What is this Government going to achieve, beyond leaving the EU, which was in January?
Highest death toll in Europe?
Worst economic response to Covid?
The UK had the worst economic response? I thought the various schemes were viewed quite highly.
The reason for the sharp GDP drop was that the U.K. furlough scheme was one of the most generous in the world. Means that the V-shaped recovery is much more likely in the U.K. than elsewhere where furlough has been replaced by redundancy.
Australia's scheme must have been generous to have pushed average household income up during the lockdown?
Is that a statistical effect of the low-paid being the most likely to lose their job?
1. Now talking about how the ports will operate. Government suggesting a smart system will allow them to prioritise certain types of short life produce. 2. Export to EU from UK. Companies will need an EU address on the actual products - an EU office would be needed for legal / consumer queries. 3. Logistics. The need to have every type of product on a vehicle inspected and paperwork issued will be a "challenge" when full vehicles in both directions essential for the industry. One item on one pallet could delay the whole load (and thus down the line delays) and the DRIVER not the company is responsible for the paperwork and gets fined if they drive their truck into Kent without the paperwork correct on their Kent Access Permit. KAP essentially creates another internal UK border for goods vehicles! 4. Admin - how will this work? The Goods Vehicle Movement Service which will control things like the KAP doesn't currently exist. Yet will be responsible for groceries movement from 1st January. 5. Consumer confidence - are consumers likely to become more concerned the closer we get to the deadline? Yes - metrics already sharply rising and the issues discussed here not yet well known.|
And thats it. Sounds like fun times ahead. Or not - experts are all wrong anyway according to spaff stains like IDS
That second one looks difficult for a UK small importer? I guess some type of 'lettbox' accommodation address services will spring up in the EU? Whether it'll be worth the extra cost and hassle for a small volume exporter is the question.
That second one needs an agent or at least an addresses forwarding service and a VOIP number that pretends to be in France or Germany.
On the car rental manager issue, I take the point, but what's the solution? 1. Raise manager pay? Seems to me that a more motivated manager retained for longer would have some additional value, but maybe I'm wrong. 2. Reduce minimum wage so agents get paid less, increasing the gap? Manager is still a shitty job at shitty pay. Unless the people who leave within 6 months are going back to being car agents/minimum wage elsewhere, they'll still leave. 3. Keep status quo? Maybe that works for the rental companies. If so, fine for them.
Presumably option 3 does work for the rental companies, or they'd pay managers better to keep them longer. So if you reduce minimum wage (option 2) what makes you think that rental manager pay would not also drop down to be the same amount above rental agent that it is now?
On the point about outsourcing social security obligations - why should governments subsidise businesses? Or, to put it another way, why should companies that pay more subsidise, through taxes, companies that pay less?
This is a valid point, but one we can turn around. Why should it be the responsibility of employers to ensure people have enough to live on, providing they pay the market rate for the job? That kind of social security is rightly the responsibility of governments. The fact is, governments will happily up minimum wage because they can sell it as the government delivering for the people, while not having to pay for any of it.
On car rental management, I think it's a mixture of (1) and (3) and mainly that managers' basic pay needs to be increased so that they are no longer dependent on bonus for upgrades that they don't directly control. The agent gets a smaller bonus, but what if they don't do the upsell? The manager still needs that agent to be at the counter.
I think the key question is why the market rate for semi-skilled labour in the UK is at or just above minimum wage? Why has there been stagnation in the wages of Western European workers over the last 20-30 years?
That is a question that cannot be answered.
The returns from neoliberal globalization, deregulation, offshoring of labour and tax avoidance concentrated increasingly in the hands of owners of capital and of professionals in tech/finance and supporting sectors?
Aren't you aware that the labour market is one where unlimited supply can't* reduce price?
*As in, it would be immoral to believe that it could.
What is this Government going to achieve, beyond leaving the EU, which was in January?
Highest death toll in Europe?
Worst economic response to Covid?
The UK had the worst economic response? I thought the various schemes were viewed quite highly.
The reason for the sharp GDP drop was that the U.K. furlough scheme was one of the most generous in the world. Means that the V-shaped recovery is much more likely in the U.K. than elsewhere where furlough has been replaced by redundancy.
Surely mass redundancies are just around the corner when furlough ends, how can this have a positive economic impact?
Why would they be? When most of the country is back working already?
There will be some redundancies for businesses that fail but they won't be mass on remotely the same scale as it would have been.
On the car rental manager issue, I take the point, but what's the solution? 1. Raise manager pay? Seems to me that a more motivated manager retained for longer would have some additional value, but maybe I'm wrong. 2. Reduce minimum wage so agents get paid less, increasing the gap? Manager is still a shitty job at shitty pay. Unless the people who leave within 6 months are going back to being car agents/minimum wage elsewhere, they'll still leave. 3. Keep status quo? Maybe that works for the rental companies. If so, fine for them.
Presumably option 3 does work for the rental companies, or they'd pay managers better to keep them longer. So if you reduce minimum wage (option 2) what makes you think that rental manager pay would not also drop down to be the same amount above rental agent that it is now?
On the point about outsourcing social security obligations - why should governments subsidise businesses? Or, to put it another way, why should companies that pay more subsidise, through taxes, companies that pay less?
This is a valid point, but one we can turn around. Why should it be the responsibility of employers to ensure people have enough to live on, providing they pay the market rate for the job? That kind of social security is rightly the responsibility of governments. The fact is, governments will happily up minimum wage because they can sell it as the government delivering for the people, while not having to pay for any of it.
On car rental management, I think it's a mixture of (1) and (3) and mainly that managers' basic pay needs to be increased so that they are no longer dependent on bonus for upgrades that they don't directly control. The agent gets a smaller bonus, but what if they don't do the upsell? The manager still needs that agent to be at the counter.
I think the key question is why the market rate for semi-skilled labour in the UK is at or just above minimum wage? Why has there been stagnation in the wages of Western European workers over the last 20-30 years?
That is a question that cannot be answered.
Piketty is having a crack at it.
No - the answer is BadThink. Therefore we have no answer.
It's not just immigration. There have been thousands of small blows to the prospects of lower and lower-middle class people over the last 50 years.
Offshoring, Declining union strength and participation, Declining light and heavy industry, Rise of the service sector gig economy, Technology based efficiencies removing lower management The globalisation of supply chains and lower white collar work, etc etc
Capital has been winning since the late 70's, and inequality indicators in the western world show it.
Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing. The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.
Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.
I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.
Back on topic ... when DavidL refers to Boris as never having "been one for detail or homework" he is really being kind in not simply describing him as being lazy. It is really not possible to be an effective Prime Minister without putting in the hard graft, even for exceptionally able ones such as Margaret Thatcher. I've even heard it said that Gordon Brown would spend at least two long half days every week preparing for PMQs and even then he often found it very difficult going. Boris gives the outward impression of simply polling up at noon on Wednesday, totally unprepared for what is to follow. He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
Grocery Industry Brexit Webinar update from the IGD Chief Economist: 1. Trade talks are not going well. 16th October's EU Council meeting is the absolute drop dead date for a deal, and our objectives remain mutually incompatible and neither is compromising enough to get a deal. 2. The economic shock will now happen regardless, obviously far worse with no deal. An asymmetrical impact will hit blue collar / manufacturing very hard 3. Government have a thing delightfully called BOM - Border Operating Model. A significant number of people through the supply chain will need to spend a lot of time managing the process. Cost in time plus cost of customs declarations, inspection costs etc etc 4. Three phases of BOM changes. Food groceries high risk items on a number of measures so impacted hard from day 1. 5. A lot of EU imported food comes on EU vehicles - will become very uncertain if economically viable for all of them. Currently mixed loads and backhaul - very difficult with new paperwork and checks 6. Vehicles and drivers will need a "Kent Access Permit" having uploaded everything via the app on the new Goods Vehicle Movement Service (which doesn't exist) - the driver, not the company, will be fined £000s for not having a Kent Access Permit or having the details wrong.
More will follow
The EU was created to get rid of absurdities like a "Kent Access Permit". We will see a rapid proliferation of stupid crap like this on both sides of the border. Thanks Brexit.
If Barnier wants to stop talking about fish before October, then there’s a chance of avoiding a lot of the paperwork.
We hold all the cards.
Just a shame the game is chess, eh?
It's uno
It's a shame the game is poker and our cards include a Magic the gathering card, Master Bun the Baker's son, the top trump that can't win any battle, a pokemon card and the 2 of diamonds from a different pack. (yes I have used that joke before).
In reality I think the EU and UK both know there is no chance of a deal and are positioning the blame....
I wonder how much political fallout there will be on Boris if there is No Deal. I'd always assumed he'd blame the EU entirely and a sufficient number of the public would go along with it, such is his cult-figure status among many. Now I'm not so sure. Boris's magic seems to have waned and there may be finally no where left to hide with No Deal, reflecting, as it would do, a raw and monumental failure of statecraft on his part.
Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing. The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.
Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.
I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.
