Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
Quite - there are huge recruitment problems in many local councils (particularly in things like specialist finance roles) because the rates that can be commanded by agency staff are absolutely enormous. There are lower level staff being employed on rates significantly in excess of those who are managing them. Of course it is the entirely circular result of years of pay falling behind the private sector combined with the years of cuts piling ever increasing workloads on staff that remained.
What evidence do you have that private sector wages have outstripped public sector ones?
It's not private sector wages - it's market supply and demand.
For an Adult social worker doing contract work the market rate is between £32 and £40 an hour - which is £1200 to £1500 a week or £55,200 to £69,000 a year.
Looking at my local council website the salary is £28,672.00 - £34,728.00
And the contract worker can close the door and walk away at any time and does not need to deal with internal politics nor often half the paperwork council workers actually do.
This is true throughout whole sections of the public sector where the wages just haven't kept up with demand.
I'm sorry but please source the notion that a social care worker in the private sector is on £32 to £40 per hour?
Reflecting on the enjoyable discussion last night of the Danish DNA series, I realise that I don't fully understand the subplots, possibly because of timeline shifts. (spoiler alert) There's the lost girl Minna, the hero's daughter Andrea, and the girl whose child is taken in the convent. The hero and the rotund villain take the boat to Poland to investigate Minna's disappearance and the girl snatches Andrea. Apparently later, but I suppose earlier, we see the girl losing her child. There was something about the guy who took Minna finding her dead and rather than admitting it taking another child. But how does this fit together? Why does the girl think that Andrea is her child?
Why do Tories always resort to this outdated public vs. private nonsense. The situation is far more nuanced. Some companies are reporting big profits. I am not sure Amazon needs any help paying its bills. Meanwhile some councils are close to bankruptcy.
Indeed. A friend of mine works in pharma and is looking forward to her share options vesting. I believe they make components for PCP tests
White men’s control of the news agenda must end, says BBC boss
Mr Munro also admitted that the national broadcaster and other news organisations were blindsided by the failings that led to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 because so few journalists had grown up on housing estates.
Nonsense example given of supposed BBC failing to grasp a situation in Grenfell Tower. They were all over that story. Now failing to understand why people voted Brexit or all these Northerners voting Tory in the GE, now BBC News lot are totally clueless about that, as far as they are concerned it is because they are all a load of thick racists.
I've heard endlessly from the BBC why people voted Leave. Incidentally, I'd have thought white men would be in a good position to get Brexit, since whiteness and maleness were both highly significant correlators of voting Leave. [Alabrese et al 2018]
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
Quite - there are huge recruitment problems in many local councils (particularly in things like specialist finance roles) because the rates that can be commanded by agency staff are absolutely enormous. There are lower level staff being employed on rates significantly in excess of those who are managing them. Of course it is the entirely circular result of years of pay falling behind the private sector combined with the years of cuts piling ever increasing workloads on staff that remained.
What evidence do you have that private sector wages have outstripped public sector ones?
It's not private sector wages - it's market supply and demand.
For an Adult social worker doing contract work the market rate is between £32 and £40 an hour - which is £1200 to £1500 a week or £55,200 to £69,000 a year.
Looking at my local council website the salary is £28,672.00 - £34,728.00
And the contract worker can close the door and walk away at any time and does not need to deal with internal politics nor often half the paperwork council workers actually do.
This is true throughout whole sections of the public sector where the wages just haven't kept up with demand.
I'm sorry but please source the notion that a social care worker in the private sector is on £32 to £40 per hour?
Many will be on minimum wage.
Are you not talking about different things? A Social Worker is a social care worker but the vast majority of social care workers are not social workers. What I find surprising is that there is a private sector market for social workers. Presumably this is created by local authorities who cannot get enough social workers on their staff to meet the need in a similar way to contract nurses but I hadn't heard of it before.
In anther example of the slick PR we have come to expect from BoZo and chums, announcing a pay freeze for soldiers the day after announcing a humungous rise in defense spending is outstanding...
Reflecting on the enjoyable discussion last night of the Danish DNA series, I realise that I don't fully understand the subplots, possibly because of timeline shifts. (spoiler alert) There's the lost girl Minna, the hero's daughter Andrea, and the girl whose child is taken in the convent. The hero and the rotund villain take the boat to Poland to investigate Minna's disappearance and the girl snatches Andrea. Apparently later, but I suppose earlier, we see the girl losing her child. There was something about the guy who took Minna finding her dead and rather than admitting it taking another child. But how does this fit together? Why does the girl think that Andrea is her child?
I've only seen the first two episodes so far and it was already getting rather complicated for me at that stage. Planning to watch some more this weekend.
Why do Tories always resort to this outdated public vs. private nonsense. The situation is far more nuanced. Some companies are reporting big profits. I am not sure Amazon needs any help paying its bills. Meanwhile some councils are close to bankruptcy.
They’re close to bankruptcy, so their staff should be getting a raise?
Unintentional racism is certainly less bad than intentional racism, similarly unintentional bullying is less bad the deliberate bullying. If it was someone new to management then a warning might indeed be sufficient, but she has had previous as a minister, and experience of management roles in the private sector so it simply is not credible she was unaware her actions were bullying.
Reflecting on the enjoyable discussion last night of the Danish DNA series, I realise that I don't fully understand the subplots, possibly because of timeline shifts. (spoiler alert) There's the lost girl Minna, the hero's daughter Andrea, and the girl whose child is taken in the convent. The hero and the rotund villain take the boat to Poland to investigate Minna's disappearance and the girl snatches Andrea. Apparently later, but I suppose earlier, we see the girl losing her child. There was something about the guy who took Minna finding her dead and rather than admitting it taking another child. But how does this fit together? Why does the girl think that Andrea is her child?
Spoilers follow. Ha I missed this discussion because we were binge watching the last three episodes! It was so addictive, best Scandi noir since the Killing. It wasn't Minna who dies - we see her reunited with her birth mother at the end, and Rolf sees it is not a simple happy ending. It's the Polish girl Julietta (?) whose baby dies of a form of SIDS when she is with the kidnappers. She follows the clues to the house of the guy who we called the Fat Fuck (not v PC sorry) and then sees Rolf leaving with a baby. She thinks it is her baby, who was last seen with FF's Polish wife. She follows them to the ferry and takes Andrea, Rolf's baby, thinking it is hers. A really great series and very affecting ending, I hope Rolf gets a suspended sentence, he didn't do anything that any other father wouldn't do. Only criticism maybe that FF a bit too obviously signposted as a baddie from the start. Now we can get back to the Crown and watch Mangrove too. Lots of good telly right now!
Watching Obama last night on the BBC (free half hour of advertising for his book you might say) he did come across so well. Cameron did too in his time, but I think why these smooth types end up leaving chaos behind is their inability to resist sniping at their more explosive rivals (Trump/Farage/Leave) whilst selling themselves as moderate and reasonable. It pushes people towards the extremes, and I think Starmer is making the same error with Corbyn. It is for the likes of Farage/Trump and Jez to purge, not moderate centrist types
Trump won in 2016 because he wasn't Hillary. Biden won in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
In 2016, had he been able to stand again, I think Obama would have trounced Trump.
He wasn’t able to stand again. And his smart arse piss takes out of Trump helped enable Trump. As Cameron’s smart arse piss takes out of Leave enabled Leave
Politicians who call for unity & moderation don’t do so well when they go with personal attacks
How come, when Trump insulted E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E during the 2016 primaries and general, that didn't "enable" his opponents?
Surely isam can't be talking about the same Donald Trump who spent ages saying that Obama wasn't the president because he was black? But I guess it is Obama's fault for provoking him by, err, being black.
The point I seem to be failing to get into peoples heads is that self styled sensible, moderates shouldn’t give up what they consider to be the moral high ground to explosive, unruly opponents.
When a teacher starts trading insults with a badly behaved, foul mouthed pupil they lose authority, and people who were 60/40 on the teachers side can go 60/40 for the pupil
So some of the most vocal backers of Brexit are now saying it might well put them out of business ?
No, UK taxpayers would end up subsidising them further. State subsidies for friends of the Tory party, like farmers, fisheries, PR companies and management consultants, are capitalist and for the common good.
In anther example of the slick PR we have come to expect from BoZo and chums, announcing a pay freeze for soldiers the day after announcing a humungous rise in defense spending is outstanding...
It's Boris Johnson struggling to make ends meet on a mere £150,000 a year I feel for.
Nearly four million public-sector workers, including soldiers, police officers, teachers and civil servants, face a pay freeze next year to help to repair the nation’s coronavirus-ravaged finances.
Everyone's faced a tough year.
The private sector that funds that lot has been ravaged much harder. So what would you do besides asinine, snide Tweets?
Do you work? Unless you are so surplus to requirements you can post here from dawn to dusk I can only imagine you're either retired or a hypocrite.
Yes I work though I was furloughed during lockdown and providing childcare then.
I don't post dawn to dusk, my post count is much lower than many other people's. So what's your issue other than I may say things you dislike?
Watching Obama last night on the BBC (free half hour of advertising for his book you might say) he did come across so well. Cameron did too in his time, but I think why these smooth types end up leaving chaos behind is their inability to resist sniping at their more explosive rivals (Trump/Farage/Leave) whilst selling themselves as moderate and reasonable. It pushes people towards the extremes, and I think Starmer is making the same error with Corbyn. It is for the likes of Farage/Trump and Jez to purge, not moderate centrist types
Trump won in 2016 because he wasn't Hillary. Biden won in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
In 2016, had he been able to stand again, I think Obama would have trounced Trump.
He wasn’t able to stand again. And his smart arse piss takes out of Trump helped enable Trump. As Cameron’s smart arse piss takes out of Leave enabled Leave
Politicians who call for unity & moderation don’t do so well when they go with personal attacks
How come, when Trump insulted E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E during the 2016 primaries and general, that didn't "enable" his opponents?
Surely isam can't be talking about the same Donald Trump who spent ages saying that Obama wasn't the president because he was black? But I guess it is Obama's fault for provoking him by, err, being black.
