I saw Blur at the Town and Country, 3rd on the bill. After Dinosaur Jr., and before My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and Mary Chain. They were a little heavier before they became famous.
What I don't understand about the Salmond documents is that surely we all know what is in them anyway. Why do you redact something that is already public? Would this stop the committee being able to question Sturgeon on those specifics? Is that all it is?
It is very murky. As far as I can tell, what the redaction does, potentially, is prevent the inquiry considering the evidence that Sturgeon lied to Holyrood, and thus remove any chance of her being censured, and thus forced to resign.
I think. But maybe there is more?
As ever, the cover-up looks worse than the original "crime". The SNP is immune to many things, but maybe it is not immune to this age-old rule of political scandals.
Sturgeon shouldn't be misleading parliament but what we know is that the claim was a matter of days prior. What worries me is the idea that the state is effectively being taken over wholesale by the SNP. Why was the redaction decision taken by the crown office?
And that was a crying shame. Commodore has been mostly written out of computer industry history, even though their machines were often flat-out incredible. And the Amiga was like something that teleported in from the future.
First and second computers I ever owned were a commodore and an Amiga.
What I don't understand about the Salmond documents is that surely we all know what is in them anyway. Why do you redact something that is already public? Would this stop the committee being able to question Sturgeon on those specifics? Is that all it is?
It is very murky. As far as I can tell, what the redaction does, potentially, is prevent the inquiry considering the evidence that Sturgeon lied to Holyrood, and thus remove any chance of her being censured, and thus forced to resign.
I think. But maybe there is more?
As ever, the cover-up looks worse than the original "crime". The SNP is immune to many things, but maybe it is not immune to this age-old rule of political scandals.
Sturgeon shouldn't be misleading parliament but what we know is that the claim was a matter of days prior. What worries me is the idea that the state is effectively being taken over wholesale by the SNP. Why was the redaction decision taken by the crown office?
Also, THIS.
Sturgeon basically says that even though Salmond was acquitted, he probably still did it.
WTF? I've never seen her make an unforced error before, but that certainly looks like one.
We had an 'au pair' before UK joined the Common Market. Why does the arrangement have anything to do with the EU?
Historically, au pairs (and by the way, not all au pairs are from EU and ex-EU countries) were not paid. They would come to learn English at some college, and would get board, lodging and some small pocket money. Presumably, as they were enrolled at a college, they would come on education visas. Not clear why that couldn't still be the case.
Minimum wage laws, I'd expect.
Apparently they are exempt, because it is pocket money. See:
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
They'll definitely notice when the reduced tax revenues means their benefits get cut.
Not sure how much tax revenue au pairs generate. If anything parents having to pay day care or child minder fees might end up doing the opposite.
It is later on, when they end up staying in the UK in higher paying jobs that make them net contributors to the Exchequer.
I actually think we should run a working holiday visa for under 30s which allows them time to find a well paid job in the final three months to allow them to stay on under normal visa rules. Open it up to all sectors, not just au pairs. Then again, I'm pretty liberal on immigration so maybe I'm out of step on this.
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the header poll by regions and social class. My hunch is that the purple wall is not as "socially conservative" as it has been made out to be.
Nothing bring on collective pb.com heartbreak more than the prospect of ... no more au pairs.
It is exploitative. Au pairs have little or no legal protection.
It is a tax avoidance, as the employer has no legal obligation to pay tax/employee benefits. (This is unlike the case of nanny, for which an employment contract exists and for which the host family has the usual obligations of an employer including paying NI.)
It is a hugely destructive relationship, in which the au pair suffers from excessive workload, the guilt of the absent mother and the sexual advances of the father (see TSE's gauche post about "a certain genre of movies")
It is the preserve of ugly, grasping middle-class people who want childcare on the cheap. The au pair is usually too young to realise that she is being exploited.
If Brexit has put a stop to it, then that is truly excellent. Well done, Brexit.