Back on topic ... when DavidL refers to Boris as never having "been one for detail or homework" he is really being kind in not simply describing him as being lazy. It is really not possible to be an effective Prime Minister without putting in the hard graft, even for exceptionally able ones such as Margaret Thatcher. I've even heard it said that Gordon Brown would spend at least two long half days every week preparing for PMQs and even then he often found it very difficult going. Boris gives the outward impression of simply polling up at noon on Wednesday, totally unprepared for what is to follow. He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
Could it be possible that in his first days back after the holidays, during a pandemic, the PM isn't lazy but has more important things to be doing than spending all his time preparing for PMQs?
PMQs is important but prioritising preparing to be slick at PMQs over dealing with the pandemic would be rather selfish.
The Government needs to stick with Tony Abbott. He'll have overseen trade stuff during his time as Oz PM at any rate, and people who dislike him will probably never vote Tory anyway. Another U-turn would look beyond shambolic.
Could it be possible that in his first days back after the holidays, during a pandemic, the PM isn't lazy but has more important things to be doing than spending all his time preparing for PMQs?
PMQs is important but prioritising preparing to be slick at PMQs over dealing with the pandemic would be rather selfish.
Before he got sick, BoZo thought his divorce was more important than planning for the pandemic.
And he isn't dealing with the pandemic instead of preparing for PMQs
What is this Government going to achieve, beyond leaving the EU, which was in January?
Highest death toll in Europe?
Worst economic response to Covid?
The UK had the worst economic response? I thought the various schemes were viewed quite highly.
The reason for the sharp GDP drop was that the U.K. furlough scheme was one of the most generous in the world. Means that the V-shaped recovery is much more likely in the U.K. than elsewhere where furlough has been replaced by redundancy.
Australia's scheme must have been generous to have pushed average household income up during the lockdown?
I hear they are in an Australian style recession now though.
In the 1970s chicago school economists decided that ceo compensation should be stock based to "align them with the shareholders" .
CEOs enthusiastically took this up and now compensation between the top and the bottom of the company is dis-aligned.
And at the same time returns for shareholders got worse as well because the exec team play games with the company performance to juice their stock options not the betterment of the company as a whole.
My LinkedIn is going apeshit with new Amazon jobs.
Dozens and dozens of them.
Good news for Amazon, but probably a net loss of jobs in retail, with extensive losses in their physical competitors. Amazon is quick and cheap but almost feudal in its structure, with a lord, a few courtiers, and thousands of abused serfs.
On the car rental manager issue, I take the point, but what's the solution? 1. Raise manager pay? Seems to me that a more motivated manager retained for longer would have some additional value, but maybe I'm wrong. 2. Reduce minimum wage so agents get paid less, increasing the gap? Manager is still a shitty job at shitty pay. Unless the people who leave within 6 months are going back to being car agents/minimum wage elsewhere, they'll still leave. 3. Keep status quo? Maybe that works for the rental companies. If so, fine for them.
Presumably option 3 does work for the rental companies, or they'd pay managers better to keep them longer. So if you reduce minimum wage (option 2) what makes you think that rental manager pay would not also drop down to be the same amount above rental agent that it is now?
On the point about outsourcing social security obligations - why should governments subsidise businesses? Or, to put it another way, why should companies that pay more subsidise, through taxes, companies that pay less?
This is a valid point, but one we can turn around. Why should it be the responsibility of employers to ensure people have enough to live on, providing they pay the market rate for the job? That kind of social security is rightly the responsibility of governments. The fact is, governments will happily up minimum wage because they can sell it as the government delivering for the people, while not having to pay for any of it.
On car rental management, I think it's a mixture of (1) and (3) and mainly that managers' basic pay needs to be increased so that they are no longer dependent on bonus for upgrades that they don't directly control. The agent gets a smaller bonus, but what if they don't do the upsell? The manager still needs that agent to be at the counter.
I think the key question is why the market rate for semi-skilled labour in the UK is at or just above minimum wage? Why has there been stagnation in the wages of Western European workers over the last 20-30 years?
That is a question that cannot be answered.
The returns from neoliberal globalization, deregulation, offshoring of labour and tax avoidance concentrated increasingly in the hands of owners of capital and of professionals in tech/finance and supporting sectors?
Aren't you aware that the labour market is one where unlimited supply can't* reduce price?
*As in, it would be immoral to believe that it could.
In the 1970s chicago school economists decided that ceo compensation should be stock based to "align them with the shareholders" .
CEOs enthusiastically took this up and now compensation between the top and the bottom of the company is dis-aligned.
And at the same time returns for shareholders got worse as well because the exec team play games with the company performance to juice their stock options not the betterment of the company as a whole.
It isn't rocket science.
It’s the classic law of unintended consequences when you incentivise someone based solely on a specific KPI.
Grocery Industry Brexit Webinar update from the IGD Chief Economist: 1. Trade talks are not going well. 16th October's EU Council meeting is the absolute drop dead date for a deal, and our objectives remain mutually incompatible and neither is compromising enough to get a deal. 2. The economic shock will now happen regardless, obviously far worse with no deal. An asymmetrical impact will hit blue collar / manufacturing very hard 3. Government have a thing delightfully called BOM - Border Operating Model. A significant number of people through the supply chain will need to spend a lot of time managing the process. Cost in time plus cost of customs declarations, inspection costs etc etc 4. Three phases of BOM changes. Food groceries high risk items on a number of measures so impacted hard from day 1. 5. A lot of EU imported food comes on EU vehicles - will become very uncertain if economically viable for all of them. Currently mixed loads and backhaul - very difficult with new paperwork and checks 6. Vehicles and drivers will need a "Kent Access Permit" having uploaded everything via the app on the new Goods Vehicle Movement Service (which doesn't exist) - the driver, not the company, will be fined £000s for not having a Kent Access Permit or having the details wrong.
More will follow
The EU was created to get rid of absurdities like a "Kent Access Permit". We will see a rapid proliferation of stupid crap like this on both sides of the border. Thanks Brexit.
If Barnier wants to stop talking about fish before October, then there’s a chance of avoiding a lot of the paperwork.
We hold all the cards.
Just a shame the game is chess, eh?
It's uno
It's a shame the game is poker and our cards include a Magic the gathering card, Master Bun the Baker's son, the top trump that can't win any battle, a pokemon card and the 2 of diamonds from a different pack. (yes I have used that joke before).
In reality I think the EU and UK both know there is no chance of a deal and are positioning the blame....
I wonder how much political fallout there will be on Boris if there is No Deal. I'd always assumed he'd blame the EU entirely and a sufficient number of the public would go along with it, such is his cult-figure status among many. Now I'm not so sure. Boris's magic seems to have waned and there may be finally no where left to hide with No Deal, reflecting, as it would do, a raw and monumental failure of statecraft on his part.
I'm sure he will blame the EU. But the things that are more likely to cause trouble are not No Deal itself, but the lack of infrastructure to cope with the consequences of No Deal.
And that will be nobody's fault but the current government's.
He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
Or not.
He never had any grip.
The people that voted for him knew he was a clown.
Why would they now renounce the circus?
I suspect that those who voted for Boris to become Tory leader and thereby Prime Minister believed that the one thing he would deal with brilliantly would be PMQs, even blindfolded and standing on his head if necessary. Sadly they appear to have seriously misjudged him.
Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing. The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.
Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.
I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.
Back on topic ... when DavidL refers to Boris as never having "been one for detail or homework" he is really being kind in not simply describing him as being lazy. It is really not possible to be an effective Prime Minister without putting in the hard graft, even for exceptionally able ones such as Margaret Thatcher. I've even heard it said that Gordon Brown would spend at least two long half days every week preparing for PMQs and even then he often found it very difficult going. Boris gives the outward impression of simply polling up at noon on Wednesday, totally unprepared for what is to follow. He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
Could it be possible that in his first days back after the holidays, during a pandemic, the PM isn't lazy but has more important things to be doing than spending all his time preparing for PMQs?
PMQs is important but prioritising preparing to be slick at PMQs over dealing with the pandemic would be rather selfish.
Wow. I remember when William Hague was lambasted in Toryland and elsewhere for missing a PMQs owing to a sinus operation. The thought then was that Maggie never missed a single one and was impeccably prepared on every occasion. Tory standards are certainly slipping.
On topic: I`m beginning to warm to the idea that Johnson may not stick it out to the next GE. Turning to next Tory leader betting: I`m on Sunak, Patel and Hunt.
Given that I don`t think Gove has a chance, has anyone got any views about my three selections - I`d like to top up one one of them? Or any other strong contenders for that matter.
Could it be possible that in his first days back after the holidays, during a pandemic, the PM isn't lazy but has more important things to be doing than spending all his time preparing for PMQs?
PMQs is important but prioritising preparing to be slick at PMQs over dealing with the pandemic would be rather selfish.
Before he got sick, BoZo thought his divorce was more important than planning for the pandemic.
And he isn't dealing with the pandemic instead of preparing for PMQs
He's shit at both.
Forgetting what happened months ago, there is no TARDIS, what is shit about how the Government is handling the pandemic today?
Our infection rates are lower than almost all of our neighbours. Test & Trace is testing vast numbers of people and identifying young people who have the virus before they pass it on to the vulnerable. The economy is recovering.
After a slow start at dealing with this, the Government seem to be dealing with it very well currently. Not that you'll ever acknowledge it as you're a blind partisan who can never acknowledge anything good. I'm partisan too but at least I acknowledge my own partisanship and can acknowledge what's gone wrong.