The point I seem to be failing to get into peoples heads is that self styled sensible, moderates shouldn’t give up what they consider to be the moral high ground to explosive, unruly opponents.
When a teacher starts trading insults with a badly behaved, foul mouthed pupil they lose authority, and people who were 60/40 on the teachers side can go 60/40 for the pupil
Yes, but what if they start twelvety percent in favour of making up stupid numbers, and end up eleventy-seven percent in favour whatever
Interesting that Richi has decided on a public sector freeze on wages but excluded the NHS. Those backing him for leader might think about cutting their losses now. It makes no sense. Some of the NHS worked well beyond the call of duty many didn't but the same applies to many other emergency service workers. It's another typical Johnson mess in the making but this time he's dragging Sunak in with him
So you think the NHS should have had a wage freeze?
No but they weren't the only public service workers who worked beyond the call of duty. Many doctors surgeries virtually closed down. Lots of Dentists did close down. The police and fire departments couldn't close down. You can't make a special case for one and a half million people.
No but that's politics. NHS workers are going to get priority.
Frankly a lot of people are going to have to accept pay freezes for years I should think. I expect to and can't even really object it seems sound.
Unintentional racism is certainly less bad than intentional racism, similarly unintentional bullying is less bad the deliberate bullying. If it was someone new to management then a warning might indeed be sufficient, but she has had previous as a minister, and experience of management roles in the private sector so it simply is not credible she was unaware her actions were bullying.
Quite. I will be fascinated to see how it defends her by saying she's too dumb to realise she bullies people. Always a desperate move to use that defence
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
Even as austerity has hit, there is much more pay parity between public and private than there was 25 years ago, simply because private sector wages have done badly since the crash. The downside for the public sector is that day to day working conditions in a lot of councils have become deeply unpleasant. The dominance of dishonest stats chasers are a huge part of the problem, when your services go on strike because employees can't get time off for cancer appointments, and you hear enough to know that is endemic in your council, that's plain shocking. When you have had experience of the awful hospital discharge administrators in the council area over 15% clear of every single other authority in terms of COVID deaths, and be pretty confident their death rate is closely related to the nature of your experiences. Just, no.
There's a deal to be done here - public sector restraint for sure, but with commitments to:
- improve professional status and pay in named areas (e.g. care workers) where the job done is undervalued at the moment - improve workplace conditions and tackle casual disrespect within councils - Extend professional registration to all staff who make decisions over the public, not just nurses, doctors, teachers, lawyers etc and have the power to strike off those who engage in statistical or administrative malpractice against the general public - these generally will be the people souring the atmosphere within as well as without.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
Quite - there are huge recruitment problems in many local councils (particularly in things like specialist finance roles) because the rates that can be commanded by agency staff are absolutely enormous. There are lower level staff being employed on rates significantly in excess of those who are managing them. Of course it is the entirely circular result of years of pay falling behind the private sector combined with the years of cuts piling ever increasing workloads on staff that remained.
What evidence do you have that private sector wages have outstripped public sector ones?
It's not private sector wages - it's market supply and demand.
For an Adult social worker doing contract work the market rate is between £32 and £40 an hour - which is £1200 to £1500 a week or £55,200 to £69,000 a year.
Looking at my local council website the salary is £28,672.00 - £34,728.00
And the contract worker can close the door and walk away at any time and does not need to deal with internal politics nor often half the paperwork council workers actually do.
This is true throughout whole sections of the public sector where the wages just haven't kept up with demand.
I'm sorry but please source the notion that a social care worker in the private sector is on £32 to £40 per hour?
Many will be on minimum wage.
Are you not talking about different things? A Social Worker is a social care worker but the vast majority of social care workers are not social workers. What I find surprising is that there is a private sector market for social workers. Presumably this is created by local authorities who cannot get enough social workers on their staff to meet the need in a similar way to contract nurses but I hadn't heard of it before.
To give another example, engineering staff in the public sector tend to be on 30-35k a year. Similar roles in the private sector are 40k+. The pension isn’t as generous of course but at some point that doesn’t counteract the huge pay discrepancy. It’s as bad for scientific staff, given various City types like to poach our data scientists. This isn’t just about secretaries or council staff. There are a huge variety of people, very few who were furloughed, who had to keep working for the duration of the pandemic to forecast the weather, measure seismic activity at nuclear power stations, keep government buildings from falling down and the roads from falling apart. Now we’re being told that we aren’t worth as much as the government’s latest spaffing on shiny military equipment it won’t use. It sticks in the craw and we’re going to lose people.
Why do Tories always resort to this outdated public vs. private nonsense. The situation is far more nuanced. Some companies are reporting big profits. I am not sure Amazon needs any help paying its bills. Meanwhile some councils are close to bankruptcy.
Whilst there are always exceptions I think that you should appreciate that in Q2 our GDP fell 20%. In that quarter government spending actually rocketed so that 20% fall was more than wholly borne by the private sector. It is not unreasonable to estimate that on average the private sector income fell by more than 40%. When you take into account the fact that supermarkets, pharma etc were doing really well that is a lot of genuine pain.
In Q3 the economy bounced back 15% but the public sector was still (rightly) spending money wildly. Many, most businesses are still down a significant amount. Something like 1m people have now lost their jobs with probably another million to come. How many of these were in the public sector?
Of course you are right that some public sector organisations will be facing unprecedented demand for their services and will be struggling to find the money to fund that but I do think that there is a major difference of outcomes here for their staff.
Watching Obama last night on the BBC (free half hour of advertising for his book you might say) he did come across so well. Cameron and Blair did too in their time, but I think why these smooth types end up leaving chaos behind is their inability to resist sniping at their more explosive rivals (Trump/Farage/Leave) whilst selling themselves as moderate and reasonable. It pushes people towards the extremes, and I think Starmer is making the same error with Corbyn. It is for the likes of Farage/Trump and Jez to purge, not moderate centrist types
That was a stupid thing of Obama. What really showed his character though was the look in his eyes at the end.
And what look would that be ?
Basically, a deep loathing and almost hatred. You may argue Trump deserved it but it’s the sort of reaction you’d expect from a Trump not someone like Obama who is supposed to be of the “when they go low etc etc” kind.
Plus I didn’t like the “will never be President” bit. That’s up to the voters, not Obama. Even Pelosi paid lip service to that when she mentioned that Trump would never be President
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector pay isn't all that different to the private sector.
Charles is right. A decade of very cheap borrowing is what's caused the problems with regards to housing.
Watching Obama last night on the BBC (free half hour of advertising for his book you might say) he did come across so well. Cameron did too in his time, but I think why these smooth types end up leaving chaos behind is their inability to resist sniping at their more explosive rivals (Trump/Farage/Leave) whilst selling themselves as moderate and reasonable. It pushes people towards the extremes, and I think Starmer is making the same error with Corbyn. It is for the likes of Farage/Trump and Jez to purge, not moderate centrist types
Trump won in 2016 because he wasn't Hillary. Biden won in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
In 2016, had he been able to stand again, I think Obama would have trounced Trump.
He wasn’t able to stand again. And his smart arse piss takes out of Trump helped enable Trump. As Cameron’s smart arse piss takes out of Leave enabled Leave
Politicians who call for unity & moderation don’t do so well when they go with personal attacks
How come, when Trump insulted E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E during the 2016 primaries and general, that didn't "enable" his opponents?
Surely isam can't be talking about the same Donald Trump who spent ages saying that Obama wasn't the president because he was black? But I guess it is Obama's fault for provoking him by, err, being black.
The point I seem to be failing to get into peoples heads is that self styled sensible, moderates shouldn’t give up what they consider to be the moral high ground to explosive, unruly opponents.
When a teacher starts trading insults with a badly behaved, foul mouthed pupil they lose authority, and people who were 60/40 on the teachers side can go 60/40 for the pupil
I think the first point is correct, but I'd be wary of suggesting when it happens it immediately makes the sides equitable or that each case would switch people like in your example. A self styled moderate on occasion reacting like a Trump in some limited way doesn't mean they've lost the high ground entirely just because they didnt maintain icy calm at all times.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
While obviously Mrs Foxy and I would take any payrise, personally I would be fine with a public sector pay freeze. Indeed It should be universal across the public sector from the PM down, and also the Triple Lock suspended and all benefits frozen.
My private practice has run at a loss, as income is much reduced and expenses reduced by much less. I am down about 20% on overall annual income. I am however alive and still in work, indeed there is likely to be much overtime once the dust settles. There are folk much worse off than us.
Watching Obama last night on the BBC (free half hour of advertising for his book you might say) he did come across so well. Cameron and Blair did too in their time, but I think why these smooth types end up leaving chaos behind is their inability to resist sniping at their more explosive rivals (Trump/Farage/Leave) whilst selling themselves as moderate and reasonable. It pushes people towards the extremes, and I think Starmer is making the same error with Corbyn. It is for the likes of Farage/Trump and Jez to purge, not moderate centrist types
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
Quite - there are huge recruitment problems in many local councils (particularly in things like specialist finance roles) because the rates that can be commanded by agency staff are absolutely enormous. There are lower level staff being employed on rates significantly in excess of those who are managing them. Of course it is the entirely circular result of years of pay falling behind the private sector combined with the years of cuts piling ever increasing workloads on staff that remained.
What evidence do you have that private sector wages have outstripped public sector ones?
It's not private sector wages - it's market supply and demand.
For an Adult social worker doing contract work the market rate is between £32 and £40 an hour - which is £1200 to £1500 a week or £55,200 to £69,000 a year.
Looking at my local council website the salary is £28,672.00 - £34,728.00
And the contract worker can close the door and walk away at any time and does not need to deal with internal politics nor often half the paperwork council workers actually do.
This is true throughout whole sections of the public sector where the wages just haven't kept up with demand.
I'm sorry but please source the notion that a social care worker in the private sector is on £32 to £40 per hour?
Many will be on minimum wage.
Are you not talking about different things? A Social Worker is a social care worker but the vast majority of social care workers are not social workers. What I find surprising is that there is a private sector market for social workers. Presumably this is created by local authorities who cannot get enough social workers on their staff to meet the need in a similar way to contract nurses but I hadn't heard of it before.
