Mr. Sandpit, agree with that. Bigger businesses can jump through bureaucratic hoops more easily than SMEs (as we saw with the VAT nonsense from the EU which was meant to gouge tax from Amazon and instead ended up harming micro-businesses and driving them onto marketplace websites. Like Amazon).
Like JohnO I really do worry about the long term health of our party.
Seems like a sick joke when I was told before the referendum that only a Leave victory would unite the Tory party on Europe.
Both parties face some existential choices. There is nascent third party out there somewhere.
People in this country are as much wedded to Labour / Tory as they are to the NHS. I’ve learnt over the years not to bother mentioning that most of Europe has a better performing health system which is not public sector.
Which they spend more money on.
Happy to try one of these health systems if you are happy to pay the more money that is required.
I’d happily move to the German model and pay for it. I lived there when I was a student, and saw nothing but good from it. I’d happily to the French model - we’ve had to use it with my youngest whilst on holiday and it was excellent. It always gets me that here people repeatedly say that the NHS is free. It’s not free we all pay for it.
But when people they want to switch to system X they leave out that system X costs more money overall than the NHS.
It kind of begs the question what would the NHS be like if it was given as much money as system X?
I am no expert but I seem to recall that we have funded as generously and we were still worse. There is an inherent weakness into having a ‘free’ service - insatiable demand.
It was obvious that PB would have at least one expert in the economics of soft fruit production, aware of every nuance of profit margins and cost base.
If only the actual growers of fruit listened to them...
Mrs May would like to appoint Dominic Raab Brexit Secretary.
However David Davis is urging him to resign.
Raab was Chief of Staff to Davis, so was/is close to him.
He was also Chief of Staff to Dominic Grieve who succeeded DD of the SS.
He was in very relaxed mood on Friday evening despite (or perhaps because of) my hectoring him on the vexations of repeated traveller incursions in Hersham and in the Borough. Priorities, priorities....
I'm actually broadly in favour of the deal, I just don't see how Brussels can accept it.
Me too, but as you say Brussels will likely not agree to it, and as they can see the government is still split they will feel they can get many more concessions.
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the month-long heatwave has pushed some farms to the brink of disaster with most of the picking season still to come. Fruit farmers have been warning for the past few years that the declining number of foreign workers coming to Scotland each summer was leading to a crisis.
Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the month-long heatwave has pushed some farms to the brink of disaster with most of the picking season still to come. Fruit farmers have been warning for the past few years that the declining number of foreign workers coming to Scotland each summer was leading to a crisis.
Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
Considering that we are both at full employment and no regulations have changed left this seems like basic supply and demand. Is Meg Marshall paying her pickers more than minimum wage? If not maybe she needs to pay more to attract workers.
The fact the article indicates this has been happening for years again indicates that low wages aren't sufficient to attract 250 people. Funny that.
Doesn’t look like it - £7.83/hour - minus £4.50 per day if you stay in the free accommodation (caravans without electricity):
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the month-long heatwave has pushed some farms to the brink of disaster with most of the picking season still to come. Fruit farmers have been warning for the past few years that the declining number of foreign workers coming to Scotland each summer was leading to a crisis.
Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
It's not really a question of that, as most pickers are on piece rates and there simply aren't the UK workers prepared and/or trained to work hard/quickly enough. Today's Times has quite an illuminating article on this.
Of course that could change over time, but it's likely quite a few growers would go out of business in the meantime.
Would Raab or anyone else want this non-job? It's not Brexit Secretary so much as minister for eating biscuits and trying to find out what Olly Robbins has agreed with Brussels since the last meeting. This is Lawson and Sir Alan Walters territory.
If she supplies supermarkets sometimes that is not so easy given the effective monopsony situation.
No idea if that applies in this instance.