We had an 'au pair' before UK joined the Common Market. Why does the arrangement have anything to do with the EU?
Historically, au pairs (and by the way, not all au pairs are from EU and ex-EU countries) were not paid. They would come to learn English at some college, and would get board, lodging and some small pocket money. Presumably, as they were enrolled at a college, they would come on education visas. Not clear why that couldn't still be the case.
Minimum wage laws, I'd expect.
Apparently they are exempt, because it is pocket money. See:
As an aside, the UK www.gov.uk website au pair section makes absolutely no mention of them not be allowed post-Brexit. I mean, they'll need a visa, but I would have thought a six to 12 month education visa would suffice.
If there's ever been a lesson to not have a politicised and unaccountable judicial branch, the experience in Scotland is surely it.
This isn't the judiciary, this is the chief prosecutor also being a member of the cabinet.
I think we'd be concerned if the DPP was a member of the UK PM's cabinet.
May have been awkward when Starmer decided to prosecute Huhne.
I see. That's also completely stupid. Surely you want the prosecutor to be completely free of political influence. Making the job part of the Cabinet seems to preclude that as they'll have responsibilities to the Cabinet and the leader that appointed them.
If there's ever been a lesson to not have a politicised and unaccountable judicial branch, the experience in Scotland is surely it.
This isn't the judiciary, this is the chief prosecutor also being a member of the cabinet.
I think we'd be concerned if the DPP was a member of the UK PM's cabinet.
May have been awkward when Starmer decided to prosecute Huhne.
Although for how many centuries was not merely the Attorney General but also the head of the judiciary a member of the government - in the latter case also invariably in the cabinet and chairman of the House of Lords?
Nothing bring on collective pb.com heartbreak more than the prospect of ... no more au pairs.
It is exploitative. Au pairs have little or no legal protection.
It is a tax avoidance, as the employer has no legal obligation to pay tax/employee benefits. (This is unlike the case of nanny, for which an employment contract exists and for which the host family has the usual obligations of an employer including paying NI.)
It is a hugely destructive relationship, in which the au pair suffers from excessive workload, the guilt of the absent mother and the sexual advances of the father (see TSE's gauche post about "a certain genre of movies")
It is the preserve of ugly, grasping middle-class people who want childcare on the cheap. The au pair is usually too young to realise that she is being exploited.
If Brexit has put a stop to it, then that is truly excellent. Well done, Brexit.
I find the narrow horizons and narrower minds of Brexiteers really quite depressing.
Aupairs helped my parents cope. My dad couldn't have stayed in his sales job without.
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
They'll definitely notice when the reduced tax revenues means their benefits get cut.
Not sure how much tax revenue au pairs generate. If anything parents having to pay day care or child minder fees might end up doing the opposite.
It is later on, when they end up staying in the UK in higher paying jobs that make them net contributors to the Exchequer.
I actually think we should run a working holiday visa for under 30s which allows them time to find a well paid job in the final three months to allow them to stay on under normal visa rules. Open it up to all sectors, not just au pairs. Then again, I'm pretty liberal on immigration so maybe I'm out of step on this.
I agree.
I'd go further and extend the T5 two year Youth visa to many more countries, including but not limited to the EU.
Nothing bring on collective pb.com heartbreak more than the prospect of ... no more au pairs.
It is exploitative. Au pairs have little or no legal protection.
It is a tax avoidance, as the employer has no legal obligation to pay tax/employee benefits. (This is unlike the case of nanny, for which an employment contract exists and for which the host family has the usual obligations of an employer including paying NI.)
It is a hugely destructive relationship, in which the au pair suffers from excessive workload, the guilt of the absent mother and the sexual advances of the father (see TSE's gauche post about "a certain genre of movies")
It is the preserve of ugly, grasping middle-class people who want childcare on the cheap. The au pair is usually too young to realise that she is being exploited.
If Brexit has put a stop to it, then that is truly excellent. Well done, Brexit.