I imagine it works in a similar way to supply teachers or locum doctors. There are posts that simply can't be filled at the standard rate.
Of course, free marketeers should know that. If you artificially constrain the price of something, whether is Soviet potatoes or physics teachers, the supply dries up. Increase the price you are prepared to pay, and supply suddenly appears.
Watching Obama last night on the BBC (free half hour of advertising for his book you might say) he did come across so well. Cameron and Blair did too in their time, but I think why these smooth types end up leaving chaos behind is their inability to resist sniping at their more explosive rivals (Trump/Farage/Leave) whilst selling themselves as moderate and reasonable. It pushes people towards the extremes, and I think Starmer is making the same error with Corbyn. It is for the likes of Farage/Trump and Jez to purge, not moderate centrist types
That was a stupid thing of Obama. What really showed his character though was the look in his eyes at the end.
And what look would that be ?
Basically, a deep loathing and almost hatred. You may argue Trump deserved it but it’s the sort of reaction you’d expect from a Trump not someone like Obama who is supposed to be of the “when they go low etc etc” kind.
Plus I didn’t like the “will never be President” bit. That’s up to the voters, not Obama. Even Pelosi paid lip service to that when she mentioned that Trump would never be President
Watching Obama last night on the BBC (free half hour of advertising for his book you might say) he did come across so well. Cameron and Blair did too in their time, but I think why these smooth types end up leaving chaos behind is their inability to resist sniping at their more explosive rivals (Trump/Farage/Leave) whilst selling themselves as moderate and reasonable. It pushes people towards the extremes, and I think Starmer is making the same error with Corbyn. It is for the likes of Farage/Trump and Jez to purge, not moderate centrist types
That was a stupid thing of Obama. What really showed his character though was the look in his eyes at the end.
And what look would that be ?
Basically, a deep loathing and almost hatred. You may argue Trump deserved it but it’s the sort of reaction you’d expect from a Trump not someone like Obama who is supposed to be of the “when they go low etc etc” kind.
Plus I didn’t like the “will never be President” bit. That’s up to the voters, not Obama. Even Pelosi paid lip service to that when she mentioned that Trump would never be President
Because he obviously thought Trump would never be elected president that means he thought it was up to him not the voters? What are you on about? Gentle political mockery and being wrong are hardly on the level you seem to be taking it.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector pay isn't all that different to the private sector.
Charles is right. A decade of very cheap borrowing is what's caused the problems with regards to housing.
For equivalent roles in technical subjects? The pay is different by a long, long way. A small number of prestige jobs drag the public sector mean up and the wholesale transfer of low paid jobs like cleaning to outsourced companies take the lowest 20% out of the public sector. This idea that pUbLiC SecToR PaiD MoRe doesn’t wash when you compare like for like. I’m seriously pissed off because I only started a public sector role in April, taking a pay cut to do so, worked throughout lockdown on nationally important projects and I’m now told I’m not worth a decent pay rise by a fucking investment banker with a £300 coffee cup. Fuck off.
While obviously Mrs Foxy and I would take any payrise, personally I would be fine with a public sector pay freeze. Indeed It should be universal across the public sector from the PM down, and also the Triple Lock suspended and all benefits frozen.
My private practice has run at a loss, as income is much reduced and expenses reduced by much less. I am down about 20% on overall annual income. I am however alive and still in work, indeed there is likely to be much overtime once the dust settles. There are folk much worse off than us.
A series of fair points, but would NHS cleaners and porters share your positive POV?
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
Low interest rates and QE don't exist in a vacuum, they are there because of low inflation, which is mostly due to low wage inflation, some of which reflects public sector pay freezes. The point is, if you make the public sector a place where people who work hard in important jobs can't afford a house then are you going to get good people in the long run?
In anther example of the slick PR we have come to expect from BoZo and chums, announcing a pay freeze for soldiers the day after announcing a humungous rise in defense spending is outstanding...
It's not really a 'humongous' rise. It basically covers the funding shortfall for existing capabilities identified by the NAO. There isn't much money for new capabilities like putting torpedoes on ASW frigates or building Tracy Island in Scotland.
Watching Obama last night on the BBC (free half hour of advertising for his book you might say) he did come across so well. Cameron did too in his time, but I think why these smooth types end up leaving chaos behind is their inability to resist sniping at their more explosive rivals (Trump/Farage/Leave) whilst selling themselves as moderate and reasonable. It pushes people towards the extremes, and I think Starmer is making the same error with Corbyn. It is for the likes of Farage/Trump and Jez to purge, not moderate centrist types
Trump won in 2016 because he wasn't Hillary. Biden won in 2020 because he wasn't Trump.
In 2016, had he been able to stand again, I think Obama would have trounced Trump.
He wasn’t able to stand again. And his smart arse piss takes out of Trump helped enable Trump. As Cameron’s smart arse piss takes out of Leave enabled Leave
Politicians who call for unity & moderation don’t do so well when they go with personal attacks
How come, when Trump insulted E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E during the 2016 primaries and general, that didn't "enable" his opponents?
Surely isam can't be talking about the same Donald Trump who spent ages saying that Obama wasn't the president because he was black? But I guess it is Obama's fault for provoking him by, err, being black.
The point I seem to be failing to get into peoples heads is that self styled sensible, moderates shouldn’t give up what they consider to be the moral high ground to explosive, unruly opponents.
When a teacher starts trading insults with a badly behaved, foul mouthed pupil they lose authority, and people who were 60/40 on the teachers side can go 60/40 for the pupil
Yes, but what if they start twelvety percent in favour of making up stupid numbers, and end up eleventy-seven percent in favour whatever
So Aggwessive Woy! Admit defeat and move on, as they say
Watching Obama last night on the BBC (free half hour of advertising for his book you might say) he did come across so well. Cameron and Blair did too in their time, but I think why these smooth types end up leaving chaos behind is their inability to resist sniping at their more explosive rivals (Trump/Farage/Leave) whilst selling themselves as moderate and reasonable. It pushes people towards the extremes, and I think Starmer is making the same error with Corbyn. It is for the likes of Farage/Trump and Jez to purge, not moderate centrist types
That was a stupid thing of Obama. What really showed his character though was the look in his eyes at the end.
And what look would that be ?
Basically, a deep loathing and almost hatred. You may argue Trump deserved it but it’s the sort of reaction you’d expect from a Trump not someone like Obama who is supposed to be of the “when they go low etc etc” kind.
Plus I didn’t like the “will never be President” bit. That’s up to the voters, not Obama. Even Pelosi paid lip service to that when she mentioned that Trump would never be President
Because he obviously thought Trump would never be elected president that means he thought it was up to him not the voters? What are you on about? Gentle political mockery and being wrong are hardly on the level you seem to be taking it.
This is the last, dying thrashes of the stupidest political narrative ever: that the imperious, vicious stupidity of the Trump administration derives not from Donald Trump's personal qualities, but from the tiny perceived slights from those who opposed him. And these slights started no later than when Barack Obama had the temerity to be born black in the USA.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
Quite - there are huge recruitment problems in many local councils (particularly in things like specialist finance roles) because the rates that can be commanded by agency staff are absolutely enormous. There are lower level staff being employed on rates significantly in excess of those who are managing them. Of course it is the entirely circular result of years of pay falling behind the private sector combined with the years of cuts piling ever increasing workloads on staff that remained.
What evidence do you have that private sector wages have outstripped public sector ones?
It's not private sector wages - it's market supply and demand.
For an Adult social worker doing contract work the market rate is between £32 and £40 an hour - which is £1200 to £1500 a week or £55,200 to £69,000 a year.
Looking at my local council website the salary is £28,672.00 - £34,728.00
And the contract worker can close the door and walk away at any time and does not need to deal with internal politics nor often half the paperwork council workers actually do.
This is true throughout whole sections of the public sector where the wages just haven't kept up with demand.
I'm sorry but please source the notion that a social care worker in the private sector is on £32 to £40 per hour?
Many will be on minimum wage.
Are you not talking about different things? A Social Worker is a social care worker but the vast majority of social care workers are not social workers. What I find surprising is that there is a private sector market for social workers. Presumably this is created by local authorities who cannot get enough social workers on their staff to meet the need in a similar way to contract nurses but I hadn't heard of it before.
Well indeed it's farcical to compare the wages of locums to full time staff. Locums are always paid a premium because they don't have any form of security (which he bizarrely implied was an advantage for the contract workers). Plus if in an agency then a significant chunk of the locums "wages" will be going to the agency not the worker.
The idea that is the "private sector going rate" is mad. If you want to compare public sector full time employees to private sector wages then look at private sector full time employees. And the closest equivalent I can think of is social care and for social care that's more likely to be minimum wage than more than it is to be more than public sector wages.
Nearly four million public-sector workers, including soldiers, police officers, teachers and civil servants, face a pay freeze next year to help to repair the nation’s coronavirus-ravaged finances.
Everyone's faced a tough year.
The private sector that funds that lot has been ravaged much harder. So what would you do besides asinine, snide Tweets?
Actually, no - it's varied according to whether we can work effectively from home and whether our clients are OK. My main income is from a charity that continues to employ me full-time (with a pay freeze, but that's OK), and from translation for official bodies that have if anything increased their demand - my income went up and my daily expenses fell. That's not unique or even unusual among white-collar workers. While I give away a reasonable amount, it'd be much better if the German bank proposal of taxing home work and giving a tax break to essential workers or something similar was implemented. This is not an anti-Government point - it would simply be fairer.
Taxing home working seems a crazy idea to me.
Commuting is a terrible waste of time and energy - bad for individuals, bad for the environment, bad for productivity.
Of course taxes will have to rise, but trying to use them as a means of stopping progress is very short-sighted.
While obviously Mrs Foxy and I would take any payrise, personally I would be fine with a public sector pay freeze. Indeed It should be universal across the public sector from the PM down, and also the Triple Lock suspended and all benefits frozen.
My private practice has run at a loss, as income is much reduced and expenses reduced by much less. I am down about 20% on overall annual income. I am however alive and still in work, indeed there is likely to be much overtime once the dust settles. There are folk much worse off than us.