The Government needs to stick with Tony Abbott. He'll have overseen trade stuff during his time as Oz PM at any rate, and people who dislike him will probably never vote Tory anyway. Another U-turn would look beyond shambolic.
Australian politicians are refreshingly/boorishly* outspoken.
I wouldn't find that good diplomacy myself, and he doesn't seem that popular in Oz anymore. Keeping one of our own headbangers away from the frontline is the only benefit.
I suspect that those who voted for Boris to become Tory leader and thereby Prime Minister believed that the one thing he would deal with brilliantly would be PMQs, even blindfolded and standing on his head if necessary. Sadly they appear to have seriously misjudged him.
Based on his record of hiding in a fridge to avoid a journalist, and refusing to appear with Andrew Neil...
I wonder how much political fallout there will be on Boris if there is No Deal. I'd always assumed he'd blame the EU entirely and a sufficient number of the public would go along with it, such is his cult-figure status among many. Now I'm not so sure. Boris's magic seems to have waned and there may be finally no where left to hide with No Deal, reflecting, as it would do, a raw and monumental failure of statecraft on his part.
Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing. The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.
Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.
I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.
Back on topic ... when DavidL refers to Boris as never having "been one for detail or homework" he is really being kind in not simply describing him as being lazy. It is really not possible to be an effective Prime Minister without putting in the hard graft, even for exceptionally able ones such as Margaret Thatcher. I've even heard it said that Gordon Brown would spend at least two long half days every week preparing for PMQs and even then he often found it very difficult going. Boris gives the outward impression of simply polling up at noon on Wednesday, totally unprepared for what is to follow. He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
Could it be possible that in his first days back after the holidays, during a pandemic, the PM isn't lazy but has more important things to be doing than spending all his time preparing for PMQs?
PMQs is important but prioritising preparing to be slick at PMQs over dealing with the pandemic would be rather selfish.
Wow. I remember when William Hague was lambasted in Toryland and elsewhere for missing a PMQs owing to a sinus operation. The thought then was that Maggie never missed a single one and was impeccably prepared on every occasion. Tory standards are certainly slipping.
I speak for myself not the Tories.
I'd certainly never criticise someone for missing PMQs due to an operation. That is insane. Is that what you think is appropriate or inappropriate criticism? If it's inappropriate then getting away from that isn't standard slipping it is progress.
Grocery Industry Brexit Webinar update from the IGD Chief Economist: 1. Trade talks are not going well. 16th October's EU Council meeting is the absolute drop dead date for a deal, and our objectives remain mutually incompatible and neither is compromising enough to get a deal. 2. The economic shock will now happen regardless, obviously far worse with no deal. An asymmetrical impact will hit blue collar / manufacturing very hard 3. Government have a thing delightfully called BOM - Border Operating Model. A significant number of people through the supply chain will need to spend a lot of time managing the process. Cost in time plus cost of customs declarations, inspection costs etc etc 4. Three phases of BOM changes. Food groceries high risk items on a number of measures so impacted hard from day 1. 5. A lot of EU imported food comes on EU vehicles - will become very uncertain if economically viable for all of them. Currently mixed loads and backhaul - very difficult with new paperwork and checks 6. Vehicles and drivers will need a "Kent Access Permit" having uploaded everything via the app on the new Goods Vehicle Movement Service (which doesn't exist) - the driver, not the company, will be fined £000s for not having a Kent Access Permit or having the details wrong.
More will follow
The EU was created to get rid of absurdities like a "Kent Access Permit". We will see a rapid proliferation of stupid crap like this on both sides of the border. Thanks Brexit.
If Barnier wants to stop talking about fish before October, then there’s a chance of avoiding a lot of the paperwork.
We hold all the cards.
Just a shame the game is chess, eh?
It's uno
It's a shame the game is poker and our cards include a Magic the gathering card, Master Bun the Baker's son, the top trump that can't win any battle, a pokemon card and the 2 of diamonds from a different pack. (yes I have used that joke before).
In reality I think the EU and UK both know there is no chance of a deal and are positioning the blame....
Problem, I think, is that Johnson and the other Brexiteers believe their own rhetoric about Brexit setting Britain free. They are incapable of making the compromises necessary for a semi-workable arrangement. I admit this is what I got most wrong about Brexit, due to not understanding the Leaver mind. I assumed Brexit would end up in a dreary stalemate - crappier than before but liveable with. But no-one voted Leave so the damage of their own decision could be limited.
Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing. The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.
Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.
I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.
Back on topic ... when DavidL refers to Boris as never having "been one for detail or homework" he is really being kind in not simply describing him as being lazy. It is really not possible to be an effective Prime Minister without putting in the hard graft, even for exceptionally able ones such as Margaret Thatcher. I've even heard it said that Gordon Brown would spend at least two long half days every week preparing for PMQs and even then he often found it very difficult going. Boris gives the outward impression of simply polling up at noon on Wednesday, totally unprepared for what is to follow. He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
Could it be possible that in his first days back after the holidays, during a pandemic, the PM isn't lazy but has more important things to be doing than spending all his time preparing for PMQs?
PMQs is important but prioritising preparing to be slick at PMQs over dealing with the pandemic would be rather selfish.
The Government needs to stick with Tony Abbott. He'll have overseen trade stuff during his time as Oz PM at any rate, and people who dislike him will probably never vote Tory anyway. Another U-turn would look beyond shambolic.
He's not been appointed yet so it wouldn't be a u turn not to appoint him.
Multiple people get considered for roles. They don't all get appointed.
On the car rental manager issue, I take the point, but what's the solution? 1. Raise manager pay? Seems to me that a more motivated manager retained for longer would have some additional value, but maybe I'm wrong. 2. Reduce minimum wage so agents get paid less, increasing the gap? Manager is still a shitty job at shitty pay. Unless the people who leave within 6 months are going back to being car agents/minimum wage elsewhere, they'll still leave. 3. Keep status quo? Maybe that works for the rental companies. If so, fine for them.
Presumably option 3 does work for the rental companies, or they'd pay managers better to keep them longer. So if you reduce minimum wage (option 2) what makes you think that rental manager pay would not also drop down to be the same amount above rental agent that it is now?
On the point about outsourcing social security obligations - why should governments subsidise businesses? Or, to put it another way, why should companies that pay more subsidise, through taxes, companies that pay less?
This is a valid point, but one we can turn around. Why should it be the responsibility of employers to ensure people have enough to live on, providing they pay the market rate for the job? That kind of social security is rightly the responsibility of governments. The fact is, governments will happily up minimum wage because they can sell it as the government delivering for the people, while not having to pay for any of it.
On car rental management, I think it's a mixture of (1) and (3) and mainly that managers' basic pay needs to be increased so that they are no longer dependent on bonus for upgrades that they don't directly control. The agent gets a smaller bonus, but what if they don't do the upsell? The manager still needs that agent to be at the counter.
I think the key question is why the market rate for semi-skilled labour in the UK is at or just above minimum wage? Why has there been stagnation in the wages of Western European workers over the last 20-30 years?
That is a question that cannot be answered.
Piketty is having a crack at it.
No - the answer is BadThink. Therefore we have no answer.
It's not just immigration. There have been thousands of small blows to the prospects of lower and lower-middle class people over the last 50 years.
Offshoring, Declining union strength and participation, Declining light and heavy industry, Rise of the service sector gig economy, Technology based efficiencies removing lower management The globalisation of supply chains and lower white collar work, etc etc
Capital has been winning since the late 70's, and inequality indicators in the western world show it.
Much of that is enabled by having infinite supply of onshore labour.
I keep making this point - if you look at productivity cost, offshoring is marginal for most things. Often more expensive. Existing supply chains are China's big advantage, now. Not labour costs.
Being able to bring cheap labour onshore, where the benefits of healthcare, law, infrastructiure etc are available is the big enabler.
And when the new help starts getting bolshy and demands the minimum wage or statutory protection, they can be replaced. Which keeps the employers from having to adopt that extremist thing... what's it called? oh yes. Pay rises.
On topic: I`m beginning to warm to the idea that Johnson may not stick it out to the next GE. Turning to next Tory leader betting: I`m on Sunak, Patel and Hunt.
Given that I don`t think Gove has a chance, has anyone got any views about my three selections - I`d like to top up one one of them? Or any other strong contenders for that matter.
I dropped a few quid on Hunt (34),
Assuming if Boris goes it'll be Brexit that snuffs him out. And the only senior non Brexiteer with good form in the previous leadership competition was Hunt.
I see Sunak as the clear favourite, but he is Boris's man and I do wonder if the circumstances that led to his elevation might taint him in the end.
What is this Government going to achieve, beyond leaving the EU, which was in January?
Highest death toll in Europe?
Worst economic response to Covid?
The UK had the worst economic response? I thought the various schemes were viewed quite highly.
The reason for the sharp GDP drop was that the U.K. furlough scheme was one of the most generous in the world. Means that the V-shaped recovery is much more likely in the U.K. than elsewhere where furlough has been replaced by redundancy.
I have heard talk of a "K" shaped recovery. Most people getting back to where they were before, but a great deal of people unemployed.