This double whammy has forced Ms Marshall to leave fruit to rot on the bushes, just six weeks into the season. She told The Times she was not the only farmer suffering. “Some people are close to breaking point,” she said. “You put your heart and soul into it and we are getting kicked in the teeth anyway by what we get from the supermarket.” According to the farmers, the price of soft fruit has barely gone up in a decade because retailers are reluctant to break through the £2-per-punnet barrier.
I really don't get the position of the hard Leavers over the Chqeuers deal. I am very sympathetic with their argument that the spirit of the referendum needs to be respected as well as the letter. But this deal does that nearly everywhere, and even where it doesn't, it largely does.
There's a bunch of things hard Leavers care about:
- Controlling immigration - done - Ending huge payments to the EU mainly spent on farm subsidies - done - End of ECJ jurisdiction - done - Protecting the City from capricious regulation - done - Ability to sign our own trade deals - done 90%
The trade deals is the only bit in real debate here. We have absolute rights to negotiate access to the other side's markets. The main disagreement is that other countries might not want to sign trade deals because the UK can't negotiate on some things. But this clearly won't be the case in practice. Of potential trade deals, there is the USA, India, China, smaller rich countries and smaller poor countries.
Brexiteers need to not follow Davis and hold their fire in case something important is actually in danger.
I think they suspect that May and her Sir Humphrey will give everything away.
Its possible that this might give May an excuse that she can't make any more concessions.
Or possibly not.
It's quite simple I think. They're extremists who view this as their one big chance - the moment they've captured the Conservative Party and the country in a position where their politics have a chance of being implemented as the only option on the table - and so aren't going to waste that chance on a compromise. Many regard 'no deal'not as a potential catastrophe - it's still cataclysmic - but will force the country to embrace their vision.
It's similar with the Corbynistas - you'd have thought Jezza's cheerleaders would be being conciliatory to moderate members and voters, as it would maximise their chances of winning an election and end austerity. It doesn't cost them much to give up the whacky hard left stuff. But they don't - because again, compromising would ruin their one big chance for revolution.
It was obvious that PB would have at least one expert in the economics of soft fruit production, aware of every nuance of profit margins and cost base.
If only the actual growers of fruit listened to them...
It's hard to see how a business can continue if the terms and conditions of employment are unattractive even to people from the poorer parts of Eastern Europe
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the month-long heatwave has pushed some farms to the brink of disaster with most of the picking season still to come. Fruit farmers have been warning for the past few years that the declining number of foreign workers coming to Scotland each summer was leading to a crisis.
Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
If she supplies supermarkets sometimes that is not so easy given the effective monopsony situation.
No idea if that applies in this instance.
Time to find new buyers or renegotiate with existing buyers as well then? If you have product that is rapidly becoming unsellable then it's time to make a change. Employment is definitely one of the most elastic markets, the higher the wages, the more demand for jobs.
Tbh, my sympathy for rich landowning farmers who want to hire people for the minimum wage and have the government subsidise both their land and cheap labour is fairly thin on the ground.
Like JohnO I really do worry about the long term health of our party.
Seems like a sick joke when I was told before the referendum that only a Leave victory would unite the Tory party on Europe.
The Tories have fought like ferrets in a sack as long as I can remember. Logically, they ought to have split long ago, but our electoral system keeps them together (Labour, too, of course).
The Tories' Euro fault-line has lasted for30 years (although from the 1960s the party has always had a fairly strong anti faction), since the mid 1980s when Mrs T started to up the ante.
The Tories are the party of fuck business today. It's over.
It is Leave voting provincial Middle England that wins the Tories elections, not big business
The fuck-business party is not a natural bedfellow for the pro-business party. Old Toryism vs. old Liberalism. It's Corn Laws 2.0.
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the month-long heatwave has pushed some farms to the brink of disaster with most of the picking season still to come. Fruit farmers have been warning for the past few years that the declining number of foreign workers coming to Scotland each summer was leading to a crisis.
Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
Considering that we are both at full employment and no regulations have changed left this seems like basic supply and demand. Is Meg Marshall paying her pickers more than minimum wage? If not maybe she needs to pay more to attract workers.
The fact the article indicates this has been happening for years again indicates that low wages aren't sufficient to attract 250 people. Funny that.
Its amazing that full employment is considered a bad thing!
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the month-long heatwave has pushed some farms to the brink of disaster with most of the picking season still to come. Fruit farmers have been warning for the past few years that the declining number of foreign workers coming to Scotland each summer was leading to a crisis.
Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
If she supplies supermarkets sometimes that is not so easy given the effective monopsony situation.
No idea if that applies in this instance.
Considering how much supermarket soft fruit ends up with yellow stickers on it I can't imagine who would be buying this extra produce which supposedly would be available.
It's not just Davis though, a whole succession of MPs were explaining what the deal really meant over the weekend, and it was blindingly obvious that they were making explicitly contradictory claims.
May's "agreement" is every bit as worthless as Cameron's "renegotiation".
I'd say even more so, given that the EU had agreed to whatever limited changes Dave's dodgy deal had in it. The EU haven't agreed to May's deal, and given that they have never compromised on free movement by even 1%, I don't see that it would.
I'm actually broadly in favour of the deal, I just don't see how Brussels can accept it.
Bernard Jenkins said in his interview that one of the things he didn't like was that May took on the negotiations and discussions and in particular had been "going to the EU" for pre-agreement, etc.
Like JohnO I really do worry about the long term health of our party.
Seems like a sick joke when I was told before the referendum that only a Leave victory would unite the Tory party on Europe.
Both parties face some existential choices. There is nascent third party out there somewhere.
People in this country are as much wedded to Labour / Tory as they are to the NHS. I’ve learnt over the years not to bother mentioning that most of Europe has a better performing health system which is not public sector.
Which they spend more money on.
Happy to try one of these health systems if you are happy to pay the more money that is required.
I’d happily move to the German model and pay for it. I lived there when I was a student, and saw nothing but good from it. I’d happily to the French model - we’ve had to use it with my youngest whilst on holiday and it was excellent. It always gets me that here people repeatedly say that the NHS is free. It’s not free we all pay for it.
But when people they want to switch to system X they leave out that system X costs more money overall than the NHS.
It kind of begs the question what would the NHS be like if it was given as much money as system X?
I am no expert but I seem to recall that we have funded as generously and we were still worse. There is an inherent weakness into having a ‘free’ service - insatiable demand.
I never get this insatiable demand argument. Other than the worried well bothering their GPs with a bit of a cold, people are not going to be making up illnesses and spending time in hospitals. GPs are the gatekeepers anyway, so to take up a consultant's time, your GP has at least to have decided on balance there is something that needs further investigation.
The increasing demand it seems to me comes from an ageing population, rather than it is free.
Like JohnO I really do worry about the long term health of our party.
Seems like a sick joke when I was told before the referendum that only a Leave victory would unite the Tory party on Europe.
Both parties face some existential choices. There is nascent third party out there somewhere.
People in this country are as much wedded to Labour / Tory as they are to the NHS. I’ve learnt over the years not to bother mentioning that most of Europe has a better performing health system which is not public sector.
Which they spend more money on.
Happy to try one of these health systems if you are happy to pay the more money that is required.
I’d happily move to the German model and pay for it. I lived there when I was a student, and saw nothing but good from it. I’d happily to the French model - we’ve had to use it with my youngest whilst on holiday and it was excellent. It always gets me that here people repeatedly say that the NHS is free. It’s not free we all pay for it.
But when people they want to switch to system X they leave out that system X costs more money overall than the NHS.
It kind of begs the question what would the NHS be like if it was given as much money as system X?
I am no expert but I seem to recall that we have funded as generously and we were still worse. There is an inherent weakness into having a ‘free’ service - insatiable demand.