A series of fair points, but would NHS cleaners and porters share your positive POV?
Perhaps not, but there has been quite an uplift in minimum wage in recent years, and inflation is near zero, indeed perhaps deflation is on the cards.
If there is to be a wage and benefits freeze it should be completely universal.
While obviously Mrs Foxy and I would take any payrise, personally I would be fine with a public sector pay freeze. Indeed It should be universal across the public sector from the PM down, and also the Triple Lock suspended and all benefits frozen.
My private practice has run at a loss, as income is much reduced and expenses reduced by much less. I am down about 20% on overall annual income. I am however alive and still in work, indeed there is likely to be much overtime once the dust settles. There are folk much worse off than us.
A series of fair points, but would NHS cleaners and porters share your positive POV?
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector pay isn't all that different to the private sector.
Charles is right. A decade of very cheap borrowing is what's caused the problems with regards to housing.
I don't understand these comments.
Looking at the numbers (Nationwide and others), house prices, inflation and average income all seem to have risen at very nearly the same rate - that is 25-30% give or take from 2010 to 2020.
The "soaring house prices" is as imaginary as all the "soaring rents" claims we regularly see in media.
There are regional variations in house price increases, however. To which we seem to be having a small correction.
But on the whole house prices have risen by a quarter to a third, whilst in the 2000-2010 decade they more than doubled.
Public sector workers are usually at the front of the queue as a policy decision - key worker property schemes etc.
CNN News overnight say latest poll of Republican VOTERS identifies 70% back Trumps theories of a stolen election, fraud etc! It all seems to be building up to a situation where he refuses to go, will get some of his State legislatures to crowd the Electoral Voters with his cronies, supported by the Supreme Court, now he has a majority there. The opposition will come out onto the streets, he will declare a national curfew and martial law, he now has his pedople in the Pentagon and the coup will be complete, including the end to Press freedom. There may well be show trials for Romney, Obama and Biden with an internment camp somewhere in the Paciffic. A police state will follow.The odds on all this must be shortening by the day.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
Low interest rates and QE don't exist in a vacuum, they are there because of low inflation, which is mostly due to low wage inflation, some of which reflects public sector pay freezes. The point is, if you make the public sector a place where people who work hard in important jobs can't afford a house then are you going to get good people in the long run?
What has this got to do with public vs private sector?
ONS shows public sector workers, particularly those on the borderline between affording homeownership or not, (outside of London/SE where house prices are much higher) earn more than those in the private sector.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
Hose prices are not a public v private sector issue, they’re a we don’t build enough houses, and haven’t for decades issue.
In anther example of the slick PR we have come to expect from BoZo and chums, announcing a pay freeze for soldiers the day after announcing a humungous rise in defense spending is outstanding...
It's not really a 'humongous' rise. It basically covers the funding shortfall for existing capabilities identified by the NAO. There isn't much money for new capabilities like putting torpedoes on ASW frigates or building Tracy Island in Scotland.
Id expect they find a few million or ten to get "Public First" aka "Cronies First" to advise them how to spend it all wisely.
CNN News overnight say latest poll of Republican VOTERS identifies 70% back Trumps theories of a stolen election, fraud etc! It all seems to be building up to a situation where he refuses to go, will get some of his State legislatures to crowd the Electoral Voters with his cronies, supported by the Supreme Court, now he has a majority there. The opposition will come out onto the streets, he will declare a national curfew and martial law, he now has his pedople in the Pentagon and the coup will be complete, including the end to Press freedom. There may well be show trials for Romney, Obama and Biden with an internment camp somewhere in the Paciffic. A police state will follow.The odds on all this must be shortening by the day.
It is amazing how little people are concerned by this prospect. Although short of an actual armed coup I think the best he can do is obstruct the election process until Pelosi becomes acting president on 20th Jan.
CNN News overnight say latest poll of Republican VOTERS identifies 70% back Trumps theories of a stolen election, fraud etc! It all seems to be building up to a situation where he refuses to go, will get some of his State legislatures to crowd the Electoral Voters with his cronies, supported by the Supreme Court, now he has a majority there. The opposition will come out onto the streets, he will declare a national curfew and martial law, he now has his pedople in the Pentagon and the coup will be complete, including the end to Press freedom. There may well be show trials for Romney, Obama and Biden with an internment camp somewhere in the Paciffic. A police state will follow.The odds on all this must be shortening by the day.
In two sentences: The Democratic controlled House can stall on the ratification of dodgy EVs for as long as it likes. If unresolved by 20 January Pelosi becomes acting President.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
Quite - there are huge recruitment problems in many local councils (particularly in things like specialist finance roles) because the rates that can be commanded by agency staff are absolutely enormous. There are lower level staff being employed on rates significantly in excess of those who are managing them. Of course it is the entirely circular result of years of pay falling behind the private sector combined with the years of cuts piling ever increasing workloads on staff that remained.
What evidence do you have that private sector wages have outstripped public sector ones?
It's not private sector wages - it's market supply and demand.
For an Adult social worker doing contract work the market rate is between £32 and £40 an hour - which is £1200 to £1500 a week or £55,200 to £69,000 a year.
Looking at my local council website the salary is £28,672.00 - £34,728.00
And the contract worker can close the door and walk away at any time and does not need to deal with internal politics nor often half the paperwork council workers actually do.
This is true throughout whole sections of the public sector where the wages just haven't kept up with demand.
I'm sorry but please source the notion that a social care worker in the private sector is on £32 to £40 per hour?
Many will be on minimum wage.
Are you not talking about different things? A Social Worker is a social care worker but the vast majority of social care workers are not social workers. What I find surprising is that there is a private sector market for social workers. Presumably this is created by local authorities who cannot get enough social workers on their staff to meet the need in a similar way to contract nurses but I hadn't heard of it before.
I imagine it works in a similar way to supply teachers or locum doctors. There are posts that simply can't be filled at the standard rate.
Of course, free marketeers should know that. If you artificially constrain the price of something, whether is Soviet potatoes or physics teachers, the supply dries up. Increase the price you are prepared to pay, and supply suddenly appears.
Locums earn more per hour across the private sector too.
Doesn't mean the posts can't be filled at the standard rate. Especially when often locums are used to cover absences due to illness or other issues.
Or should supply teachers not exist because all schools should have sufficient spare staff not doing anything ready and waiting for a number of staff suddenly being sick or on maternity etc?
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
Low interest rates and QE don't exist in a vacuum, they are there because of low inflation, which is mostly due to low wage inflation, some of which reflects public sector pay freezes. The point is, if you make the public sector a place where people who work hard in important jobs can't afford a house then are you going to get good people in the long run?
What has this got to do with public vs private sector?
ONS shows public sector workers, particularly those on the borderline between affording homeownership or not, (outside of London/SE where house prices are much higher) earn more than those in the private sector.
Its a young vs old issue, rich parents vs not rich parents not a public vs private sector issue.
I can only offer you the example of my cousin who would have been much more able to save for a deposit if her salary and her husband's hadn't been deliberately pushed lower in real terms by the govt. If she had been a bit older or had access to rich parents then her story would be different too, of course. Ditto if we had built more houses, ditto if rich boomers weren't using BTL for their retirement, ditto if we had higher interest rates (although that would affect affordability in other ways).
Interesting that Richi has decided on a public sector freeze on wages but excluded the NHS. Those backing him for leader might think about cutting their losses now. It makes no sense. Some of the NHS worked well beyond the call of duty many didn't but the same applies to many other emergency service workers. It's another typical Johnson mess in the making but this time he's dragging Sunak in with him
I'm a civil servant. I have been paid throughout, even when I couldn't work, and I and my colleagues have had the opportunity for plenty of overtime, and as it turns out our 2.5% payrise in July was ahead of inflation. I've also been working from home, so saving on petrol, and this is likely to continue so a massive improvement in my terms and conditions going forward. Also our pensions are not affected by stock market falls. I have also saved lots of money due to the inability to spend it during lockdown, or go on holiday. While I haven't made money out of the pandemic I think I'm easy about the next couple of years.
I am a self employed advocate. In the period March to June, when the courts were largely shut, my income was cut by more than 40%. In fairness my costs fell too as I wasn't going anywhere so actual profits did not fall as much. After that, in July-September, I was earning more like 80% of normal and in the last couple of months I have been earning more like 120% as the courts are trying to catch up.
It's quite hard to judge how much my taxable income will have fallen this year over all but a rough guess is something like 20%. Personally I am grateful that the government allowed me to defer the tax that was due in July but I worry about catching up with that in January. Other than the deferment I have had no other government help. I think that those who have continued to draw their full salaries throughout, whether working or not, should appreciate their good fortune and the strain cost of the country continuing to pay those salaries when its income and tax take had fallen by something similar to mine.
I very much welcome that self awareness on the part of @JohnLilburne . I wish it was more widely shared.
Your self-employed so eligible for Sunak`s grants.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
Hose prices are not a public v private sector issue, they’re a we don’t build enough houses, and haven’t for decades issue.
There are broadly enough houses, its just in the last 20 years we have created a new class of highly leveraged portfolio landlords who will borrow as much as banks allow them to buy up anything they can, drive up prices and deprive others of home ownership.
They didn't use to exist and add nothing to the good of the market.
Interesting that Richi has decided on a public sector freeze on wages but excluded the NHS. Those backing him for leader might think about cutting their losses now. It makes no sense. Some of the NHS worked well beyond the call of duty many didn't but the same applies to many other emergency service workers. It's another typical Johnson mess in the making but this time he's dragging Sunak in with him
A lot of the public sector have barely worked since March
Pray tell more? Which public services have ceased to be provided since March allowing large numbers of public sector staff to stop working?
Many back office Departments within Local Authorities, I have given the example before of those that maintain or improve Council owned buildings. You would be amazed how many people are involved in that.
That's strange. I'm a Councillor, and all the Officers in our Local Authority have been absolutely maxed out. About half have been seconded to the LRF, of course, and the other half are expected to maintain normal services.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
Low interest rates and QE don't exist in a vacuum, they are there because of low inflation, which is mostly due to low wage inflation, some of which reflects public sector pay freezes. The point is, if you make the public sector a place where people who work hard in important jobs can't afford a house then are you going to get good people in the long run?