I've had no experience of au pairs, but I'd very much doubt any of them would describe themselves as "exploited". Usually they're getting kids off to school in the morning, picking them up in the evening, and getting to hang out in the UK and learn English.
Nothing bring on collective pb.com heartbreak more than the prospect of ... no more au pairs.
It is exploitative. Au pairs have little or no legal protection.
It is a tax avoidance, as the employer has no legal obligation to pay tax/employee benefits. (This is unlike the case of nanny, for which an employment contract exists and for which the host family has the usual obligations of an employer including paying NI.)
It is a hugely destructive relationship, in which the au pair suffers from excessive workload, the guilt of the absent mother and the sexual advances of the father (see TSE's gauche post about "a certain genre of movies")
It is the preserve of ugly, grasping middle-class people who want childcare on the cheap. The au pair is usually too young to realise that she is being exploited.
If Brexit has put a stop to it, then that is truly excellent. Well done, Brexit.
I find the narrow horizons and narrower minds of Brexiteers really quite depressing.
Aupairs helped my parents cope. My dad couldn't have stayed in his sales job without.
We tried to hire someone just to do school pickup and drop-off of the kids, and that's a really hard role to fill, because you only want someone to do an hour in the morning and maybe two in the afternoon.
(I know, I know, the travails of the British middle classes.)
If there's ever been a lesson to not have a politicised and unaccountable judicial branch, the experience in Scotland is surely it.
This isn't the judiciary, this is the chief prosecutor also being a member of the cabinet.
I think we'd be concerned if the DPP was a member of the UK PM's cabinet.
May have been awkward when Starmer decided to prosecute Huhne.
Seems like one of those situations where even if it hasn't actually been a problem in practice, better to separate out the roles to avoid even the possible inference of a politician crossing boundaries.
I guess people used to make a similar point about the Lord Chancellor position?
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
They'll definitely notice when the reduced tax revenues means their benefits get cut.
Not sure how much tax revenue au pairs generate. If anything parents having to pay day care or child minder fees might end up doing the opposite.
It is later on, when they end up staying in the UK in higher paying jobs that make them net contributors to the Exchequer.
I actually think we should run a working holiday visa for under 30s which allows them time to find a well paid job in the final three months to allow them to stay on under normal visa rules. Open it up to all sectors, not just au pairs. Then again, I'm pretty liberal on immigration so maybe I'm out of step on this.
I agree.
I'd go further and extend the T5 two year Youth visa to many more countries, including but not limited to the EU.
You'd probably want to do it on a bilateral basis as our Australian and NZ working holiday visas are for young people.
Nothing bring on collective pb.com heartbreak more than the prospect of ... no more au pairs.
It is exploitative. Au pairs have little or no legal protection.
It is a tax avoidance, as the employer has no legal obligation to pay tax/employee benefits. (This is unlike the case of nanny, for which an employment contract exists and for which the host family has the usual obligations of an employer including paying NI.)
It is a hugely destructive relationship, in which the au pair suffers from excessive workload, the guilt of the absent mother and the sexual advances of the father (see TSE's gauche post about "a certain genre of movies")
It is the preserve of ugly, grasping middle-class people who want childcare on the cheap. The au pair is usually too young to realise that she is being exploited.
If Brexit has put a stop to it, then that is truly excellent. Well done, Brexit.
That's incredibly unfair all-round. There are a lot of couples for whom, without au pairs, face a difficult choice between one partner giving up work entirely, or effectively earning nothing because their salary only just pays for the childcare. I know a fair few teachers, for example, who could only go back to work full time after having kids because they had the option of extra help. The problem here is that childcare is incredibly expensive, not that people are greedy.
Edit: also, "sexual advances of the father" are a whole lot harder to hide in the 3-4 bed semis that the parents are likely living in, than the Downton Abbey-like mansions you might be imagining.