We haven't provided the necessary increase of ~4% per year for almost a decade. Before that there was a panicked attempt to catch up with other EU countries and money was thrown around, i.e. wasted. Money is also wasted on an internal market which costs ~£3-4 bn per year. Stupid 'competition' investigations can now stop the NHS closing one of two acute hospitals that are only 10 km apart; if the NHS was integrated it would still like to merge such sites into one to reduce costs and improve outcomes.
Canada has a 'free' system, spends several percentage points more and gets more. It even has an IT system that works. Start from there, not a struggling UK system.
It's not just Davis though, a whole succession of MPs were explaining what the deal really meant over the weekend, and it was blindingly obvious that they were making explicitly contradictory claims.
May's "agreement" is every bit as worthless as Cameron's "renegotiation".
I'd say even more so, given that the EU had agreed to whatever limited changes Dave's dodgy deal had in it. The EU haven't agreed to May's deal, and given that they have never compromised on free movement by even 1%, I don't see that it would.
I'm actually broadly in favour of the deal, I just don't see how Brussels can accept it.
Bernard Jenkins said in his interview that one of the things he didn't like was that May took on the negotiations and discussions and in particular had been "going to the EU" for pre-agreement, etc.
Sure, and when they say that whatever wording we come up with on immigration needs to be replaced with "EU citizens must be treated equally to UK citizens" because free movement has never been negotiable that will amount to a rejection.
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the month-long heatwave has pushed some farms to the brink of disaster with most of the picking season still to come. Fruit farmers have been warning for the past few years that the declining number of foreign workers coming to Scotland each summer was leading to a crisis.
Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
If she supplies supermarkets sometimes that is not so easy given the effective monopsony situation.
No idea if that applies in this instance.
Time to find new buyers or renegotiate with existing buyers as well then? If you have product that is rapidly becoming unsellable then it's time to make a change. Employment is definitely one of the most elastic markets, the higher the wages, the more demand for jobs.
Tbh, my sympathy for rich landowning farmers who want to hire people for the minimum wage and have the government subsidise both their land and cheap labour is fairly thin on the ground.
You can't find new buyers if it is to replace the supermarkets. There simply isn't the scale buying available by your local village shop or pick your own.
There is plenty of literature about buyer power. Start here for an interesting introduction.
Mr. G, Boris does have a knack for strategic errors, playing games with serious political issues (most notably with his EU positioning), winning when he means to lose and vice versa.
It's not just Davis though, a whole succession of MPs were explaining what the deal really meant over the weekend, and it was blindingly obvious that they were making explicitly contradictory claims.
May's "agreement" is every bit as worthless as Cameron's "renegotiation".
I'd say even more so, given that the EU had agreed to whatever limited changes Dave's dodgy deal had in it. The EU haven't agreed to May's deal, and given that they have never compromised on free movement by even 1%, I don't see that it would.
I'm actually broadly in favour of the deal, I just don't see how Brussels can accept it.
Bernard Jenkins said in his interview that one of the things he didn't like was that May took on the negotiations and discussions and in particular had been "going to the EU" for pre-agreement, etc.
Sure, and when they say that whatever wording we come up with on immigration needs to be replaced with "EU citizens must be treated equally to UK citizens" because free movement has never been negotiable that will amount to a rejection.
We shall see but the Brex-o-loons seem to be whining on the one hand that the EU will reject the proposal out of hand and on the other moaning that May was in cahoots with the EU all the while before she produced the paper.
Mr. Topping, I wonder if a co-operative sales outlet collectively founded by fruit farmers could work. Must admit, I'm not au fait with business, so maybe it wouldn't, but just a thought.
It's not just Davis though, a whole succession of MPs were explaining what the deal really meant over the weekend, and it was blindingly obvious that they were making explicitly contradictory claims.
May's "agreement" is every bit as worthless as Cameron's "renegotiation".