I wonder how much political fallout there will be on Boris if there is No Deal. I'd always assumed he'd blame the EU entirely and a sufficient number of the public would go along with it, such is his cult-figure status among many. Now I'm not so sure. Boris's magic seems to have waned and there may be finally no where left to hide with No Deal, reflecting, as it would do, a raw and monumental failure of statecraft on his part.
Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing. The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.
Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.
I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.
Back on topic ... when DavidL refers to Boris as never having "been one for detail or homework" he is really being kind in not simply describing him as being lazy. It is really not possible to be an effective Prime Minister without putting in the hard graft, even for exceptionally able ones such as Margaret Thatcher. I've even heard it said that Gordon Brown would spend at least two long half days every week preparing for PMQs and even then he often found it very difficult going. Boris gives the outward impression of simply polling up at noon on Wednesday, totally unprepared for what is to follow. He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
From memory the reason why PMQs have shifted firstly to a single session and then to earlier in the day was because of the amount of time it took to prepare. Maggie used to spend Tuesdays and Thursdays prepping for it. At least now provided you have prepared in the morning you've only last 4 or so hours and not virtually 2 entire days.
Compare and contrast with the US. Over there is a president who makes more outrageous comments than Johnson’s IRA smear, and piles up the bullshit, bluster and waffle, on a daily basis. And his party follow him slavishly.
I’m have a very low view of the current Tory party, but they do not yet approach the sheer degradation of the Republicans.
In the 1970s chicago school economists decided that ceo compensation should be stock based to "align them with the shareholders" .
CEOs enthusiastically took this up and now compensation between the top and the bottom of the company is dis-aligned.
And at the same time returns for shareholders got worse as well because the exec team play games with the company performance to juice their stock options not the betterment of the company as a whole.
It isn't rocket science.
The problem was the psychology. People who have been given their shares have a different outlook to those who have paid them for with their hard-earned cash.
He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
Or not.
He never had any grip.
The people that voted for him knew he was a clown.
Why would they now renounce the circus?
I suspect that those who voted for Boris to become Tory leader and thereby Prime Minister believed that the one thing he would deal with brilliantly would be PMQs, even blindfolded and standing on his head if necessary. Sadly they appear to have seriously misjudged him.
There is a reason why Johnson has spent his entire political career running away from scrutiny.
No surprises there, hopefully she’ll be replaced by someone who knows what they’re doing.
Frank Williams also going.
He’ll be spending more time with his £50m cheque.
Sad to see the Williams family bow out of F1, but pleased that the name will continue and that the jobs at the factory are safe. The last couple of years have been touch-and-go for the team’s viability, the new F1 “Concorde” agreement signed last week means that the teams now have more value and are attractive to investors.
1. Now talking about how the ports will operate. Government suggesting a smart system will allow them to prioritise certain types of short life produce. 2. Export to EU from UK. Companies will need an EU address on the actual products - an EU office would be needed for legal / consumer queries. 3. Logistics. The need to have every type of product on a vehicle inspected and paperwork issued will be a "challenge" when full vehicles in both directions essential for the industry. One item on one pallet could delay the whole load (and thus down the line delays) and the DRIVER not the company is responsible for the paperwork and gets fined if they drive their truck into Kent without the paperwork correct on their Kent Access Permit. KAP essentially creates another internal UK border for goods vehicles! 4. Admin - how will this work? The Goods Vehicle Movement Service which will control things like the KAP doesn't currently exist. Yet will be responsible for groceries movement from 1st January. 5. Consumer confidence - are consumers likely to become more concerned the closer we get to the deadline? Yes - metrics already sharply rising and the issues discussed here not yet well known.|
And thats it. Sounds like fun times ahead. Or not - experts are all wrong anyway according to spaff stains like IDS
Red white and blue tape. Well played, Brexiteers.
Really interesting stuff Rochdale, thanks for sharing. The question in my mind is whether the Tory party is ideologically crazed enough to drive the country off a cliff-edge into No-Deal, and risk toppling supply chains that have already taken a battering due to Covid.
As someone with a passing familiarity with what it takes to implement technology systems, I must say I'm not hugely confident of UKG's ability to deliver what is required in January.
Might be time for a trip to Costco to load up on canned goods?!
Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing. The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.
Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.
I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.
Back on topic ... when DavidL refers to Boris as never having "been one for detail or homework" he is really being kind in not simply describing him as being lazy. It is really not possible to be an effective Prime Minister without putting in the hard graft, even for exceptionally able ones such as Margaret Thatcher. I've even heard it said that Gordon Brown would spend at least two long half days every week preparing for PMQs and even then he often found it very difficult going. Boris gives the outward impression of simply polling up at noon on Wednesday, totally unprepared for what is to follow. He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
Could it be possible that in his first days back after the holidays, during a pandemic, the PM isn't lazy but has more important things to be doing than spending all his time preparing for PMQs?
PMQs is important but prioritising preparing to be slick at PMQs over dealing with the pandemic would be rather selfish.
Wow. I remember when William Hague was lambasted in Toryland and elsewhere for missing a PMQs owing to a sinus operation. The thought then was that Maggie never missed a single one and was impeccably prepared on every occasion. Tory standards are certainly slipping.
I speak for myself not the Tories.
I'd certainly never criticise someone for missing PMQs due to an operation. That is insane. Is that what you think is appropriate or inappropriate criticism? If it's inappropriate then getting away from that isn't standard slipping it is progress.
I was fine with Hague missing one PMQs because of an operation (others weren't at the time). But it just shows how the attitude of Tory support has changed - they were livid with Hague back then, but are now totally indifferent to Boris's serial slackness. The way he's remoulded the whole of Toryism in his own image is quite remarkable.
I suspect that those who voted for Boris to become Tory leader and thereby Prime Minister believed that the one thing he would deal with brilliantly would be PMQs, even blindfolded and standing on his head if necessary. Sadly they appear to have seriously misjudged him.
Based on his record of hiding in a fridge to avoid a journalist, and refusing to appear with Andrew Neil...
They bought a dud, but that was never a secret.
He didn't hide in a fridge. He was touring a dairy and went into a refrigerated room that was part of the dairy with cameras, crew and the people he was touring the dairy with.
Guess what, dairy products are refrigerated. He and everyone else was dressed up appropriately to go into the refrigerated room in the first place.
But yeah "hiding in a fridge" like he's Indiana Jones sounds so much more interesting than reality I suppose. Guess what, many people in the real world work in refrigerated workplaces like that dairy you pretentious self-righteous ignoramus. I've worked in and toured refrigerated premises before, what's so funny about that?
It will be a pleasant surprise if Boris ever demonstrates the capacity to skipper a yacht or conduct an orchestra
How's his French accent?
Not great. It has a hint of Bruxellois like mine but he lacks a great deal of vocabulary so he umms and errs even more than in English to fill the yawning lacunae in his speech.
What is this Government going to achieve, beyond leaving the EU, which was in January?
Highest death toll in Europe?
Worst economic response to Covid?
The UK had the worst economic response? I thought the various schemes were viewed quite highly.
The reason for the sharp GDP drop was that the U.K. furlough scheme was one of the most generous in the world. Means that the V-shaped recovery is much more likely in the U.K. than elsewhere where furlough has been replaced by redundancy.
I have heard talk of a "K" shaped recovery. Most people getting back to where they were before, but a great deal of people unemployed.
There’s certainly going to be a lot of unemployment, possibly 2 million or so, and some difficult choices for businesses and government to decide what is cyclical and what is structural.
The changes to London commuting patterns, for example, are looking increasingly structural, whereas the aviation industry decline is more cyclical. Each requires a different response.
The next round of regulation and financial support will be much more targeted, for example I’m expecting the Chancellor to tell the banks not to even think about repossessing homes of those made redundant, but rather to offer payment holidays and restructuring of debt.
Yesterday was truly awful for Boris as I said at the time. If he couldn't explain or justify the shambles with the exams he should have sacked Williamson but he didn't. The back to school thing claiming a lack of support when there had been support both in writing and indeed in the House before was embarrassing. The IRA thing sounded desperate and gave SKS one of his better ripostes. The Speaker has clearly decided that the "take no lectures " nonsense is not an answer to the question at all which is surely right but seems a tightening of the behaviour we saw before the recess.
Boris, when well, is quick on his feet. He has never been one for detail or "homework" but he had a quick mind that normally brought an adequate response. Its what made him a good debater. He really struggled to answer the various questions, not just from SKS, about the end of furlough. There was a painful lack of clarity in his thinking.
I fear that he is not going to recover. Giving him some time to get over a serious illness was fair enough but he is not doing so. Before the recess he seemed to be getting the hang of SKS with his portentous overly wordy style and regularly got the better of him. Yesterday was like he had forgotten how. It is not a good sign.
Back on topic ... when DavidL refers to Boris as never having "been one for detail or homework" he is really being kind in not simply describing him as being lazy. It is really not possible to be an effective Prime Minister without putting in the hard graft, even for exceptionally able ones such as Margaret Thatcher. I've even heard it said that Gordon Brown would spend at least two long half days every week preparing for PMQs and even then he often found it very difficult going. Boris gives the outward impression of simply polling up at noon on Wednesday, totally unprepared for what is to follow. He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
Could it be possible that in his first days back after the holidays, during a pandemic, the PM isn't lazy but has more important things to be doing than spending all his time preparing for PMQs?
