month. I'm amazed he hasn't been banned yet. They shadow banned Scott Adams last week until they were shamed out of it.
Given Sturgeon's speech yesterday, might an EU wanting a certain amount of vengeance on the UK offer Scotland a one-time-only offer that cannot be refused?
"Leave the UK and join us on these really advantageous terms."
I find it hard to think what those terms might be, but I can imagine it might prove tempting to some on both sides.
It is an interesting "what if" to speculate on the future if indyScot stays in the EU and rUK goes for hard Brexit? It is hard to see such an arrangement being the final settlement, since it would set up a whole range of pressures that eventually would change things again.
P.s. OT anyone any idea why my iPad has suddenly stopped jumping up to the top of the thread and the comment box when I click "quote". Suddenly I am having to scroll up myself, which is irritating.
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
... when I was a teenager I would take any and all work I could get - stacking shelves, picking fruit, table service work - ... When I left uni in the mid 80s with a geology degree in the middle of a huge slump in work opportunities I spent two years working for Tarmac building roads and later as a shotfirer in the quarries. Basically we should be teaching our young that any job at all outside of porn and drug dealing is better than no job. It is the way generations were brought up in the past and something we need to return to.
I agree with all of that. I worked from 11 part time and holidays and it gave me a real appreciation of working life for most people.
Typical of this Forum - boasting about breaking the law
Paper rounds were legal in 1970 as was paid singing in the choir.
Given Sturgeon's speech yesterday, might an EU wanting a certain amount of vengeance on the UK offer Scotland a one-time-only offer that cannot be refused?
"Leave the UK and join us on these really advantageous terms."
I find it hard to think what those terms might be, but I can imagine it might prove tempting to some on both sides.
It is an interesting "what if" to speculate on the future if indyScot stays in the EU and rUK goes for hard Brexit?
According to Tusk the options are; 'Hard Brexit' or 'No Brexit'.......
You definitely have something there Robert - but don't you think the symptom, through breaking the link between the education of natives and economic growth, also perpetuates the situation? The symptom becomes another cause, and a far more obvious one.
Pret a Manger on Picadilly, a hundred yards from where I work, has a constant sign in the window asking for new staff. They offer £11.50/hour, and extra bonuses. There's not one member of that staff that's not European. You can, as a 23 year old in London, whether living with your parents on not, live a perfectly reasonable life on £11.50/hour. Yet there are no Brits, literally none, in that shop.
Less than 20 minutes walk away, there is social housing with high levels of unemployment.
Are Brits much less employable? Or does our tax & benefits system discourage working?
Or is it a bit of both?
Because I simply don't buy the "Pret is prejudiced against British nationals" bullshit.
That is terrible. Why doesn't the dole office arrange interviews for eligible candidates and insist on a genuine trial of employment
I live up the road from Meeks (Emily T is my MP). I am sitting in my local Pret right now. All the staff bar one are foreign.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
I think it's a London thing. When I went to a friend's wedding near Manchester in the summer, every service person bar one was a white native local. The one exception, an Uber driver, was a native local of south Asian heritage.
Comments
But there's another problem. For a British person claiming housing benefit, the marginal tax rate on working at Pret is probably close to 80%.
Leaving the EU was OK, it will be the breakup of the UK that will make it bitter.
It's all very well saying you didn't vote for X so why should you pay for it, but what people are suggesting therefore is we all need to get a checklist of things we want to pay for and only pay those. What's that, a new childrens centre building programme? Well, it may well be of more obvious worthgsn many things voted on, but I dont have kids, I'm not paying for it. Motorway construction? I work 10 minutes from my house, have no car and travel by train, I'm not paying for it. A cure cancer programme? Well. It is a good idea, but I voted for a party which didn't have it in its manifesto and in any case lost, so I'm not paying for it.
Ridiculous, isn't it? And those suggesting such things know it. That they feel Brexit was obviously going to be a disaster, and time could prove them right though let's hope not, doesn't make it less ridiculous.
I guess it is possible that they all have secret British passports, but I consider it unlikely.
Would you like me to snap a picture at lunch today?
https://www.ft.com/content/82631c70-9164-11e6-a72e-b428cb934b78
too many of the finance dependent community have forgotten they are attached to the rest of the country and draw their living from it.
Fred Kyte be came a lawyer.
I think the problem is we Brits have a cultural aversion to "service" jobs. They are seen as demeaning.
I have to admit myself, I felt the same way as a teenager - ignored my parent's unsubtle suggestions to get a shelf stacking job, and waited until something a bit less déclassé turned up (market research in this case).
There is a parallel with students who (used to, certainly in my time) take low paid or even voluntary jobs abroad - fruit picking and the like - in order to finance a holiday or gap year; things we would never dream of considering as occupations in the U.K.