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the header poll by regions and social class. My hunch is that the purple wall is not as "socially conservative" as it has been made out to be.
As an aside, the UK www.gov.uk website au pair section makes absolutely no mention of them not be allowed post-Brexit. I mean, they'll need a visa, but I would have thought a six to 12 month education visa would suffice.
So, I'm going to go for "bullshit story".
Yeah if they're students they'll be here on a student visa.
If there's ever been a lesson to not have a politicised and unaccountable judicial branch, the experience in Scotland is surely it.
This isn't the judiciary, this is the chief prosecutor also being a member of the cabinet.
I think we'd be concerned if the DPP was a member of the UK PM's cabinet.
May have been awkward when Starmer decided to prosecute Huhne.
Although for how many centuries was not merely the Attorney General but also the head of the judiciary a member of the government - in the latter case also invariably in the cabinet and chairman of the House of Lords?
Not quite, but the AG, SG, and Lord Chancellor have had so many roles over the centuries.
I think the only prosecutions the first two get involved with are either national security related things and few other select matters.
But the fact a Criminal Law Commission in the 1800s flagged up the dangers of a DPP being political/directly reporting to the cabinet/PM should avoided, and was avoided makes me think this is an avoidable problem.
Germany have been taking about a third wave too. Hopefully it's not too bad and our vaccine programme ensures we aren't caught up in it either.
So far at least cases don't seem too bad in a lot of EU nations. But vaccine reluctance (at least insofar as AZ is concerned) will mean they have to be careful for even longer even as supply ramps up, since they'll be going slower than supply suggests they could.
What I don't understand about the Salmond documents is that surely we all know what is in them anyway. Why do you redact something that is already public? Would this stop the committee being able to question Sturgeon on those specifics? Is that all it is?
It is very murky. As far as I can tell, what the redaction does, potentially, is prevent the inquiry considering the evidence that Sturgeon lied to Holyrood, and thus remove any chance of her being censured, and thus forced to resign.
I think. But maybe there is more?
As ever, the cover-up looks worse than the original "crime". The SNP is immune to many things, but maybe it is not immune to this age-old rule of political scandals.
A Shakespearean case of revenge. Nothing more. It makes the plot of Hamlet one of the great revenge plays seem banal. Salmond was bettered and battered by his student who has gone on to become one of the most respected female leaders in Europe. She'll be up there with Merkel and if she leads Scotland out of the UK there's little doubt she be welcomed with open arms by the EU.
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
They'll definitely notice when the reduced tax revenues means their benefits get cut.
Not sure how much tax revenue au pairs generate. If anything parents having to pay day care or child minder fees might end up doing the opposite.
It is later on, when they end up staying in the UK in higher paying jobs that make them net contributors to the Exchequer.
I actually think we should run a working holiday visa for under 30s which allows them time to find a well paid job in the final three months to allow them to stay on under normal visa rules. Open it up to all sectors, not just au pairs. Then again, I'm pretty liberal on immigration so maybe I'm out of step on this.
I agree.
I'd go further and extend the T5 two year Youth visa to many more countries, including but not limited to the EU.
You'd probably want to do it on a bilateral basis as our Australian and NZ working holiday visas are for young people.
Nothing bring on collective pb.com heartbreak more than the prospect of ... no more au pairs.
It is exploitative. Au pairs have little or no legal protection.
It is a tax avoidance, as the employer has no legal obligation to pay tax/employee benefits. (This is unlike the case of nanny, for which an employment contract exists and for which the host family has the usual obligations of an employer including paying NI.)
It is a hugely destructive relationship, in which the au pair suffers from excessive workload, the guilt of the absent mother and the sexual advances of the father (see TSE's gauche post about "a certain genre of movies")
It is the preserve of ugly, grasping middle-class people who want childcare on the cheap. The au pair is usually too young to realise that she is being exploited.
If Brexit has put a stop to it, then that is truly excellent. Well done, Brexit.