What has this got to do with public vs private sector?
ONS shows public sector workers, particularly those on the borderline between affording homeownership or not, (outside of London/SE where house prices are much higher) earn more than those in the private sector.
Its a young vs old issue, rich parents vs not rich parents not a public vs private sector issue.
I can only offer you the example of my cousin who would have been much more able to save for a deposit if her salary and her husband's hadn't been deliberately pushed lower in real terms by the govt. If she had been a bit older or had access to rich parents then her story would be different too, of course. Ditto if we had built more houses, ditto if rich boomers weren't using BTL for their retirement, ditto if we had higher interest rates (although that would affect affordability in other ways).
There are lots of private sector workers who can't afford to buy as well! A sample of one public sector cannot be used as a sensible argument for why its a public vs private sector issue.
I completely agree housing affordability is a massive issue, but can't see where the public vs private angle comes in at all.
Spoilers suppressed for Andy'ds sake! Thank you very much. So episode 2 in the convent is a flashback, even though shown in parallel with Rolf 5 years later? That's what threw me.
And yes, suspended sentence is right! I did spot FF early on too...
There was a lot of speculation on Danish blogs about a series 2 and the author said he was discussing it, but the last posts about it were last year so I think they've decided to move on. The author says he's thinking of doing a crime-farce next, which sounds like a waste of unique talent to me, but I'll try anything he does.
While obviously Mrs Foxy and I would take any payrise, personally I would be fine with a public sector pay freeze. Indeed It should be universal across the public sector from the PM down, and also the Triple Lock suspended and all benefits frozen.
My private practice has run at a loss, as income is much reduced and expenses reduced by much less. I am down about 20% on overall annual income. I am however alive and still in work, indeed there is likely to be much overtime once the dust settles. There are folk much worse off than us.
A series of fair points, but would NHS cleaners and porters share your positive POV?
Perhaps not, but there has been quite an uplift in minimum wage in recent years, and inflation is near zero, indeed perhaps deflation is on the cards.
If there is to be a wage and benefits freeze it should be completely universal.
Pensions are going to be the tricky one.
Freeze them? Ouch, especially given the age profile of the Conservative vote.
Let them rise? Ouch if most wages are frozen.
Disengage the triple lock? Necessary, but Boris doesn't want to do even that.
Unintentional racism is certainly less bad than intentional racism, similarly unintentional bullying is less bad the deliberate bullying. If it was someone new to management then a warning might indeed be sufficient, but she has had previous as a minister, and experience of management roles in the private sector so it simply is not credible she was unaware her actions were bullying.
Quite. I will be fascinated to see how it defends her by saying she's too dumb to realise she bullies people. Always a desperate move to use that defence
The whole notion of unintentional bullying is hilarious. I can just imagine it:
So, when you shouted at civil servants and belittled them in public, were you bullying them? No, that was not my intention. I demand high standards. So the bullying was not intentional? Absolutely not. Okay, that's fine then. Thank you.
Reflecting on the enjoyable discussion last night of the Danish DNA series, I realise that I don't fully understand the subplots, possibly because of timeline shifts. (spoiler alert) There's the lost girl Minna, the hero's daughter Andrea, and the girl whose child is taken in the convent. The hero and the rotund villain take the boat to Poland to investigate Minna's disappearance and the girl snatches Andrea. Apparently later, but I suppose earlier, we see the girl losing her child. There was something about the guy who took Minna finding her dead and rather than admitting it taking another child. But how does this fit together? Why does the girl think that Andrea is her child?
As I see it:
They took Julieta's (sp!) child from her at the convent to give to the power institute couple (PIC) but it died naturally. Hence because they were scared of telling anyone they abducted Minna and gave her to the PIC who didn't want her hence she was "sent back" (the scene we see outside the monastry in the car) and then given to her eventual adoptive parents. It should have been Julieta's baby but was Minna instead.
Julieta didn't know her baby had died and so tracked down the policeman couple via his wife and confronted them and then, when she was sent away, she followed the policeman when he went with Rolf to Poland and, seeing they had a baby girl, Andrea, assumed that was her own child. Hence she took it back. The bent copper then to shut her up gave her forged papers for the baby.
So: Minna - rejected by PIC went to adoptive parents then finally to birth mother Julieta's daughter - taken away from her at the Convent but died naturally later before being given to PIC (ie she wasn't then given to the PIC!!) Andrea - taken by Julieta who thought it was her daughter (or didn't care that it wasn't now that I come to think about it) and stayed with her at the new convent, and was specifically not reclaimed by Rolf.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector pay isn't all that different to the private sector.
Charles is right. A decade of very cheap borrowing is what's caused the problems with regards to housing.
For equivalent roles in technical subjects? The pay is different by a long, long way. A small number of prestige jobs drag the public sector mean up and the wholesale transfer of low paid jobs like cleaning to outsourced companies take the lowest 20% out of the public sector. This idea that pUbLiC SecToR PaiD MoRe doesn’t wash when you compare like for like. I’m seriously pissed off because I only started a public sector role in April, taking a pay cut to do so, worked throughout lockdown on nationally important projects and I’m now told I’m not worth a decent pay rise by a fucking investment banker with a £300 coffee cup. Fuck off.
It's a political decision which doesn't reflect on you personally - important to remember that and not let Tories get you down!
When I worked in the public sector, I knew I was getting less than friends in comparable private sector jobs, but knowing that my work was making a difference/serving the country & community me made up for it.
Reflecting on the enjoyable discussion last night of the Danish DNA series, I realise that I don't fully understand the subplots, possibly because of timeline shifts. (spoiler alert) There's the lost girl Minna, the hero's daughter Andrea, and the girl whose child is taken in the convent. The hero and the rotund villain take the boat to Poland to investigate Minna's disappearance and the girl snatches Andrea. Apparently later, but I suppose earlier, we see the girl losing her child. There was something about the guy who took Minna finding her dead and rather than admitting it taking another child. But how does this fit together? Why does the girl think that Andrea is her child?
As I see it:
They took Julieta's (sp!) child from her at the convent to give to the power institute couple (PIC) but it died naturally. Hence because they were scared of telling anyone they abducted Minna and gave her to the PIC who didn't want her hence she was "sent back" (the scene we see outside the monastry in the car) and then given to her eventual adoptive parents. It should have been Julieta's baby but was Minna instead.
Julieta didn't know her baby had died and so tracked down the policeman couple via his wife and confronted them and then, when she was sent away, she followed the policeman when he went with Rolf to Poland and, seeing they had a baby girl, Andrea, assumed that was her own child. Hence she took it back. The bent copper then to shut her up gave her forged papers for the baby.
So: Minna - rejected by PIC went to adoptive parents then finally to birth mother Julieta's daughter - taken away from her at the Convent but died naturally later before being given to PIC Andrea - taken by Julieta who thought it was her daughter (or didn't care that it wasn't now that I come to think about it) and stayed with her at the new convent, and was specifically not reclaimed by Rolf.
Is it worth watching, Topping? We seem to like the same things.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
Low interest rates and QE don't exist in a vacuum, they are there because of low inflation, which is mostly due to low wage inflation, some of which reflects public sector pay freezes. The point is, if you make the public sector a place where people who work hard in important jobs can't afford a house then are you going to get good people in the long run?
It's not just wages that drive smart, talented people away from the public sector though. Even if I got the same money to work for a government department I wouldn't bother because I know that nothing I do will make any difference. In my current job I have huge decision making responsibilities and all of my team members have input into that process and they regularly see the fruits of their own labour in my decisions, it's why they like working for my company because they can get the same wages from a lot of other places.
In the CS there no job, no position which gives that kind of job satisfaction, where I can point to something and say "I did that" or "I was a part of that" because nothing ever really changes and the CS remit is managed decline. Very few people want to be part of that kind of workplace, it makes working there very depressing knowing that ultimately any small improvement you might contribute is going to be overwhelmed by seniority making long term choices of managed decline.
So it's not just about money, I'm sure it would help but the larger issue is that people aren't attracted to work in a culture of managed decline. Take a look at WPP as a very good example of this in the private sector, it's like rats off a sinking ship and they gave got huge recruitment problems even in the middle of a jobs crisis. The wages are good from what I've been told but they can't fill positions due to lack of suitable applicants.
To be fair if I was the target of a racist conspiracy theory I'd probably be pretty miffed at the most famous peddler of the racist conspiracy theory as well.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
Hose prices are not a public v private sector issue, they’re a we don’t build enough houses, and haven’t for decades issue.
There are broadly enough houses, its just in the last 20 years we have created a new class of highly leveraged portfolio landlords who will borrow as much as banks allow them to buy up anything they can, drive up prices and deprive others of home ownership.
They didn't use to exist and add nothing to the good of the market.
Build more houses > prices fall > investors and their financial backers start to sell. Win-win.
There’s no solution that doesn’t involve more houses. Lots more houses.
Interesting that Richi has decided on a public sector freeze on wages but excluded the NHS. Those backing him for leader might think about cutting their losses now. It makes no sense. Some of the NHS worked well beyond the call of duty many didn't but the same applies to many other emergency service workers. It's another typical Johnson mess in the making but this time he's dragging Sunak in with him
I'm a civil servant. I have been paid throughout, even when I couldn't work, and I and my colleagues have had the opportunity for plenty of overtime, and as it turns out our 2.5% payrise in July was ahead of inflation. I've also been working from home, so saving on petrol, and this is likely to continue so a massive improvement in my terms and conditions going forward. Also our pensions are not affected by stock market falls. I have also saved lots of money due to the inability to spend it during lockdown, or go on holiday. While I haven't made money out of the pandemic I think I'm easy about the next couple of years.
I am a self employed advocate. In the period March to June, when the courts were largely shut, my income was cut by more than 40%. In fairness my costs fell too as I wasn't going anywhere so actual profits did not fall as much. After that, in July-September, I was earning more like 80% of normal and in the last couple of months I have been earning more like 120% as the courts are trying to catch up.