I'd say even more so, given that the EU had agreed to whatever limited changes Dave's dodgy deal had in it. The EU haven't agreed to May's deal, and given that they have never compromised on free movement by even 1%, I don't see that it would.
I'm actually broadly in favour of the deal, I just don't see how Brussels can accept it.
Bernard Jenkins said in his interview that one of the things he didn't like was that May took on the negotiations and discussions and in particular had been "going to the EU" for pre-agreement, etc.
I think he seriously believes it's the equivalent of going to discuss Operation Battleaxe with Mr Hitler.
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the month-long heatwave has pushed some farms to the brink of disaster with most of the picking season still to come. Fruit farmers have been warning for the past few years that the declining number of foreign workers coming to Scotland each summer was leading to a crisis.
Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
If she supplies supermarkets sometimes that is not so easy given the effective monopsony situation.
No idea if that applies in this instance.
Time to find new buyers or renegotiate with existing buyers as well then? If you have product that is rapidly becoming unsellable then it's time to make a change. Employment is definitely one of the most elastic markets, the higher the wages, the more demand for jobs.
Tbh, my sympathy for rich landowning farmers who want to hire people for the minimum wage and have the government subsidise both their land and cheap labour is fairly thin on the ground.
You can't find new buyers if it is to replace the supermarkets. There simply isn't the scale buying available by your local village shop or pick your own.
There is plenty of literature about buyer power. Start here for an interesting introduction.
I know the scale of supermarket purchasing power, however, the fact remains, she's not paying a high enough wage to attract the necessary workers. Unfortunately British agribusiness has criminally underinvested in plant and machinery because it has had access to an unlimited pool of cheap labour for so long. I suspect that is part of the problem for this lady also.
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the month-long heatwave has pushed some farms to the brink of disaster with most of the picking season still to come. Fruit farmers have been warning for the past few years that the declining number of foreign workers coming to Scotland each summer was leading to a crisis.
Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
It's not really a question of that, as most pickers are on piece rates and there simply aren't the UK workers prepared and/or trained to work hard/quickly enough. Today's Times has quite an illuminating article on this.
Of course that could change over time, but it's likely quite a few growers would go out of business in the meantime.
What are all the students doing now that classes have finished?
Are they now too entitled to take crappy minimum wage jobs over the summer in order to finance their beer habit, like us oldies did a couple of decades ago?
Mr. Topping, I wonder if a co-operative sales outlet collectively founded by fruit farmers could work. Must admit, I'm not au fait with business, so maybe it wouldn't, but just a thought.
Of course all kinds of models can work, Morris. But for many products (most notably milk, where on account of public pressure, the supermarkets have shifted their stance somewhat), the challenge is that the supermarkets have such large buying power and buy in such quantities that often they are the only meaningful game in town.
It needs to be said that all this has unambiguously benefited consumers over the past few years and the debate between supermarkets, supplier, and consumer is by no means straightforward.
Boris has to resign. He's allowed DD to thoroughly upstage him. If he remains in the Cabinet as one of Theresa's vassals no one will ever take him seriously again!
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the month-long heatwave has pushed some farms to the brink of disaster with most of the picking season still to come. Fruit farmers have been warning for the past few years that the declining number of foreign workers coming to Scotland each summer was leading to a crisis.
Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
It's not really a question of that, as most pickers are on piece rates and there simply aren't the UK workers prepared and/or trained to work hard/quickly enough. Today's Times has quite an illuminating article on this.
Of course that could change over time, but it's likely quite a few growers would go out of business in the meantime.
What are all the students doing now that classes have finished?
Are they now too entitled to take crappy minimum wage jobs over the summer in order to finance their beer habit, like us oldies did a couple of decades ago?
Couple of weeks ago I had a knock at the door, and I was confronted by a couple of students trying to flog me “hello fresh” meal box scheme.
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
If she supplies supermarkets sometimes that is not so easy given the effective monopsony situation.