I've had no experience of au pairs, but I'd very much doubt any of them would describe themselves as "exploited". Usually they're getting kids off to school in the morning, picking them up in the evening, and getting to hang out in the UK and learn English.
"I've now been here 7 weeks and I still feel overwhelmed by the workload. So 2 weeks ago I started writing down the work I did each day and how long I actually worked, and it was far beyond the 30 hours we agreed on. The first week was 47 hours, and this week was 57 hours, as the mom had me babysitting 3 nights and go to an event at the school that she should have attended, but she didn't as she needed relaxing time and had left for an airbnb and the father lives in another country 5 days a week."
Also, I have no objection to the employment of nannies because the host family has proper obligations as given in the contract and pays tax/NI.
Why should the employment of an au pair be different to other forms of employment?
Why is the host family exempt from the usual obligations (including tax, NI, entitlement to sick leave) of an employer?
It is a middle-class scam. Let us call it what it is.
We had an 'au pair' before UK joined the Common Market. Why does the arrangement have anything to do with the EU?
Historically, au pairs (and by the way, not all au pairs are from EU and ex-EU countries) were not paid. They would come to learn English at some college, and would get board, lodging and some small pocket money. Presumably, as they were enrolled at a college, they would come on education visas. Not clear why that couldn't still be the case.
Minimum wage laws, I'd expect.
Doubt it. There's no wage involved. They were guests living in the home and helping out with the odd chore. Worked both ways too for British girls (usually) going abroad.
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the header poll by regions and social class. My hunch is that the purple wall is not as "socially conservative" as it has been made out to be.
Mine too.
I suspect what it means to be socially conservative will be less, well, conservative, than it used to be. Which means that the differences between social conservatives and non social conservatives will still be relevant, but the actual differences will not be what some people think it is, based on what they think people who call themselves social conservatives think.
If there's ever been a lesson to not have a politicised and unaccountable judicial branch, the experience in Scotland is surely it.
This isn't the judiciary, this is the chief prosecutor also being a member of the cabinet.
I think we'd be concerned if the DPP was a member of the UK PM's cabinet.
May have been awkward when Starmer decided to prosecute Huhne.
Although for how many centuries was not merely the Attorney General but also the head of the judiciary a member of the government - in the latter case also invariably in the cabinet and chairman of the House of Lords?
Not quite, but the AG, SG, and Lord Chancellor have had so many roles over the centuries.
I think the only prosecutions the first two get involved with are either national security related things and few other select matters.
But the fact a Criminal Law Commission in the 1800s flagged up the dangers of a DPP being political/directly reporting to the cabinet/PM should avoided, and was avoided makes me think this is an avoidable problem.
Yes, they do *now* but for most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and into the 1920s the AG was in effect the DPP.
Germany have been taking about a third wave too. Hopefully it's not too bad and our vaccine programme ensures we aren't caught up in it either.
We've already had three waves in the UK - March, October, and December.
Not sure whether October and December weren't the same thing really but yeah whatever it is third or fourth we should try and avoid it. Don't want that June date to get pushed back.
If there's ever been a lesson to not have a politicised and unaccountable judicial branch, the experience in Scotland is surely it.
This isn't the judiciary, this is the chief prosecutor also being a member of the cabinet.
I think we'd be concerned if the DPP was a member of the UK PM's cabinet.
May have been awkward when Starmer decided to prosecute Huhne.
Although for how many centuries was not merely the Attorney General but also the head of the judiciary a member of the government - in the latter case also invariably in the cabinet and chairman of the House of Lords?
Not quite, but the AG, SG, and Lord Chancellor have had so many roles over the centuries.
I think the only prosecutions the first two get involved with are either national security related things and few other select matters.
But the fact a Criminal Law Commission in the 1800s flagged up the dangers of a DPP being political/directly reporting to the cabinet/PM should avoided, and was avoided makes me think this is an avoidable problem.