It's quite hard to judge how much my taxable income will have fallen this year over all but a rough guess is something like 20%. Personally I am grateful that the government allowed me to defer the tax that was due in July but I worry about catching up with that in January. Other than the deferment I have had no other government help. I think that those who have continued to draw their full salaries throughout, whether working or not, should appreciate their good fortune and the strain cost of the country continuing to pay those salaries when its income and tax take had fallen by something similar to mine.
I very much welcome that self awareness on the part of @JohnLilburne . I wish it was more widely shared.
Your self-employed so eligible for Sunak`s grants.
Aren't these capped?
A pattern I have seen in several known to me is income 50% down due to be being furloughed at 80% of basic, where 1/3 of the previous income was overtime.
Most public sector known to me still receive 100%, but that may not be universal; I am sure there are similar cases.
Reflecting on the enjoyable discussion last night of the Danish DNA series, I realise that I don't fully understand the subplots, possibly because of timeline shifts. (spoiler alert) There's the lost girl Minna, the hero's daughter Andrea, and the girl whose child is taken in the convent. The hero and the rotund villain take the boat to Poland to investigate Minna's disappearance and the girl snatches Andrea. Apparently later, but I suppose earlier, we see the girl losing her child. There was something about the guy who took Minna finding her dead and rather than admitting it taking another child. But how does this fit together? Why does the girl think that Andrea is her child?
As I see it:
They took Julieta's (sp!) child from her at the convent to give to the power institute couple (PIC) but it died naturally. Hence because they were scared of telling anyone they abducted Minna and gave her to the PIC who didn't want her hence she was "sent back" (the scene we see outside the monastry in the car) and then given to her eventual adoptive parents. It should have been Julieta's baby but was Minna instead.
Julieta didn't know her baby had died and so tracked down the policeman couple via his wife and confronted them and then, when she was sent away, she followed the policeman when he went with Rolf to Poland and, seeing they had a baby girl, Andrea, assumed that was her own child. Hence she took it back. The bent copper then to shut her up gave her forged papers for the baby.
So: Minna - rejected by PIC went to adoptive parents then finally to birth mother Julieta's daughter - taken away from her at the Convent but died naturally later before being given to PIC Andrea - taken by Julieta who thought it was her daughter (or didn't care that it wasn't now that I come to think about it) and stayed with her at the new convent, and was specifically not reclaimed by Rolf.
Is it worth watching, Topping? We seem to like the same things.
Definitely - a good, solid crime drama.
Something in the Scandi DNA that produces tight, authentic such dramas. I thought The Bridge was extremely good and liked also (albeit the US version of) The Killing.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
Quite - there are huge recruitment problems in many local councils (particularly in things like specialist finance roles) because the rates that can be commanded by agency staff are absolutely enormous. There are lower level staff being employed on rates significantly in excess of those who are managing them. Of course it is the entirely circular result of years of pay falling behind the private sector combined with the years of cuts piling ever increasing workloads on staff that remained.
What evidence do you have that private sector wages have outstripped public sector ones?
It's not private sector wages - it's market supply and demand.
For an Adult social worker doing contract work the market rate is between £32 and £40 an hour - which is £1200 to £1500 a week or £55,200 to £69,000 a year.
Looking at my local council website the salary is £28,672.00 - £34,728.00
And the contract worker can close the door and walk away at any time and does not need to deal with internal politics nor often half the paperwork council workers actually do.
This is true throughout whole sections of the public sector where the wages just haven't kept up with demand.
I'm sorry but please source the notion that a social care worker in the private sector is on £32 to £40 per hour?
Many will be on minimum wage.
Are you not talking about different things? A Social Worker is a social care worker but the vast majority of social care workers are not social workers. What I find surprising is that there is a private sector market for social workers. Presumably this is created by local authorities who cannot get enough social workers on their staff to meet the need in a similar way to contract nurses but I hadn't heard of it before.
I imagine it works in a similar way to supply teachers or locum doctors. There are posts that simply can't be filled at the standard rate.
Of course, free marketeers should know that. If you artificially constrain the price of something, whether is Soviet potatoes or physics teachers, the supply dries up. Increase the price you are prepared to pay, and supply suddenly appears.
Locums earn more per hour across the private sector too.
Doesn't mean the posts can't be filled at the standard rate. Especially when often locums are used to cover absences due to illness or other issues.
Or should supply teachers not exist because all schools should have sufficient spare staff not doing anything ready and waiting for a number of staff suddenly being sick or on maternity etc?
But the issue isn't short-term cover. It's when long-term substantive posts aren't fillable in the normal way and so organisations have to buy in locums, supply staff, consultants etc. Not for emergencies or special projects, but to get the routine work done.
In some public sector organisations, that happens a lot.
CNN News overnight say latest poll of Republican VOTERS identifies 70% back Trumps theories of a stolen election, fraud etc! It all seems to be building up to a situation where he refuses to go, will get some of his State legislatures to crowd the Electoral Voters with his cronies, supported by the Supreme Court, now he has a majority there. The opposition will come out onto the streets, he will declare a national curfew and martial law, he now has his pedople in the Pentagon and the coup will be complete, including the end to Press freedom. There may well be show trials for Romney, Obama and Biden with an internment camp somewhere in the Paciffic. A police state will follow.The odds on all this must be shortening by the day.
It is amazing how little people are concerned by this prospect. Although short of an actual armed coup I think the best he can do is obstruct the election process until Pelosi becomes acting president on 20th Jan.
Are people really as unconcerned as you suggest ? As you point out, it's an unlikely scenario, but it is far from impossible. And some people are calling it what it is.
It's a hard balance to strike, though, as it has to go alongside the message that Biden has won the election, and the outcome is not in doubt. Give too much public credence to the threat of Trump stealing it, and there is a danger of encouraging that doubt about the ability of US institutions to resist him. And it's important that individuals have that confidence - as we saw with the GOP lady on the Wayne County board, if they think things are still in doubt, they can buckle to pressure.
But certainly, under Trump, the Republican party is a nascent fascist party. And more people ought to be saying so.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
Low interest rates and QE don't exist in a vacuum, they are there because of low inflation, which is mostly due to low wage inflation, some of which reflects public sector pay freezes. The point is, if you make the public sector a place where people who work hard in important jobs can't afford a house then are you going to get good people in the long run?
It's not just wages that drive smart, talented people away from the public sector though. Even if I got the same money to work for a government department I wouldn't bother because I know that nothing I do will make any difference. In my current job I have huge decision making responsibilities and all of my team members have input into that process and they regularly see the fruits of their own labour in my decisions, it's why they like working for my company because they can get the same wages from a lot of other places.
In the CS there no job, no position which gives that kind of job satisfaction, where I can point to something and say "I did that" or "I was a part of that" because nothing ever really changes and the CS remit is managed decline. Very few people want to be part of that kind of workplace, it makes working there very depressing knowing that ultimately any small improvement you might contribute is going to be overwhelmed by seniority making long term choices of managed decline.
So it's not just about money, I'm sure it would help but the larger issue is that people aren't attracted to work in a culture of managed decline. Take a look at WPP as a very good example of this in the private sector, it's like rats off a sinking ship and they gave got huge recruitment problems even in the middle of a jobs crisis. The wages are good from what I've been told but they can't fill positions due to lack of suitable applicants.
Your portrayal of the Civil Service is not one I recognise. In my role, I had significant power and made a real difference. I worked with many very talented people. The culture was one of continuous improvement rather than managed decline. Sure, the bureaucracy sometimes gets in the way. But your denigration of the Civil Service is unjustified. Are you a friend of Dom's?
Interesting that Richi has decided on a public sector freeze on wages but excluded the NHS. Those backing him for leader might think about cutting their losses now. It makes no sense. Some of the NHS worked well beyond the call of duty many didn't but the same applies to many other emergency service workers. It's another typical Johnson mess in the making but this time he's dragging Sunak in with him
I'm a civil servant. I have been paid throughout, even when I couldn't work, and I and my colleagues have had the opportunity for plenty of overtime, and as it turns out our 2.5% payrise in July was ahead of inflation. I've also been working from home, so saving on petrol, and this is likely to continue so a massive improvement in my terms and conditions going forward. Also our pensions are not affected by stock market falls. I have also saved lots of money due to the inability to spend it during lockdown, or go on holiday. While I haven't made money out of the pandemic I think I'm easy about the next couple of years.
I am a self employed advocate. In the period March to June, when the courts were largely shut, my income was cut by more than 40%. In fairness my costs fell too as I wasn't going anywhere so actual profits did not fall as much. After that, in July-September, I was earning more like 80% of normal and in the last couple of months I have been earning more like 120% as the courts are trying to catch up.
It's quite hard to judge how much my taxable income will have fallen this year over all but a rough guess is something like 20%. Personally I am grateful that the government allowed me to defer the tax that was due in July but I worry about catching up with that in January. Other than the deferment I have had no other government help. I think that those who have continued to draw their full salaries throughout, whether working or not, should appreciate their good fortune and the strain cost of the country continuing to pay those salaries when its income and tax take had fallen by something similar to mine.
I very much welcome that self awareness on the part of @JohnLilburne . I wish it was more widely shared.
I'm an academic. Pay freeze, but I've been working throughout (from home) on full pay and saved money in commuting costs. No complaints. Senior management team have all taken pay cuts too, VC at 20%, and there have been voluntary severance schemes. There's a lot of uncertainty in the sector, although financially things don't seem as bad as feared for us (we've traditionally underperformed similar ranked universities in pulling in overseas students, but that also means we're not as badly hit as some).