No idea if that applies in this instance.
Time to find new buyers or renegotiate with existing buyers as well then? If you have product that is rapidly becoming unsellable then it's time to make a change. Employment is definitely one of the most elastic markets, the higher the wages, the more demand for jobs.
Tbh, my sympathy for rich landowning farmers who want to hire people for the minimum wage and have the government subsidise both their land and cheap labour is fairly thin on the ground.
You can't find new buyers if it is to replace the supermarkets. There simply isn't the scale buying available by your local village shop or pick your own.
There is plenty of literature about buyer power. Start here for an interesting introduction.
I know the scale of supermarket purchasing power, however, the fact remains, she's not paying a high enough wage to attract the necessary workers. Unfortunately British agribusiness has criminally underinvested in plant and machinery because it has had access to an unlimited pool of cheap labour for so long. I suspect that is part of the problem for this lady also.
I had no doubt you'd be aware of it. I have no idea whether strawbs picking is one that would benefit from automation (perhaps our resident expert, @another_richard can comment).
But that is not the issue. It wasn't our accession to the EU that lead us to this situation. There have been seasonal workers for long before FoM, etc.
Boris has to resign. He's allowed DD to thoroughly upstage him. If he remains in the Cabinet as one of Theresa's vassals no one will ever take him seriously again!
From wiki, wake up to 21st century Britain, old fruit:
Braverman was born to Christie and Uma Fernandes, who had emigrated to Britain in the 1940s from Kenya and Mauritius. Her mother was a nurse and a councillor in Brent and her Goan-origin father worked for a housing association. She was born in Harrow, London, and grew up in Wembley.
So Tories are now saying that anyone who gives support to the PM is "selling out"?
It looks as though this is terminal. If May cannot get a Brexit deal through her own cabinet what chance does she have with the wider Tory party and Parliament?
Fruit is being left to rot, unpicked on Scottish fruit farms only a few weeks into the season.
A combination of fewer foreign workers and the Meg Marshall, of Muirton Farm near Blairgowrie, said she was between 50 and 100 pickers short of the 250 she needed to harvest her crop of raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries. Like almost all fruit farms in Angus and Perthshire, Muirton relies on eastern European seasonal labour to get the crop from the fields to the market.
If she supplies supermarkets sometimes that is not so easy given the effective monopsony situation.
No idea if that applies in this instance.
Time to find new buyers or renegotiate with existing buyers as well then? If you have product that is rapidly becoming unsellable then it's time to make a change. Employment is definitely one of the most elastic markets, the higher the wages, the more demand for jobs.
Tbh, my sympathy for rich landowning farmers who want to hire people for the minimum wage and have the government subsidise both their land and cheap labour is fairly thin on the ground.
You can't find new buyers if it is to replace the supermarkets. There simply isn't the scale buying available by your local village shop or pick your own.
There is plenty of literature about buyer power. Start here for an interesting introduction.
I know the scale of supermarket purchasing power, however, the fact remains, she's not paying a high enough wage to attract the necessary workers. Unfortunately British agribusiness has criminally underinvested in plant and machinery because it has had access to an unlimited pool of cheap labour for so long. I suspect that is part of the problem for this lady also.
I had no doubt you'd be aware of it. I have no idea whether strawbs picking is one that would benefit from automation (perhaps our resident expert, @another_richard can comment).
But that is not the issue. It wasn't our accession to the EU that lead us to this situation. There have been seasonal workers for long before FoM, etc.
From wiki, wake up to 21st century Britain, old fruit:
Braverman was born to Christie and Uma Fernandes, who had emigrated to Britain in the 1940s from Kenya and Mauritius. Her mother was a nurse and a councillor in Brent and her Goan-origin father worked for a housing association. She was born in Harrow, London, and grew up in Wembley.
On days like this "Braverman does not resign" is almost funny. A bit like the decisive May.