Yes, they do *now* but for most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and into the 1920s the AG was in effect the DPP.
Not that it was an ideal arrangement, of course.
Indeed, this has been a complicated mess.
Tony Blair, somebody who read a law degree at Oxford, and QC didn't realise he needed primary legislation to abolish the role of Lord Chancellor rather than Prime Ministerial fiat.
I believe it was due to the Regency Act that it needed primary legislation to abolish the Lord Chancellor.
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the header poll by regions and social class. My hunch is that the purple wall is not as "socially conservative" as it has been made out to be.
Mine too.
Interestingly, while a much higher percentage feel attraction, a much smaller percentage describe their sexuality as gay, bisexuality or pansexual, to a total of 6% with gay at 2%, according to another slide in the presentation. I suppose a lot are in the closet, even in recent generations.
I used to get hit on by a lot of gay men when I was 30 years younger. Not my cup of tea though.
Germany have been taking about a third wave too. Hopefully it's not too bad and our vaccine programme ensures we aren't caught up in it either.
We've already had three waves in the UK - March, October, and December.
Not sure whether October and December weren't the same thing really but yeah whatever it is third or fourth we should try and avoid it. Don't want that June date to get pushed back.
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the header poll by regions and social class. My hunch is that the purple wall is not as "socially conservative" as it has been made out to be.
Mine too.
I suspect what it means to be socially conservative will be less, well, conservative, than it used to be. Which means that the differences between social conservatives and non social conservatives will still be relevant, but the actual differences will not be what some people think it is, based on what they think people who call themselves social conservatives think.
I reckon you are right. This is one of those which is probably a function of age rather than class. Certainly no pupils bat an eyelid at my son's comp at anyone's sexual preference. Which is a very good thing too imho.
That's incredibly unfair all-round. There are a lot of couples for whom, without au pairs, face a difficult choice between one partner giving up work entirely, or effectively earning nothing because their salary only just pays for the childcare. I know a fair few teachers, for example, who could only go back to work full time after having kids because they had the option of extra help. The problem here is that childcare is incredibly expensive, not that people are greedy.
.
Childcare is expensive because the person carrying out the child-care also has to live. The child-carer has to pay rent, Council Tax, possibly travel, food and the usual expenses of living.
If you are employing someone to look after your children, you need to think of the needs of that person as well. The child-carer is entitled to a proper contract in which (s)he has rights.
And it is absolutely reasonable to expect normal employment law to hold and the normal obligations of an employer to be maintained.
No doubt you expect these rights and obligations from your employer. It is only reasonable -- if you become an employer -- that you extend those rights/obligations to your employee.
Southern England is looking very green on the COVID map, and there's a lot less dark blue in Northern England. Good to see.
When you go into the really detailed maps, there are large areas of the SW, but also places like Oxfordshire, which are white - showing the virus is suppressed.
There are still some nasty hot-spots - like Leicester.
Leicester has been a hot-spot for the best part of a year. You'd think it would have run out of people to infect by now.
There’s a lot of clothing factories in Leicester, and a lot of multi-generational households.
What I don't understand about the Salmond documents is that surely we all know what is in them anyway. Why do you redact something that is already public? Would this stop the committee being able to question Sturgeon on those specifics? Is that all it is?
It is very murky. As far as I can tell, what the redaction does, potentially, is prevent the inquiry considering the evidence that Sturgeon lied to Holyrood, and thus remove any chance of her being censured, and thus forced to resign.
I think. But maybe there is more?
As ever, the cover-up looks worse than the original "crime". The SNP is immune to many things, but maybe it is not immune to this age-old rule of political scandals.
A Shakespearean case of revenge. Nothing more. It makes the plot of Hamlet one of the great revenge plays seem banal. Salmond was bettered and battered by his student who has gone on to become one of the most respected female leaders in Europe. She'll be up there with Merkel and if she leads Scotland out of the UK there's little doubt she be welcomed with open arms by the EU.