Regarding @JohnLilburne 's point about pensions, that is likely to be the kicker for us - there were problems and disputes before and the system will come under more strain from stock market losses, our pension is defined benefit but, unlike true public service pensions, does have to be funded. There's already a large deficit - arguments between employers and unions largely about how large depending on which assumptions - with my employer and me collectively paying in ~30%(!) of my salary (planned to rise to 34% next year). Any downturn may push a breaking system well beyond breaking point. Expect some tough decisions and likely more strikes to follow, which will compound what has been a pretty poor, in spite of best efforts, delivery of teaching to students
CNN News overnight say latest poll of Republican VOTERS identifies 70% back Trumps theories of a stolen election, fraud etc! It all seems to be building up to a situation where he refuses to go, will get some of his State legislatures to crowd the Electoral Voters with his cronies, supported by the Supreme Court, now he has a majority there. The opposition will come out onto the streets, he will declare a national curfew and martial law, he now has his pedople in the Pentagon and the coup will be complete, including the end to Press freedom. There may well be show trials for Romney, Obama and Biden with an internment camp somewhere in the Paciffic. A police state will follow.The odds on all this must be shortening by the day.
In two sentences: The Democratic controlled House can stall on the ratification of dodgy EVs for as long as it likes. If unresolved by 20 January Pelosi becomes acting President.
The fact that we are at the point of relying on the fact the Dems narrowly held onto their House majority to be really sure that the Republicans won't steal an election shows how far gone the Republican Party is.
Watching Obama last night on the BBC (free half hour of advertising for his book you might say) he did come across so well. Cameron and Blair did too in their time, but I think why these smooth types end up leaving chaos behind is their inability to resist sniping at their more explosive rivals (Trump/Farage/Leave) whilst selling themselves as moderate and reasonable. It pushes people towards the extremes, and I think Starmer is making the same error with Corbyn. It is for the likes of Farage/Trump and Jez to purge, not moderate centrist types
That was a stupid thing of Obama. What really showed his character though was the look in his eyes at the end.
And what look would that be ?
Basically, a deep loathing and almost hatred. You may argue Trump deserved it but it’s the sort of reaction you’d expect from a Trump not someone like Obama who is supposed to be of the “when they go low etc etc” kind.
Plus I didn’t like the “will never be President” bit. That’s up to the voters, not Obama. Even Pelosi paid lip service to that when she mentioned that Trump would never be President
Sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you.
Interesting that Richi has decided on a public sector freeze on wages but excluded the NHS. Those backing him for leader might think about cutting their losses now. It makes no sense. Some of the NHS worked well beyond the call of duty many didn't but the same applies to many other emergency service workers. It's another typical Johnson mess in the making but this time he's dragging Sunak in with him
A lot of the public sector have barely worked since March
Pray tell more? Which public services have ceased to be provided since March allowing large numbers of public sector staff to stop working?
Many back office Departments within Local Authorities, I have given the example before of those that maintain or improve Council owned buildings. You would be amazed how many people are involved in that.
In the real world of actual voting, this was a council by-election result from Scotland last night.
Clackmannanshire East C 1,226 (51.2%) SNP 766 (32.0%) Labour 195 (8.1%) Green 139 (5.8%) Lib Dem 69 (2.9%)
Yes, that's right, 1,200 voters actually put their cross in the Tory box despite everything.
Tory vote share up 10%, SNP up 2%, Lab down 12%
Tory vote also held up remarkably well in other Scottish by-elections recently.
You are HYUFD and I claim my £5! More seriously, that looks rather like a straight Labour > Tory shift. Which is instils notable.
No, I don't really think so. The unionist Lab vote had already largely switched to the Tories by the time of the last council elections. As the remaining Lab vote continues to crumble it seems to be going just as much to SNP, if not more. I think its more to do with turnout with Unionists determined to vote for their man (or woman).
What makes the result a bit surprising is that May 2017 - when this seat was last fought - was very much peak Tory. A month later and they won 13 seats across Scotland in the General Election, 7 of which were lost last December.
My deduction is that Scotland is moving in different directions. Urban areas moving to SNP and Tories consolidating in rural areas where they are traditionally strong. Same trend elsewhere in UK, of course.
Taken in isolation the case for public sector pay restraint this year is strong. Unprecedented crisis, low inflation, no idea what state the public finances will be in when the vaccines have been deployed and this is past.
However, there has been almost unbroken pay restraint in parts of the public sector since about 2006. This has consequences in terms of being able to recruit the right people, and can be a false economy when it leaves you reliant on expensive consultants whenever you want, or need, to get something different done.
My cousin works for her local council, her husband is a teacher. They have two small children. They're desperate to be able to buy their own home, sick of renting. A decade of public sector pay freezes explains why they're stuck paying someone else's mortgage. They're good people, working hard doing essential work. Don't they deserve to make a reasonable living?
The issue is house prices not wages
House prices are where they are because they are affordable to those with a private sector salary and access to Bank of mum and dad. Putting public sector workers at the back of the queue is a policy decision.
Public sector workers might have a Bank of Mum and Dad and private sector workers might find such a bank illiquid.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
Low interest rates and QE don't exist in a vacuum, they are there because of low inflation, which is mostly due to low wage inflation, some of which reflects public sector pay freezes. The point is, if you make the public sector a place where people who work hard in important jobs can't afford a house then are you going to get good people in the long run?
What has this got to do with public vs private sector?
ONS shows public sector workers, particularly those on the borderline between affording homeownership or not, (outside of London/SE where house prices are much higher) earn more than those in the private sector.
Its a young vs old issue, rich parents vs not rich parents not a public vs private sector issue.
I can only offer you the example of my cousin who would have been much more able to save for a deposit if her salary and her husband's hadn't been deliberately pushed lower in real terms by the govt. If she had been a bit older or had access to rich parents then her story would be different too, of course. Ditto if we had built more houses, ditto if rich boomers weren't using BTL for their retirement, ditto if we had higher interest rates (although that would affect affordability in other ways).
There are lots of private sector workers who can't afford to buy as well! A sample of one public sector cannot be used as a sensible argument for why its a public vs private sector issue.
I completely agree housing affordability is a massive issue, but can't see where the public vs private angle comes in at all.
Because real wages in the public sector have been forced down by govt policy, making houses harder to afford for public sector workers.
Interesting that Richi has decided on a public sector freeze on wages but excluded the NHS. Those backing him for leader might think about cutting their losses now. It makes no sense. Some of the NHS worked well beyond the call of duty many didn't but the same applies to many other emergency service workers. It's another typical Johnson mess in the making but this time he's dragging Sunak in with him
I'm a civil servant. I have been paid throughout, even when I couldn't work, and I and my colleagues have had the opportunity for plenty of overtime, and as it turns out our 2.5% payrise in July was ahead of inflation. I've also been working from home, so saving on petrol, and this is likely to continue so a massive improvement in my terms and conditions going forward. Also our pensions are not affected by stock market falls. I have also saved lots of money due to the inability to spend it during lockdown, or go on holiday. While I haven't made money out of the pandemic I think I'm easy about the next couple of years.
I am a self employed advocate. In the period March to June, when the courts were largely shut, my income was cut by more than 40%. In fairness my costs fell too as I wasn't going anywhere so actual profits did not fall as much. After that, in July-September, I was earning more like 80% of normal and in the last couple of months I have been earning more like 120% as the courts are trying to catch up.
It's quite hard to judge how much my taxable income will have fallen this year over all but a rough guess is something like 20%. Personally I am grateful that the government allowed me to defer the tax that was due in July but I worry about catching up with that in January. Other than the deferment I have had no other government help. I think that those who have continued to draw their full salaries throughout, whether working or not, should appreciate their good fortune and the strain cost of the country continuing to pay those salaries when its income and tax take had fallen by something similar to mine.
I very much welcome that self awareness on the part of @JohnLilburne . I wish it was more widely shared.
Your self-employed so eligible for Sunak`s grants.
Aren't these capped?
A pattern I have seen in several known to me is income 50% down due to be being furloughed at 80% of basic, where 1/3 of the previous income was overtime.
Most public sector known to me still receive 100%, but that may not be universal; I am sure there are similar cases.
Not easy for anyone.
You say "50% down due to be being furloughed" - only employees can be furloughed. I`m talking about the S/E scheme.
80% 3 months in spring, then 70%, then 20% etc. Capped at these levels or £2500 pm whichever is lower.
Spoilers suppressed for Andy'ds sake! Thank you very much. So episode 2 in the convent is a flashback, even though shown in parallel with Rolf 5 years later? That's what threw me.
And yes, suspended sentence is right! I did spot FF early on too...
There was a lot of speculation on Danish blogs about a series 2 and the author said he was discussing it, but the last posts about it were last year so I think they've decided to move on. The author says he's thinking of doing a crime-farce next, which sounds like a waste of unique talent to me, but I'll try anything he does.
Yes I think they needed to do more to clarify events happening now vs five years ago. Perhaps Danes are more attentive TV watchers than we are (shorter working hours so less tired in the evening?) Making it an international investigation and so credibly having a lot of English dialogue was smart. I saw that it had some US money behind it which would explain that. I wonder if they showed it in Poland? The criticisms of the Catholic Church were pretty explicit.
Comments
Is he joking? This is the man who tried to hire a hit man for his chum Dominic Guppy
Many will be on minimum wage.
Incidentally, I'd have thought white men would be in a good position to get Brexit, since whiteness and maleness were both highly significant correlators of voting Leave. [Alabrese et al 2018]
Unless there's a dodgy brother in Barnard Castle as well ?
It wasn't Minna who dies - we see her reunited with her birth mother at the end, and Rolf sees it is not a simple happy ending. It's the Polish girl Julietta (?) whose baby dies of a form of SIDS when she is with the kidnappers. She follows the clues to the house of the guy who we called the Fat Fuck (not v PC sorry) and then sees Rolf leaving with a baby. She thinks it is her baby, who was last seen with FF's Polish wife. She follows them to the ferry and takes Andrea, Rolf's baby, thinking it is hers.
A really great series and very affecting ending, I hope Rolf gets a suspended sentence, he didn't do anything that any other father wouldn't do. Only criticism maybe that FF a bit too obviously signposted as a baddie from the start.
Now we can get back to the Crown and watch Mangrove too. Lots of good telly right now!
When a teacher starts trading insults with a badly behaved, foul mouthed pupil they lose authority, and people who were 60/40 on the teachers side can go 60/40 for the pupil
We were learning they were sleazy.
Now we find out they are also nasty with it.
And still the fanbois cheer...
(Edited to remove the question mark from my previous reply.)
https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1329646432958156801
https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1329646439434248194
(Childcare! Are you teaching them to type?)