The idea of free movement was part of a grand scheme to create one country in Europe. A post-war and idealistic response to the traumas suffered. Despite all the pretence in 1975, that's always been the cunning plan.
Some people believe in this concept and I have no argument with this - they are welcome to their views. It happens to be unpopular so it is never directly spoken of. That is where the deceit causes friction.
In a nutshell, the establishment want A but it's unpopular so we'll package it up as a necessary requirement for B, which they want, and hope the voters will be persuaded to swallow both.
Sorry, Mr Meeks, it ain't working.
And, as Max has written about on here, we could and should have done a lot more with our education system. The utter fixation on grammar schools as the solution to all problems misses the fact that our education system utterly fails the bottom 50% of academic achievers. Germany and Switzerland have fabulous vocational education systems, which results in much, much high labour participation rates*.
* The fixation on unemployment numbers misses the massive hidden unemployment we have relative to other countries.
Basically we should be teaching our young that any job at all outside of porn and drug dealing is better than no job. It is the way generations were brought up in the past and something we need to return to.
https://www.ft.com/content/82631c70-9164-11e6-a72e-b428cb934b78
I agree entirely on vocational education. It is a scandal that we don't teach people the skills they need for life, but focus on academic subjects that only a small subset will ever benefit from. Selection is probably the easiest way to solve that - combined, of course, with actually opening technical colleges.
Household assets in the UK is property. Literally, just property. It makes us uniquely vulnerable to a housing slowdown. Imagine if - as happened in 1990 - real house prices fell 40%. We currently owe a lot more than we did then, and a drop of that magnitude would (a) send household savings rates soaring, (b) crucify domestic demand, and (c) screw the UK banking sector again, and (d) destroy labour market mobility.
This made me a bit angry because at the time my sister was having trouble conceiving and I had to bite my lip to suggest some people want to have kids simply for the joy they bring to their lives and that it's natural that normal* people would want to have kids.
For what it's worth I certainly don't have a problem with my tax going towards schools, for example. But as you've pointed out, there is a lot of grey between Mr Meeks wanting an Aston Martin and state funded education.
*I.e. not geeks at the LSE.
A culture of low aspiration meets a culture of middle class snobbery. The UK has always been terrible at customer service (though not as bad as the French?) and Pret has fixed that with ruthless process efficiency and importation of very pleasant Europeans.
If you cannot even staff shops that are supposed to show the 'best' of your country with natives ...
On an unrelated but important note, I am still enjoying Tomb Raider.
My trader friend said all the talk in his bank yesterday was of Marmite and how it had led him to go from disliking Brexit to now f**king hating it, when anyone with a cool head and their wits about them would have realised it was a nonsense story.
My understanding was the learned Judges took a relatively sceptical view of the case. But, as always, Jack of Kent is your friend.
It's almost as if it suits one class of people to ignore this inconvenient information.
Its political - and supposed to be a benefit of being in the EU.
Why anyone would want to punish us for giving up on a benefit I don't know....
That worked so well last time.....
However, there is also some denial amongst supporters of Scottish Independence, particularly towards the financials.
(dons flameproof coat)
I still don't understand why there was not a one paragraph "Article 50 Enabling Bill" put through parliament, given it would force people to nail their colours to the mast, and would pass 550-to-100.
Following Hollande's remarks last week, the French are now literally trolling our currency. The shame of it!
But on the main point I would ask why it is that we have moved from a position of high aspiration 30 or 40 years ago to one of low aspiration now. I am not going to at I know the answer to that, but someone needs to work it out and find a way to change attitudes again.
Given these are without any warning and streams of consciousness - I'm stunned. I know people are pissed off - but he's jumped from 2k a time to 29k. The whole election isn't about Donald vs Hillary anymore. It's about People vs Establishment/Media.
Maybe we should have them wear flags to show when they come from Newcastle or Glasgow as I am far more likely to have problems understanding people from those cities than someone from Lithuania.
"Leave the UK and join us on these really advantageous terms."
I find it hard to think what those terms might be, but I can imagine it might prove tempting to some on both sides.
https://twitter.com/LadPolitics/status/786847446169157632
https://twitter.com/LadPolitics/status/786850354151522304
English people can be fluent in multiple languages.
If Pret has a policy of hiring multilingual or bilingual servers then the odds of having any monolingual servers there are pretty slim.
This is just for the purposes of research, understand.
Mr. Eagles, interesting comparison, but I still think Clinton will win by a good margin.
P.s. OT anyone any idea why my iPad has suddenly stopped jumping up to the top of the thread and the comment box when I click "quote". Suddenly I am having to scroll up myself, which is irritating.
https://twitter.com/NCPoliticsUK/status/786585021683412996