Watching is unbearable for Alec Salmond
I suspect there is a but more to it than that, if you look at how blogs like "Wings" have turned against Sturgeon. I think the issue is that indie may not be Sturgeon's top priority, rather being first minister is her priority. Sturgeon has been cautious about indie ref 2 as she knows if she loses she has to resign and then her husband is surely also unemployed soon after.
What I don't understand about the Salmond documents is that surely we all know what is in them anyway. Why do you redact something that is already public? Would this stop the committee being able to question Sturgeon on those specifics? Is that all it is?
It is very murky. As far as I can tell, what the redaction does, potentially, is prevent the inquiry considering the evidence that Sturgeon lied to Holyrood, and thus remove any chance of her being censured, and thus forced to resign.
I think. But maybe there is more?
As ever, the cover-up looks worse than the original "crime". The SNP is immune to many things, but maybe it is not immune to this age-old rule of political scandals.
A Shakespearean case of revenge. Nothing more. It makes the plot of Hamlet one of the great revenge plays seem banal. Salmond was bettered and battered by his student who has gone on to become one of the most respected female leaders in Europe. She'll be up there with Merkel and if she leads Scotland out of the UK there's little doubt she be welcomed with open arms by the EU.
Watching is unbearable for Alec Salmond
No.
Salmond very obviously believes what he alleges is true: that the SNP elite actively CONSPIRED to get him jailed. What's more, there is credible evidence he is right (eg the Whatsapp messages between SNP bigwigs and so on, encouraging complainants).
Hence all the inquiries.
That is what fires his desire for revenge. If the rape trials hadn't happened he'd just be another embittered ex leader, like TMay or THeath. Salmond is different. He is now on a personal crusade.
The disconnect of many on here from the real world is astonishing. I occasionally had a childminder or a babysitter (both of whom earned sod all) and I went and played at friend’s houses. I was also expected to walk to and from school on my own from the age of about seven and left alone in the house from not much older.
This wasn't in the distant past, it was the 90s. It wasn’t anywhere poor - it was wealthy rural Leicestershire. No one in my school had an au pair and I’d never heard of one outside of porn films until I started working in London.
Basically, if you have an au pair or are considering getting one, then you are minted and the last person the Government should prioritise helping in any way.
Southern England is looking very green on the COVID map, and there's a lot less dark blue in Northern England. Good to see.
When you go into the really detailed maps, there are large areas of the SW, but also places like Oxfordshire, which are white - showing the virus is suppressed.
There are still some nasty hot-spots - like Leicester.
Leicester has been a hot-spot for the best part of a year. You'd think it would have run out of people to infect by now.
There’s a lot of clothing factories in Leicester, and a lot of multi-generational households.
Yes, but rates are high around Coalville, Shepshed, and other small towns in Leics, where there are negligible numbers like who you describe.
That's incredibly unfair all-round. There are a lot of couples for whom, without au pairs, face a difficult choice between one partner giving up work entirely, or effectively earning nothing because their salary only just pays for the childcare. I know a fair few teachers, for example, who could only go back to work full time after having kids because they had the option of extra help. The problem here is that childcare is incredibly expensive, not that people are greedy.
.
Childcare is expensive because the person carrying out the child-care also has to live. The child-carer has to pay rent, Council Tax, possibly travel, food and the usual expenses of living.
If you are employing someone to look after your children, you need to think of the needs of that person as well. The child-carer is entitled to a proper contract in which (s)he has rights.
And it is absolutely reasonable to expect normal employment law to hold and the normal obligations of an employer to be maintained.
No doubt you expect these rights and obligations from your employer. It is only reasonable -- if you become an employer -- that you extend those rights/obligations to your employee.
Excellent point; so no doubt you'd agree that a system by which childcare providers can be paid in part via bed and board at limited marginal cost to the employer is a brilliant idea.