PMQs is important but prioritising preparing to be slick at PMQs over dealing with the pandemic would be rather selfish.
Wow. I remember when William Hague was lambasted in Toryland and elsewhere for missing a PMQs owing to a sinus operation. The thought then was that Maggie never missed a single one and was impeccably prepared on every occasion. Tory standards are certainly slipping.
I speak for myself not the Tories.
I'd certainly never criticise someone for missing PMQs due to an operation. That is insane. Is that what you think is appropriate or inappropriate criticism? If it's inappropriate then getting away from that isn't standard slipping it is progress.
I was fine with Hague missing one PMQs because of an operation (others weren't at the time). But it just shows how the attitude of Tory support has changed - they were livid with Hague back then, but are now totally indifferent to Boris's serial slackness. The way he's remoulded the whole of Toryism in his own image is quite remarkable.
I voted for Blair not Hague but don't recall the incident you're talking about. And it's not something that would have put me off Hague.
For the last two decades plenty of times the PM and LOTO have missed PMQs. The PM didn't even miss PMQs here so not sure what you're withering on about except like Scott you hate Boris so any excuse.
He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
Or not.
He never had any grip.
The people that voted for him knew he was a clown.
Why would they now renounce the circus?
I suspect that those who voted for Boris to become Tory leader and thereby Prime Minister believed that the one thing he would deal with brilliantly would be PMQs, even blindfolded and standing on his head if necessary. Sadly they appear to have seriously misjudged him.
There is a reason why Johnson has spent his entire political career running away from scrutiny.
It was quite impressive seeing how Team Boris managed to contrive circumstances to avoid all but a couple of PMQs between July and December 2019 - and the Liaison Committee altogether. And his only two political alternatives have been Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn - if you can't be good be lucky.
It will be a pleasant surprise if Boris ever demonstrates the capacity to skipper a yacht or conduct an orchestra
How's his French accent?
Not great. It has a hint of Bruxellois like mine but he lacks a great deal of vocabulary so he umms and errs even more than in English to fill the yawning lacunae in his speech.
I know this is pedantic, but isn't that his English accent, when he's speaking French?
Grocery Industry Brexit Webinar update from the IGD Chief Economist: 1. Trade talks are not going well. 16th October's EU Council meeting is the absolute drop dead date for a deal, and our objectives remain mutually incompatible and neither is compromising enough to get a deal. 2. The economic shock will now happen regardless, obviously far worse with no deal. An asymmetrical impact will hit blue collar / manufacturing very hard 3. Government have a thing delightfully called BOM - Border Operating Model. A significant number of people through the supply chain will need to spend a lot of time managing the process. Cost in time plus cost of customs declarations, inspection costs etc etc 4. Three phases of BOM changes. Food groceries high risk items on a number of measures so impacted hard from day 1. 5. A lot of EU imported food comes on EU vehicles - will become very uncertain if economically viable for all of them. Currently mixed loads and backhaul - very difficult with new paperwork and checks 6. Vehicles and drivers will need a "Kent Access Permit" having uploaded everything via the app on the new Goods Vehicle Movement Service (which doesn't exist) - the driver, not the company, will be fined £000s for not having a Kent Access Permit or having the details wrong.
More will follow
The EU was created to get rid of absurdities like a "Kent Access Permit". We will see a rapid proliferation of stupid crap like this on both sides of the border. Thanks Brexit.
If Barnier wants to stop talking about fish before October, then there’s a chance of avoiding a lot of the paperwork.
We hold all the cards.
Just a shame the game is chess, eh?
It's uno
It's a shame the game is poker and our cards include a Magic the gathering card, Master Bun the Baker's son, the top trump that can't win any battle, a pokemon card and the 2 of diamonds from a different pack. (yes I have used that joke before).
In reality I think the EU and UK both know there is no chance of a deal and are positioning the blame....
I wonder how much political fallout there will be on Boris if there is No Deal. I'd always assumed he'd blame the EU entirely and a sufficient number of the public would go along with it, such is his cult-figure status among many. Now I'm not so sure. Boris's magic seems to have waned and there may be finally no where left to hide with No Deal, reflecting, as it would do, a raw and monumental failure of statecraft on his part.
I'm sure he will blame the EU. But the things that are more likely to cause trouble are not No Deal itself, but the lack of infrastructure to cope with the consequences of No Deal.
And that will be nobody's fault but the current government's.
We were supposed to be ready for a no deal exit at the end of March 2019. We will have had 21 more months to prepare.
I expect Johnson to be successful in blaming the EU, though. Why would people who voted for Brexit think that the EU has been more reasonable in negotiations than the UK?
1. Now talking about how the ports will operate. Government suggesting a smart system will allow them to prioritise certain types of short life produce. 2. Export to EU from UK. Companies will need an EU address on the actual products - an EU office would be needed for legal / consumer queries. 3. Logistics. The need to have every type of product on a vehicle inspected and paperwork issued will be a "challenge" when full vehicles in both directions essential for the industry. One item on one pallet could delay the whole load (and thus down the line delays) and the DRIVER not the company is responsible for the paperwork and gets fined if they drive their truck into Kent without the paperwork correct on their Kent Access Permit. KAP essentially creates another internal UK border for goods vehicles! 4. Admin - how will this work? The Goods Vehicle Movement Service which will control things like the KAP doesn't currently exist. Yet will be responsible for groceries movement from 1st January. 5. Consumer confidence - are consumers likely to become more concerned the closer we get to the deadline? Yes - metrics already sharply rising and the issues discussed here not yet well known.|
And thats it. Sounds like fun times ahead. Or not - experts are all wrong anyway according to spaff stains like IDS
Red white and blue tape. Well played, Brexiteers.
Really interesting stuff Rochdale, thanks for sharing. The question in my mind is whether the Tory party is ideologically crazed enough to drive the country off a cliff-edge into No-Deal, and risk toppling supply chains that have already taken a battering due to Covid.
As someone with a passing familiarity with what it takes to implement technology systems, I must say I'm not hugely confident of UKG's ability to deliver what is required in January.
Might be time for a trip to Costco to load up on canned goods?!
For a while I've been posting detailed factual descriptions of how my industry sees its prospects post no-deal. Apparently its all just "moaning". My advice - stock up. Thank goodness I haven't just taken on an EU client with the task of launching them into the UK market...
I suspect that those who voted for Boris to become Tory leader and thereby Prime Minister believed that the one thing he would deal with brilliantly would be PMQs, even blindfolded and standing on his head if necessary. Sadly they appear to have seriously misjudged him.
Based on his record of hiding in a fridge to avoid a journalist, and refusing to appear with Andrew Neil...
They bought a dud, but that was never a secret.
He didn't hide in a fridge. He was touring a dairy and went into a refrigerated room that was part of the dairy with cameras, crew and the people he was touring the dairy with.
Guess what, dairy products are refrigerated. He and everyone else was dressed up appropriately to go into the refrigerated room in the first place.
But yeah "hiding in a fridge" like he's Indiana Jones sounds so much more interesting than reality I suppose. Guess what, many people in the real world work in refrigerated workplaces like that dairy you pretentious self-righteous ignoramus. I've worked in and toured refrigerated premises before, what's so funny about that?
I've worked in industrial chillers too, but I've seen the video and Boris was definitely hiding from the press. Sorry , you're on a hiding to nothing with this one.
Interesting we can just put personal views aside when it's a Tory appointment.
Presumably therefore Corbyn's views were irrelevant?
Either character matters or it doesn’t. What you can’t do - as some of the Tory fanboys have been doing - is claiming that a bad character does not matter, when it’s one of your mates.
Nor can you do it when it comes down to expertise.
1. Now talking about how the ports will operate. Government suggesting a smart system will allow them to prioritise certain types of short life produce. 2. Export to EU from UK. Companies will need an EU address on the actual products - an EU office would be needed for legal / consumer queries. 3. Logistics. The need to have every type of product on a vehicle inspected and paperwork issued will be a "challenge" when full vehicles in both directions essential for the industry. One item on one pallet could delay the whole load (and thus down the line delays) and the DRIVER not the company is responsible for the paperwork and gets fined if they drive their truck into Kent without the paperwork correct on their Kent Access Permit. KAP essentially creates another internal UK border for goods vehicles! 4. Admin - how will this work? The Goods Vehicle Movement Service which will control things like the KAP doesn't currently exist. Yet will be responsible for groceries movement from 1st January. 5. Consumer confidence - are consumers likely to become more concerned the closer we get to the deadline? Yes - metrics already sharply rising and the issues discussed here not yet well known.|
And thats it. Sounds like fun times ahead. Or not - experts are all wrong anyway according to spaff stains like IDS
Red white and blue tape. Well played, Brexiteers.
Really interesting stuff Rochdale, thanks for sharing. The question in my mind is whether the Tory party is ideologically crazed enough to drive the country off a cliff-edge into No-Deal, and risk toppling supply chains that have already taken a battering due to Covid.
As someone with a passing familiarity with what it takes to implement technology systems, I must say I'm not hugely confident of UKG's ability to deliver what is required in January.