I know the scale of supermarket purchasing power, however, the fact remains, she's not paying a high enough wage to attract the necessary workers. Unfortunately British agribusiness has criminally underinvested in plant and machinery because it has had access to an unlimited pool of cheap labour for so long. I suspect that is part of the problem for this lady also.
Unfortunately the very term agribusiness has been used as a term of scorn directed especially across the Atlantic where investments in plant and machinery have happened and its been dismissed as "factory farming". Ultimately there's no guarantee of an unlimited pool of cheap labour and nor should there be.
The economies of Eastern Europe are developing and more secure permanent jobs rather than part time picking jobs are also available so its entirely logical that part time picking jobs aren't as attractive as they used to be.
American farmers had to get over the abolition of slavery and that was a good thing. If our farmers have to get over importing cheap labour then that too will be a good thing.
People are worth more than a life of indentured servitude.
It was obvious that PB would have at least one expert in the economics of soft fruit production, aware of every nuance of profit margins and cost base.
If only the actual growers of fruit listened to them...
We asked questions. The answer is no she is trying to get people to travel across the world for minimum wage while offering a caravan without electricity that her workers will be charged to stay in. And wonders why that isn't attractive.
If people are going to travel to the UK, a nation with full employment, why should they do so for temporary minimum wage and not permanent minimum wage? Or permanent better than minimum wage? Or permanent better than minimum wage plus a home that has electricity?
Basic supply and demand says a temporary minimum wage job won't be that attractive when we have full employment.
The ERG'eres come across as utterly demented themselves. As someone who often votes Conservative, I am *really* angry about the way they're destroying this government, just as many of the same faces did in 1992-7.
Except instead of bringing in a cuddly centrist Blair, they're going to bring in a Corbynite government. I'm far from convinced that will be to their advantage ...
Sadly a multi-party stitch-up for BINO is going to quickly bring Nigel Farage and his ilk back with a vengeance. I was rather hoping we’d got rid of him.
Interesting. Buy-in from Gove and Raab - she's going to bring this off, by the looks of it.
But when the EU says "Non" - More concessions please. Then what?
One would hope that the proposal had been run by them first, through informal channels.
I think it's more aimed at MS, I think the Commission still needs to go on a journey. That being said, outside the President's office the Commission has com quite a way in the last year or so.
Interesting. Buy-in from Gove and Raab - she's going to bring this off, by the looks of it.
She is a very long way from getting out of the woods.
True, but TINA. Quite apart from anything else, even in the unlikely case that the ultras have the numbers amongst Conservative MPs, and sufficient support in the wider party, to dislodge her and install someone unsullied by reality in her place, they certainly don't have the numbers in parliament to get any further.
The ERG'eres come across as utterly demented themselves. As someone who often votes Conservative, I am *really* angry about the way they're destroying this government, just as many of the same faces did in 1992-7.
Except instead of bringing in a cuddly centrist Blair, they're going to bring in a Corbynite government. I'm far from convinced that will be to their advantage ...
I called them Brexit loons and was roundly condemned for doing so. But how else can they be described? Their fundamentalism is utterly destructive. What's more it's based on no understanding of any of the issues involved. Quite, quite extraordinary.
Sadly a multi-party stitch-up for BINO is going to quickly bring Nigel Farage and his ilk back with a vengeance. I was rather hoping we’d got rid of him.
A multi-party stitch-up for BINO would be the worst possible outcome. It would be the entire political class conspiring to stitch us up just to save face after screwing up over the referendum.
From wiki, wake up to 21st century Britain, old fruit:
Braverman was born to Christie and Uma Fernandes, who had emigrated to Britain in the 1940s from Kenya and Mauritius. Her mother was a nurse and a councillor in Brent and her Goan-origin father worked for a housing association. She was born in Harrow, London, and grew up in Wembley.
She read law at Cambridge. Are there any Cambridge-educated lawyers on pb who can comment?