Frankly a lot of people are going to have to accept pay freezes for years I should think. I expect to and can't even really object it seems sound.
There's a deal to be done here - public sector restraint for sure, but with commitments to:
- improve professional status and pay in named areas (e.g. care workers) where the job done is undervalued at the moment
- improve workplace conditions and tackle casual disrespect within councils
- Extend professional registration to all staff who make decisions over the public, not just nurses, doctors, teachers, lawyers etc and have the power to strike off those who engage in statistical or administrative malpractice against the general public - these generally will be the people souring the atmosphere within as well as without.
In Q3 the economy bounced back 15% but the public sector was still (rightly) spending money wildly. Many, most businesses are still down a significant amount. Something like 1m people have now lost their jobs with probably another million to come. How many of these were in the public sector?
Of course you are right that some public sector organisations will be facing unprecedented demand for their services and will be struggling to find the money to fund that but I do think that there is a major difference of outcomes here for their staff.
Plus I didn’t like the “will never be President” bit. That’s up to the voters, not Obama. Even Pelosi paid lip service to that when she mentioned that Trump would never be President
Charles is right. A decade of very cheap borrowing is what's caused the problems with regards to housing.
House prices are not public vs private sector issue, but a problem of low interest rates, QE and state subsidies creating a perpetual and widespread belief that "You cant go wrong with houses, they dont build land anymore".
It is not just damaging for the younger generations, whether in public or private sector employment, but also bad for UK plc as investment in new businesses is shunned for property investment.
My private practice has run at a loss, as income is much reduced and expenses reduced by much less. I am down about 20% on overall annual income. I am however alive and still in work, indeed there is likely to be much overtime once the dust settles. There are folk much worse off than us.
Of course, free marketeers should know that. If you artificially constrain the price of something, whether is Soviet potatoes or physics teachers, the supply dries up. Increase the price you are prepared to pay, and supply suddenly appears.
The point is, if you make the public sector a place where people who work hard in important jobs can't afford a house then are you going to get good people in the long run?
https://twitter.com/stevebakerhw/status/1329707981982855168?s=21
And these slights started no later than when Barack Obama had the temerity to be born black in the USA.
In the real world of actual voting, this was a council by-election result from Scotland last night.
Clackmannanshire East
C 1,226 (51.2%)
SNP 766 (32.0%)
Labour 195 (8.1%)
Green 139 (5.8%)
Lib Dem 69 (2.9%)
Yes, that's right, 1,200 voters actually put their cross in the Tory box despite everything.
Tory vote share up 10%, SNP up 2%, Lab down 12%
Tory vote also held up remarkably well in other Scottish by-elections recently.
The idea that is the "private sector going rate" is mad. If you want to compare public sector full time employees to private sector wages then look at private sector full time employees. And the closest equivalent I can think of is social care and for social care that's more likely to be minimum wage than more than it is to be more than public sector wages.
Commuting is a terrible waste of time and energy - bad for individuals, bad for the environment, bad for productivity.
Of course taxes will have to rise, but trying to use them as a means of stopping progress is very short-sighted.
If there is to be a wage and benefits freeze it should be completely universal.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-public-sector-workers-face-pay-freeze-to-plug-gap-left-by-virus-spending-12136852
"Only frontline NHS doctors and nurses will be exempt from the cap in recognition of their work during the coronavirus pandemic, The Times said."
Looking at the numbers (Nationwide and others), house prices, inflation and average income all seem to have risen at very nearly the same rate - that is 25-30% give or take from 2010 to 2020.
The "soaring house prices" is as imaginary as all the "soaring rents" claims we regularly see in media.
There are regional variations in house price increases, however. To which we seem to be having a small correction.
But on the whole house prices have risen by a quarter to a third, whilst in the 2000-2010 decade they more than doubled.
Public sector workers are usually at the front of the queue as a policy decision - key worker property schemes etc.
It all seems to be building up to a situation where he refuses to go, will get some of his State legislatures to crowd the Electoral Voters with his cronies, supported by the Supreme Court, now he has a majority there. The opposition will come out onto the streets, he will declare a national curfew and martial law, he now has his pedople in the Pentagon and the coup will be complete, including the end to Press freedom.
There may well be show trials for Romney, Obama and Biden with an internment camp somewhere in the Paciffic. A police state will follow.The odds on all this must be shortening by the day.
ONS shows public sector workers, particularly those on the borderline between affording homeownership or not, (outside of London/SE where house prices are much higher) earn more than those in the private sector.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/publicandprivatesectorearnings/2019
Its a young vs old issue, rich parents vs not rich parents not a public vs private sector issue.
More seriously, that looks rather like a straight Labour > Tory shift. Which is instils notable.
Posted on PB a couple of days ago, here's why:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6sVow9l8H4&feature=youtu.be
In two sentences: The Democratic controlled House can stall on the ratification of dodgy EVs for as long as it likes. If unresolved by 20 January Pelosi becomes acting President.
Doesn't mean the posts can't be filled at the standard rate. Especially when often locums are used to cover absences due to illness or other issues.
Or should supply teachers not exist because all schools should have sufficient spare staff not doing anything ready and waiting for a number of staff suddenly being sick or on maternity etc?
https://twitter.com/CNNSitRoom/status/1329578668948140032
They didn't use to exist and add nothing to the good of the market.
I completely agree housing affordability is a massive issue, but can't see where the public vs private angle comes in at all.
Freeze them? Ouch, especially given the age profile of the Conservative vote.
Let them rise? Ouch if most wages are frozen.
Disengage the triple lock? Necessary, but Boris doesn't want to do even that.
So, when you shouted at civil servants and belittled them in public, were you bullying them?
No, that was not my intention. I demand high standards.
So the bullying was not intentional?
Absolutely not.
Okay, that's fine then. Thank you.
I'm sure Covid data wranglers got really angry back at the start of the year when people used by reporting date numbers.
They took Julieta's (sp!) child from her at the convent to give to the power institute couple (PIC) but it died naturally. Hence because they were scared of telling anyone they abducted Minna and gave her to the PIC who didn't want her hence she was "sent back" (the scene we see outside the monastry in the car) and then given to her eventual adoptive parents. It should have been Julieta's baby but was Minna instead.
Julieta didn't know her baby had died and so tracked down the policeman couple via his wife and confronted them and then, when she was sent away, she followed the policeman when he went with Rolf to Poland and, seeing they had a baby girl, Andrea, assumed that was her own child. Hence she took it back. The bent copper then to shut her up gave her forged papers for the baby.
So:
Minna - rejected by PIC went to adoptive parents then finally to birth mother
Julieta's daughter - taken away from her at the Convent but died naturally later before being given to PIC (ie she wasn't then given to the PIC!!)
Andrea - taken by Julieta who thought it was her daughter (or didn't care that it wasn't now that I come to think about it) and stayed with her at the new convent, and was specifically not reclaimed by Rolf.
When I worked in the public sector, I knew I was getting less than friends in comparable private sector jobs, but knowing that my work was making a difference/serving the country & community me made up for it.
In the CS there no job, no position which gives that kind of job satisfaction, where I can point to something and say "I did that" or "I was a part of that" because nothing ever really changes and the CS remit is managed decline. Very few people want to be part of that kind of workplace, it makes working there very depressing knowing that ultimately any small improvement you might contribute is going to be overwhelmed by seniority making long term choices of managed decline.
So it's not just about money, I'm sure it would help but the larger issue is that people aren't attracted to work in a culture of managed decline. Take a look at WPP as a very good example of this in the private sector, it's like rats off a sinking ship and they gave got huge recruitment problems even in the middle of a jobs crisis. The wages are good from what I've been told but they can't fill positions due to lack of suitable applicants.
There’s no solution that doesn’t involve more houses. Lots more houses.
NEW THREAD
A pattern I have seen in several known to me is income 50% down due to be being furloughed at 80% of basic, where 1/3 of the previous income was overtime.
Most public sector known to me still receive 100%, but that may not be universal; I am sure there are similar cases.
Not easy for anyone.
Something in the Scandi DNA that produces tight, authentic such dramas. I thought The Bridge was extremely good and liked also (albeit the US version of) The Killing.
In some public sector organisations, that happens a lot.
As you point out, it's an unlikely scenario, but it is far from impossible. And some people are calling it what it is.
https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/1329629701447573504
It's a hard balance to strike, though, as it has to go alongside the message that Biden has won the election, and the outcome is not in doubt.
Give too much public credence to the threat of Trump stealing it, and there is a danger of encouraging that doubt about the ability of US institutions to resist him. And it's important that individuals have that confidence - as we saw with the GOP lady on the Wayne County board, if they think things are still in doubt, they can buckle to pressure.
But certainly, under Trump, the Republican party is a nascent fascist party. And more people ought to be saying so.
Regarding @JohnLilburne 's point about pensions, that is likely to be the kicker for us - there were problems and disputes before and the system will come under more strain from stock market losses, our pension is defined benefit but, unlike true public service pensions, does have to be funded. There's already a large deficit - arguments between employers and unions largely about how large depending on which assumptions - with my employer and me collectively paying in ~30%(!) of my salary (planned to rise to 34% next year). Any downturn may push a breaking system well beyond breaking point. Expect some tough decisions and likely more strikes to follow, which will compound what has been a pretty poor, in spite of best efforts, delivery of teaching to students
Only complete cnuts use looks though.
Furloughed at 80%? Or 100%? Or something else.
What makes the result a bit surprising is that May 2017 - when this seat was last fought - was very much peak Tory. A month later and they won 13 seats across Scotland in the General Election, 7 of which were lost last December.
My deduction is that Scotland is moving in different directions. Urban areas moving to SNP and Tories consolidating in rural areas where they are traditionally strong. Same trend elsewhere in UK, of course.
80% 3 months in spring, then 70%, then 20% etc. Capped at these levels or £2500 pm whichever is lower.
Making it an international investigation and so credibly having a lot of English dialogue was smart. I saw that it had some US money behind it which would explain that. I wonder if they showed it in Poland? The criticisms of the Catholic Church were pretty explicit.