Might be time for a trip to Costco to load up on canned goods?!
I shall certainly be building up my stockpile again.
Not unexpected. Any other team would have fired her yonks back. Happily I expect she gets £lots from the sale
Sir Frank managed to hold on to half the company right to the end, despite several divestments over the years. The family came away with a £50m cheque, whih is pretty good considering they were awfully close to going bust. Several hundred skilled jobs are now safe, too.
I suspect that those who voted for Boris to become Tory leader and thereby Prime Minister believed that the one thing he would deal with brilliantly would be PMQs, even blindfolded and standing on his head if necessary. Sadly they appear to have seriously misjudged him.
Based on his record of hiding in a fridge to avoid a journalist, and refusing to appear with Andrew Neil...
They bought a dud, but that was never a secret.
He didn't hide in a fridge. He was touring a dairy and went into a refrigerated room that was part of the dairy with cameras, crew and the people he was touring the dairy with.
Guess what, dairy products are refrigerated. He and everyone else was dressed up appropriately to go into the refrigerated room in the first place.
But yeah "hiding in a fridge" like he's Indiana Jones sounds so much more interesting than reality I suppose. Guess what, many people in the real world work in refrigerated workplaces like that dairy you pretentious self-righteous ignoramus. I've worked in and toured refrigerated premises before, what's so funny about that?
I've worked in industrial chillers too, but I've seen the video and Boris was definitely hiding from the press. Sorry , you're on a hiding to nothing with this one.
He absolutely *literally* hid in the fridge to get off live TV.
I wonder how much political fallout there will be on Boris if there is No Deal. I'd always assumed he'd blame the EU entirely and a sufficient number of the public would go along with it, such is his cult-figure status among many. Now I'm not so sure. Boris's magic seems to have waned and there may be finally no where left to hide with No Deal, reflecting, as it would do, a raw and monumental failure of statecraft on his part.
The problem is that Boris marketed the 'oven-ready deal' as if it finalized absolutely everything about leaving the EU. It was clever politics at the time but poor expectation management. How misled the public will feel may prove to be a highly significant variable in the months to come.
Grocery Industry Brexit Webinar update from the IGD Chief Economist: 1. Trade talks are not going well. 16th October's EU Council meeting is the absolute drop dead date for a deal, and our objectives remain mutually incompatible and neither is compromising enough to get a deal. 2. The economic shock will now happen regardless, obviously far worse with no deal. An asymmetrical impact will hit blue collar / manufacturing very hard 3. Government have a thing delightfully called BOM - Border Operating Model. A significant number of people through the supply chain will need to spend a lot of time managing the process. Cost in time plus cost of customs declarations, inspection costs etc etc 4. Three phases of BOM changes. Food groceries high risk items on a number of measures so impacted hard from day 1. 5. A lot of EU imported food comes on EU vehicles - will become very uncertain if economically viable for all of them. Currently mixed loads and backhaul - very difficult with new paperwork and checks 6. Vehicles and drivers will need a "Kent Access Permit" having uploaded everything via the app on the new Goods Vehicle Movement Service (which doesn't exist) - the driver, not the company, will be fined £000s for not having a Kent Access Permit or having the details wrong.
More will follow
The EU was created to get rid of absurdities like a "Kent Access Permit". We will see a rapid proliferation of stupid crap like this on both sides of the border. Thanks Brexit.
If Barnier wants to stop talking about fish before October, then there’s a chance of avoiding a lot of the paperwork.
We hold all the cards.
Just a shame the game is chess, eh?
It's uno
It's a shame the game is poker and our cards include a Magic the gathering card, Master Bun the Baker's son, the top trump that can't win any battle, a pokemon card and the 2 of diamonds from a different pack. (yes I have used that joke before).
In reality I think the EU and UK both know there is no chance of a deal and are positioning the blame....
Problem, I think, is that Johnson and the other Brexiteers believe their own rhetoric about Brexit setting Britain free. They are incapable of making the compromises necessary for a semi-workable arrangement. I admit this is what I got most wrong about Brexit, due to not understanding the Leaver mind. I assumed Brexit would end up in a dreary stalemate - crappier than before but liveable with. But no-one voted Leave so the damage of their own decision could be limited.
Yes - the only destination which is both intellectually coherent and in the spirit of the Leave vote is a clean break with any trade deal limited to what is consistent with not being bound by the Eurpopean LPF.
But given the economic and political price of this in the short term - the only term that Boris Johnson is concerned with - I expect we will end up agreeing to a quasi extension and close alignment.
Johnson will, needless to say, sell this outcome as the most incredible Phil Collins against-all-odds triumph of steel and determination. And many will buy it, although some will be pretending.
On the car rental manager issue, I take the point, but what's the solution? 1. Raise manager pay? Seems to me that a more motivated manager retained for longer would have some additional value, but maybe I'm wrong. 2. Reduce minimum wage so agents get paid less, increasing the gap? Manager is still a shitty job at shitty pay. Unless the people who leave within 6 months are going back to being car agents/minimum wage elsewhere, they'll still leave. 3. Keep status quo? Maybe that works for the rental companies. If so, fine for them.
Presumably option 3 does work for the rental companies, or they'd pay managers better to keep them longer. So if you reduce minimum wage (option 2) what makes you think that rental manager pay would not also drop down to be the same amount above rental agent that it is now?
On the point about outsourcing social security obligations - why should governments subsidise businesses? Or, to put it another way, why should companies that pay more subsidise, through taxes, companies that pay less?
This is a valid point, but one we can turn around. Why should it be the responsibility of employers to ensure people have enough to live on, providing they pay the market rate for the job? That kind of social security is rightly the responsibility of governments. The fact is, governments will happily up minimum wage because they can sell it as the government delivering for the people, while not having to pay for any of it.
On car rental management, I think it's a mixture of (1) and (3) and mainly that managers' basic pay needs to be increased so that they are no longer dependent on bonus for upgrades that they don't directly control. The agent gets a smaller bonus, but what if they don't do the upsell? The manager still needs that agent to be at the counter.
I think the key question is why the market rate for semi-skilled labour in the UK is at or just above minimum wage? Why has there been stagnation in the wages of Western European workers over the last 20-30 years?
That is a question that cannot be answered.
The returns from neoliberal globalization, deregulation, offshoring of labour and tax avoidance concentrated increasingly in the hands of owners of capital and of professionals in tech/finance and supporting sectors?
Aren't you aware that the labour market is one where unlimited supply can't* reduce price?
*As in, it would be immoral to believe that it could.
Why are you talking in code to me again?
I can take it straight.
It is immoral to believe that unlimited supply of labour to some portions of the labour market could be related to stagnant or even falling wages in those sectors.
On the car rental manager issue, I take the point, but what's the solution? 1. Raise manager pay? Seems to me that a more motivated manager retained for longer would have some additional value, but maybe I'm wrong. 2. Reduce minimum wage so agents get paid less, increasing the gap? Manager is still a shitty job at shitty pay. Unless the people who leave within 6 months are going back to being car agents/minimum wage elsewhere, they'll still leave. 3. Keep status quo? Maybe that works for the rental companies. If so, fine for them.
Presumably option 3 does work for the rental companies, or they'd pay managers better to keep them longer. So if you reduce minimum wage (option 2) what makes you think that rental manager pay would not also drop down to be the same amount above rental agent that it is now?
On the point about outsourcing social security obligations - why should governments subsidise businesses? Or, to put it another way, why should companies that pay more subsidise, through taxes, companies that pay less?
This is a valid point, but one we can turn around. Why should it be the responsibility of employers to ensure people have enough to live on, providing they pay the market rate for the job? That kind of social security is rightly the responsibility of governments. The fact is, governments will happily up minimum wage because they can sell it as the government delivering for the people, while not having to pay for any of it.
On car rental management, I think it's a mixture of (1) and (3) and mainly that managers' basic pay needs to be increased so that they are no longer dependent on bonus for upgrades that they don't directly control. The agent gets a smaller bonus, but what if they don't do the upsell? The manager still needs that agent to be at the counter.
I think the key question is why the market rate for semi-skilled labour in the UK is at or just above minimum wage? Why has there been stagnation in the wages of Western European workers over the last 20-30 years?
That is a question that cannot be answered.
Piketty is having a crack at it.
No - the answer is BadThink. Therefore we have no answer.
It's not just immigration. There have been thousands of small blows to the prospects of lower and lower-middle class people over the last 50 years.
Offshoring, Declining union strength and participation, Declining light and heavy industry, Rise of the service sector gig economy, Technology based efficiencies removing lower management The globalisation of supply chains and lower white collar work, etc etc
Capital has been winning since the late 70's, and inequality indicators in the western world show it.
Much of that is enabled by having infinite supply of onshore labour.
I keep making this point - if you look at productivity cost, offshoring is marginal for most things. Often more expensive. Existing supply chains are China's big advantage, now. Not labour costs.
Being able to bring cheap labour onshore, where the benefits of healthcare, law, infrastructiure etc are available is the big enabler.
And when the new help starts getting bolshy and demands the minimum wage or statutory protection, they can be replaced. Which keeps the employers from having to adopt that extremist thing... what's it called? oh yes. Pay rises.