Interesting. Buy-in from Gove and Raab - she's going to bring this off, by the looks of it.
But when the EU says "Non" - More concessions please. Then what?
One would hope that the proposal had been run by them first, through informal channels.
Given what is happening why wouldn't they demand more concessions? May is in no position to fight them.
If they demand more concessions it will end up with a no deal scenario. They will either agree to this or the UK will walk away. May cannot give any more concessions.
Comments
He was in very relaxed mood on Friday evening despite (or perhaps because of) my hectoring him on the vexations of repeated traveller incursions in Hersham and in the Borough. Priorities, priorities....
No idea if that applies in this instance.
http://www.petermarshallfarms.inforychle.cz/frequently.htm
http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2018/03/6565/4
Of course that could change over time, but it's likely quite a few growers would go out of business in the meantime.
It's similar with the Corbynistas - you'd have thought Jezza's cheerleaders would be being conciliatory to moderate members and voters, as it would maximise their chances of winning an election and end austerity. It doesn't cost them much to give up the whacky hard left stuff. But they don't - because again, compromising would ruin their one big chance for revolution.
Tbh, my sympathy for rich landowning farmers who want to hire people for the minimum wage and have the government subsidise both their land and cheap labour is fairly thin on the ground.
Maybe she is getting promoted. That would be a cunning move...
The increasing demand it seems to me comes from an ageing population, rather than it is free.
Canada has a 'free' system, spends several percentage points more and gets more. It even has an IT system that works. Start from there, not a struggling UK system.
There is plenty of literature about buyer power. Start here for an interesting introduction.
Are they now too entitled to take crappy minimum wage jobs over the summer in order to finance their beer habit, like us oldies did a couple of decades ago?
Why would she crave the forgiveness of Tory MPs? And which Tory MPs? Why would this not apply to anyone else?
More fundamentally, does considering the junior minister confirm my earlier post that this is a non-job while Olly Robbins gets on with it?
https://twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1004656199885836288
Hasn't survived and taken himself out, but apart from that..
It needs to be said that all this has unambiguously benefited consumers over the past few years and the debate between supermarkets, supplier, and consumer is by no means straightforward.
But that is not the issue. It wasn't our accession to the EU that lead us to this situation. There have been seasonal workers for long before FoM, etc.
Braverman was born to Christie and Uma Fernandes, who had emigrated to Britain in the 1940s from Kenya and Mauritius. Her mother was a nurse and a councillor in Brent and her Goan-origin father worked for a housing association. She was born in Harrow, London, and grew up in Wembley.
It looks as though this is terminal. If May cannot get a Brexit deal through her own cabinet what chance does she have with the wider Tory party and Parliament?
Beaten to the exit by Davis
Beaten to the loyalist vote by Govey
Beaten to the nutters vote by Mogg.
For a Tory without objectives ideals or principles the door marked EXIT must be looming pretty large.
Designed and developed by clever people in Cambridge.
#popcorn
The economies of Eastern Europe are developing and more secure permanent jobs rather than part time picking jobs are also available so its entirely logical that part time picking jobs aren't as attractive as they used to be.
American farmers had to get over the abolition of slavery and that was a good thing.
If our farmers have to get over importing cheap labour then that too will be a good thing.
People are worth more than a life of indentured servitude.
If people are going to travel to the UK, a nation with full employment, why should they do so for temporary minimum wage and not permanent minimum wage? Or permanent better than minimum wage? Or permanent better than minimum wage plus a home that has electricity?
Basic supply and demand says a temporary minimum wage job won't be that attractive when we have full employment.
The way things are going he might be PM by the end of the month?
Except instead of bringing in a cuddly centrist Blair, they're going to bring in a Corbynite government. I'm far from convinced that will be to their advantage ...
So if I can sum up the political events of the last few days:
TMay: Brexit means
BrexitBINOLeavers: Well screw that.
Hoorah.