Firstly the labour supply is not infinite for the majority of UK jobs. There are levels of skills and qualifications required to be employed within the UKs developed workforce, But yes immigration from the EU has hit certain sectors harder than others.
I'm arguing that it is not just the menial staff who are affected by the UK's wage stagnation. It is the majority of low wage employment. And it is soon to be the lower-middle wage earners as white collar outsourcing becomes derigour.
China's offshoring boom happened because of capitals 'rational' desire to find lower wage economies to reduce their cost. The industry of the western world did not fly to the east, it was incentivised to move. Senior management chose to upsticks and leave. And in doing so abandoned the western lower classes who were once the bedrock of their businesses.
You say that workers can be replaced to quell demands for better conditions. I ask why is this acceptable? And I'm sure that the squeezing of collective bargaining rights has been instrumental in this.
I know you cannot fight globalisation. But the capital owners in the west no longer need the labour of the western world.
Not unexpected. Any other team would have fired her yonks back. Happily I expect she gets £lots from the sale
Sir Frank managed to hold on to half the company right to the end, despite several divestments over the years. The family came away with a £50m cheque, whih is pretty good considering they were awfully close to going bust. Several hundred skilled jobs are now safe, too.
I am a Williams fan. Its awful what has happened to the team, so being able to keep going as an independent and without being transmogrified into BAR2020 or whatever is a Good Thing. Hopefully the investment will let the team get back to being the innovative bastards they used to be.
It will be a pleasant surprise if Boris ever demonstrates the capacity to skipper a yacht or conduct an orchestra
How's his French accent?
Not great. It has a hint of Bruxellois like mine but he lacks a great deal of vocabulary so he umms and errs even more than in English to fill the yawning lacunae in his speech.
I know this is pedantic, but isn't that his English accent, when he's speaking French?
I suspect that those who voted for Boris to become Tory leader and thereby Prime Minister believed that the one thing he would deal with brilliantly would be PMQs, even blindfolded and standing on his head if necessary. Sadly they appear to have seriously misjudged him.
Based on his record of hiding in a fridge to avoid a journalist, and refusing to appear with Andrew Neil...
They bought a dud, but that was never a secret.
He didn't hide in a fridge. He was touring a dairy and went into a refrigerated room that was part of the dairy with cameras, crew and the people he was touring the dairy with.
Guess what, dairy products are refrigerated. He and everyone else was dressed up appropriately to go into the refrigerated room in the first place.
But yeah "hiding in a fridge" like he's Indiana Jones sounds so much more interesting than reality I suppose. Guess what, many people in the real world work in refrigerated workplaces like that dairy you pretentious self-righteous ignoramus. I've worked in and toured refrigerated premises before, what's so funny about that?
And remained there until the television station / film crew had to move on to the next item so Boris avoided questions
I'm at a loss, Philip as to why you waste time arguing on behalf of Boris
Grocery Industry Brexit Webinar update from the IGD Chief Economist: 1. Trade talks are not going well. 16th October's EU Council meeting is the absolute drop dead date for a deal, and our objectives remain mutually incompatible and neither is compromising enough to get a deal. 2. The economic shock will now happen regardless, obviously far worse with no deal. An asymmetrical impact will hit blue collar / manufacturing very hard 3. Government have a thing delightfully called BOM - Border Operating Model. A significant number of people through the supply chain will need to spend a lot of time managing the process. Cost in time plus cost of customs declarations, inspection costs etc etc 4. Three phases of BOM changes. Food groceries high risk items on a number of measures so impacted hard from day 1. 5. A lot of EU imported food comes on EU vehicles - will become very uncertain if economically viable for all of them. Currently mixed loads and backhaul - very difficult with new paperwork and checks 6. Vehicles and drivers will need a "Kent Access Permit" having uploaded everything via the app on the new Goods Vehicle Movement Service (which doesn't exist) - the driver, not the company, will be fined £000s for not having a Kent Access Permit or having the details wrong.
More will follow
The EU was created to get rid of absurdities like a "Kent Access Permit". We will see a rapid proliferation of stupid crap like this on both sides of the border. Thanks Brexit.
If Barnier wants to stop talking about fish before October, then there’s a chance of avoiding a lot of the paperwork.
We hold all the cards.
Just a shame the game is chess, eh?
It's uno
It's a shame the game is poker and our cards include a Magic the gathering card, Master Bun the Baker's son, the top trump that can't win any battle, a pokemon card and the 2 of diamonds from a different pack. (yes I have used that joke before).
In reality I think the EU and UK both know there is no chance of a deal and are positioning the blame....
I wonder how much political fallout there will be on Boris if there is No Deal. I'd always assumed he'd blame the EU entirely and a sufficient number of the public would go along with it, such is his cult-figure status among many. Now I'm not so sure. Boris's magic seems to have waned and there may be finally no where left to hide with No Deal, reflecting, as it would do, a raw and monumental failure of statecraft on his part.
I'm sure he will blame the EU. But the things that are more likely to cause trouble are not No Deal itself, but the lack of infrastructure to cope with the consequences of No Deal.
And that will be nobody's fault but the current government's.
We were supposed to be ready for a no deal exit at the end of March 2019. We will have had 21 more months to prepare.
Reminds me of students asking for an extension for their Assesments. Essay deadline is Thurdsday 5pm. Finally starts the reading for the essay late Wednesday Evening. Thursday lunch time they realise they have done so little work they ask the lecturer for an extension. Extension til Monday 5pm granted. Student grateful for the extra time and goes to the pub Thursday afternoon to celebrate. He goes out and gets hammered Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and only resumes the reading for the essay late Sunday evening.
On the car rental manager issue, I take the point, but what's the solution? 1. Raise manager pay? Seems to me that a more motivated manager retained for longer would have some additional value, but maybe I'm wrong. 2. Reduce minimum wage so agents get paid less, increasing the gap? Manager is still a shitty job at shitty pay. Unless the people who leave within 6 months are going back to being car agents/minimum wage elsewhere, they'll still leave. 3. Keep status quo? Maybe that works for the rental companies. If so, fine for them.
Presumably option 3 does work for the rental companies, or they'd pay managers better to keep them longer. So if you reduce minimum wage (option 2) what makes you think that rental manager pay would not also drop down to be the same amount above rental agent that it is now?
On the point about outsourcing social security obligations - why should governments subsidise businesses? Or, to put it another way, why should companies that pay more subsidise, through taxes, companies that pay less?
This is a valid point, but one we can turn around. Why should it be the responsibility of employers to ensure people have enough to live on, providing they pay the market rate for the job? That kind of social security is rightly the responsibility of governments. The fact is, governments will happily up minimum wage because they can sell it as the government delivering for the people, while not having to pay for any of it.
On car rental management, I think it's a mixture of (1) and (3) and mainly that managers' basic pay needs to be increased so that they are no longer dependent on bonus for upgrades that they don't directly control. The agent gets a smaller bonus, but what if they don't do the upsell? The manager still needs that agent to be at the counter.
I think the key question is why the market rate for semi-skilled labour in the UK is at or just above minimum wage? Why has there been stagnation in the wages of Western European workers over the last 20-30 years?
That is a question that cannot be answered.
Piketty is having a crack at it.
No - the answer is BadThink. Therefore we have no answer.
It's not just immigration. There have been thousands of small blows to the prospects of lower and lower-middle class people over the last 50 years.
Offshoring, Declining union strength and participation, Declining light and heavy industry, Rise of the service sector gig economy, Technology based efficiencies removing lower management The globalisation of supply chains and lower white collar work, etc etc
Capital has been winning since the late 70's, and inequality indicators in the western world show it.
Much of that is enabled by having infinite supply of onshore labour.
I keep making this point - if you look at productivity cost, offshoring is marginal for most things. Often more expensive. Existing supply chains are China's big advantage, now. Not labour costs.
Being able to bring cheap labour onshore, where the benefits of healthcare, law, infrastructiure etc are available is the big enabler.
And when the new help starts getting bolshy and demands the minimum wage or statutory protection, they can be replaced. Which keeps the employers from having to adopt that extremist thing... what's it called? oh yes. Pay rises.
Firstly the labour supply is not infinite for the majority of UK jobs. There are levels of skills and qualifications required to be employed within the UKs developed workforce, But yes immigration from the EU has hit certain sectors harder than others.
I'm arguing that it is not just the menial staff who are affected by the UK's wage stagnation. It is the majority of low wage employment. And it is soon to be the lower-middle wage earners as white collar outsourcing becomes derigour.
China's offshoring boom happened because of capitals 'rational' desire to find lower wage economies to reduce their cost. The industry of the western world did not fly to the east, it was incentivised to move. Senior management chose to upsticks and leave. And in doing so abandoned the western lower classes who were once the bedrock of their businesses.
You say that workers can be replaced to quell demands for better conditions. I ask why is this acceptable? And I'm sure that the squeezing of collective bargaining rights has been instrumental in this.
I know you cannot fight globalisation. But the capital owners in the west no longer need the labour of the western world.
"But the capital owners in the west no longer need the labour of the western world. "
Yes, they do. Outsourcing works in some thing, for a time. Then the locals start demanding wages etc commensurate with their worth. Then the productivity cost returns to parity. This is what is happening in China now.
So bringing cheap labour onshore gets you much of the productivity of a "western" workforce, with lower wages.
When the imported labour learns enough English, skills up etc and starts demanding more money, they are replaced.
It is a return to the early 19th cent. modes of employment.
'Hearing the alarm'? Sometimes I'd give a thousand quid to be able to ignore it and go back to sleep. As for 'Not having to make lunch' - my option usually entailed trudging to a nearby garage in the driving rain to spend £7 on an M&S Meal Deal. Fuck that.
I suspect that those who voted for Boris to become Tory leader and thereby Prime Minister believed that the one thing he would deal with brilliantly would be PMQs, even blindfolded and standing on his head if necessary. Sadly they appear to have seriously misjudged him.
Based on his record of hiding in a fridge to avoid a journalist, and refusing to appear with Andrew Neil...
They bought a dud, but that was never a secret.
A dud that wiped you off the electoral map the very next day? One shudders to imagine what a non-dud might have achieved!
Politicians really aren't thinking ahead on all sides of the house here when they try and encourage a return to the old normal. Post covid we will live in a very different world with different expectations in my view.
Take for example Sars, Mers, H1N1.....we as a country more or less ignored them as far as taking precautions.
Now however once over Covid I think the next virus to come along it will be a brave government that doesn't take preemptive precautionary measures in case its another Covid event.
Therefore trying to move to a model of life where it is less disruptive of things to do so seems sensible. Imagine if when covid struck we were already mostly working at home for those jobs that can. High streets had already rebalanced around this new normal.
It would be nice if our politicians used a little foresight as I am damn sure Covid won't be the last such event in most of our lifetimes
Interesting points. And of course the rapid testing and vaccine development knowledge gained this year won't disappear (and some of that public health test, track & trace capacity will likely be retained), so precautionary and reactive measures can/will be greatly enhanced in the future.
Comments
*As in, it would be immoral to believe that it could.
There will be some redundancies for businesses that fail but they won't be mass on remotely the same scale as it would have been.
https://twitter.com/TheNationalUAE/status/1300432824718307328
Offshoring,
Declining union strength and participation,
Declining light and heavy industry,
Rise of the service sector gig economy,
Technology based efficiencies removing lower management
The globalisation of supply chains and lower white collar work,
etc etc
Capital has been winning since the late 70's, and inequality indicators in the western world show it.
It is really not possible to be an effective Prime Minister without putting in the hard graft, even for exceptionally able ones such as Margaret Thatcher. I've even heard it said that Gordon Brown would spend at least two long half days every week preparing for PMQs and even then he often found it very difficult going.
Boris gives the outward impression of simply polling up at noon on Wednesday, totally unprepared for what is to follow. He really does need to take an immediate and serious grip on such matters, otherwise he's finished.
He never had any grip.
The people that voted for him knew he was a clown.
Why would they now renounce the circus?
PMQs is important but prioritising preparing to be slick at PMQs over dealing with the pandemic would be rather selfish.
He'll have overseen trade stuff during his time as Oz PM at any rate, and people who dislike him will probably never vote Tory anyway.
Another U-turn would look beyond shambolic.
And he isn't dealing with the pandemic instead of preparing for PMQs
He's shit at both.
CEOs enthusiastically took this up and now compensation between the top and the bottom of the company is dis-aligned.
And at the same time returns for shareholders got worse as well because the exec team play games with the company performance to juice their stock options not the betterment of the company as a whole.
It isn't rocket science.
I can take it straight.
Presumably therefore Corbyn's views were irrelevant?
And that will be nobody's fault but the current government's.
Given that I don`t think Gove has a chance, has anyone got any views about my three selections - I`d like to top up one one of them? Or any other strong contenders for that matter.
Our infection rates are lower than almost all of our neighbours.
Test & Trace is testing vast numbers of people and identifying young people who have the virus before they pass it on to the vulnerable.
The economy is recovering.
After a slow start at dealing with this, the Government seem to be dealing with it very well currently. Not that you'll ever acknowledge it as you're a blind partisan who can never acknowledge anything good. I'm partisan too but at least I acknowledge my own partisanship and can acknowledge what's gone wrong.
I wouldn't find that good diplomacy myself, and he doesn't seem that popular in Oz anymore. Keeping one of our own headbangers away from the frontline is the only benefit.
*chose your adverb according to your prejudices!
They bought a dud, but that was never a secret.
I'd certainly never criticise someone for missing PMQs due to an operation. That is insane. Is that what you think is appropriate or inappropriate criticism? If it's inappropriate then getting away from that isn't standard slipping it is progress.
Multiple people get considered for roles. They don't all get appointed.
I keep making this point - if you look at productivity cost, offshoring is marginal for most things. Often more expensive. Existing supply chains are China's big advantage, now. Not labour costs.
Being able to bring cheap labour onshore, where the benefits of healthcare, law, infrastructiure etc are available is the big enabler.
And when the new help starts getting bolshy and demands the minimum wage or statutory protection, they can be replaced. Which keeps the employers from having to adopt that extremist thing... what's it called? oh yes. Pay rises.
Assuming if Boris goes it'll be Brexit that snuffs him out. And the only senior non Brexiteer with good form in the previous leadership competition was Hunt.
I see Sunak as the clear favourite, but he is Boris's man and I do wonder if the circumstances that led to his elevation might taint him in the end.
Sad to see the Williams family bow out of F1, but pleased that the name will continue and that the jobs at the factory are safe. The last couple of years have been touch-and-go for the team’s viability, the new F1 “Concorde” agreement signed last week means that the teams now have more value and are attractive to investors.
As someone with a passing familiarity with what it takes to implement technology systems, I must say I'm not hugely confident of UKG's ability to deliver what is required in January.
Might be time for a trip to Costco to load up on canned goods?!
Guess what, dairy products are refrigerated. He and everyone else was dressed up appropriately to go into the refrigerated room in the first place.
But yeah "hiding in a fridge" like he's Indiana Jones sounds so much more interesting than reality I suppose. Guess what, many people in the real world work in refrigerated workplaces like that dairy you pretentious self-righteous ignoramus. I've worked in and toured refrigerated premises before, what's so funny about that?
The changes to London commuting patterns, for example, are looking increasingly structural, whereas the aviation industry decline is more cyclical. Each requires a different response.
The next round of regulation and financial support will be much more targeted, for example I’m expecting the Chancellor to tell the banks not to even think about repossessing homes of those made redundant, but rather to offer payment holidays and restructuring of debt.
For the last two decades plenty of times the PM and LOTO have missed PMQs. The PM didn't even miss PMQs here so not sure what you're withering on about except like Scott you hate Boris so any excuse.
https://twitter.com/allenow83890817/status/1300339328791597056
17 Down: As in, it would be immoral to believe that it could (8 letters)
I expect Johnson to be successful in blaming the EU, though. Why would people who voted for Brexit think that the EU has been more reasonable in negotiations than the UK?
Nor can you do it when it comes down to expertise. I shall certainly be building up my stockpile again.
But given the economic and political price of this in the short term - the only term that Boris Johnson is concerned with - I expect we will end up agreeing to a quasi extension and close alignment.
Johnson will, needless to say, sell this outcome as the most incredible Phil Collins against-all-odds triumph of steel and determination. And many will buy it, although some will be pretending.
Because the source of supply is foreigners.
I'm arguing that it is not just the menial staff who are affected by the UK's wage stagnation. It is the majority of low wage employment. And it is soon to be the lower-middle wage earners as white collar outsourcing becomes derigour.
China's offshoring boom happened because of capitals 'rational' desire to find lower wage economies to reduce their cost. The industry of the western world did not fly to the east, it was incentivised to move. Senior management chose to upsticks and leave. And in doing so abandoned the western lower classes who were once the bedrock of their businesses.
You say that workers can be replaced to quell demands for better conditions. I ask why is this acceptable? And I'm sure that the squeezing of collective bargaining rights has been instrumental in this.
I know you cannot fight globalisation. But the capital owners in the west no longer need the labour of the western world.
https://youtu.be/NZByWk6SPM0
I'm at a loss, Philip as to why you waste time arguing on behalf of Boris
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8693405/Michel-Barnier-delivers-ultimatum-post-Brexit-fishing-rights.html
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pelosi-demands-salon-owner-apologize-for-set-up-claims-she-didnt-know-she-was-violating-lockdown-laws/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=top-stories&utm_term=first
Yes, they do. Outsourcing works in some thing, for a time. Then the locals start demanding wages etc commensurate with their worth. Then the productivity cost returns to parity. This is what is happening in China now.
So bringing cheap labour onshore gets you much of the productivity of a "western" workforce, with lower wages.
When the imported labour learns enough English, skills up etc and starts demanding more money, they are replaced.
It is a return to the early 19th cent. modes of employment.
You see when he goes to hide in the fridge? He categorically isn't going off to hide in the fridge "for fracks sake"
And of course the rapid testing and vaccine development knowledge gained this year won't disappear (and some of that public health test, track & trace capacity will likely be retained), so precautionary and reactive measures can/will be greatly enhanced in the future.
https://twitter.com/JasonGroves1/status/1301494654626680834
And we wonder how Americans can choose Trump to be their president