It's also the case that formal childcare has a lot of regulation (which is expensive) attached to it that au pairs don't have to worry about.
I agree (obviously) that people shouldn't be exploited, but I don't think you've evidenced that that's what's happening in the general case. One anecdote from a web forum where all the commenters agreed the situation wasn't acceptable doesn't count - if anything, it just proves that more normal working conditions are possible and exist.
As an aside, the UK www.gov.uk website au pair section makes absolutely no mention of them not be allowed post-Brexit. I mean, they'll need a visa, but I would have thought a six to 12 month education visa would suffice.
So, I'm going to go for "bullshit story".
The people complaining seem to be looking for a cheap nanny, rather than a genuine language student enrolled in a university.
I saw Blur at the Town and Country, 3rd on the bill. After Dinosaur Jr., and before My Bloody Valentine and Jesus and Mary Chain. They were a little heavier before they became famous.
I saw them third on the bill at the Astoria, before Neds Atomic Dustbin and Jesus Jones, when they’d just been signed to Food. My claim to fame is that 20 years later Graham Rowntree, the drummer, trained to be a solicitor at my firm. I used to give him research and photocopying to do while he was doing his employment law seat.
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
They'll definitely notice when the reduced tax revenues means their benefits get cut.
Not sure how much tax revenue au pairs generate. If anything parents having to pay day care or child minder fees might end up doing the opposite.
It is later on, when they end up staying in the UK in higher paying jobs that make them net contributors to the Exchequer.
I actually think we should run a working holiday visa for under 30s which allows them time to find a well paid job in the final three months to allow them to stay on under normal visa rules. Open it up to all sectors, not just au pairs. Then again, I'm pretty liberal on immigration so maybe I'm out of step on this.
That sounds reasonable, Australia runs something similar which quite a few Brits do.
Still needs to be subject to minimum wage laws though.
One thing is for sure. Au pairs and tech companies listing in New York will be the talk of the Red Wall this evening for sure.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of the header poll by regions and social class. My hunch is that the purple wall is not as "socially conservative" as it has been made out to be.
I think that's right. Lots of people are not very respectful of political correctness and quite capable of telling dodgy jokes about gays and other minorities, but in the end take a live and let live view. Society's changed a lot in my lifetime.
Younger people, by and large, won't even tolerate the jokes.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused!
Er, no, it's the French people who are refusing AZ (like the Germans) because their President told them it was "useless"
Though how could deliveries to France in Q2 have prevented a Q1 wave? We told them we were first in the queue and they would have to wait.
I suspect that AZN is reasonably effective, as indeed are Sputnik and Sinopharm, though the evidence published for these is also pretty poor.
We now have the real life data from Scotland, of many thousands vaxxed by AZ, and it looks pretty damn good.
As for your other point, why on earth should the UK have donated precious AZ vaccines to France when the French president falsely states that these same vaccines are "quasi-ineffective", thus frightening the life out of everyone who has taken it?
That is an impressive rate. Though however draconian the act, and it is deliberately draconian, if the charges being made were unlawful then surely while they were intended to be made under the Act and thus it was the reason for the charge, had the prosecutors acted correctly they would not have charged under the Act in the first place?:
That's incredibly unfair all-round. There are a lot of couples for whom, without au pairs, face a difficult choice between one partner giving up work entirely, or effectively earning nothing because their salary only just pays for the childcare. I know a fair few teachers, for example, who could only go back to work full time after having kids because they had the option of extra help. The problem here is that childcare is incredibly expensive, not that people are greedy.
.
Childcare is expensive because the person carrying out the child-care also has to live. The child-carer has to pay rent, Council Tax, possibly travel, food and the usual expenses of living.
If you are employing someone to look after your children, you need to think of the needs of that person as well. The child-carer is entitled to a proper contract in which (s)he has rights.
And it is absolutely reasonable to expect normal employment law to hold and the normal obligations of an employer to be maintained.
No doubt you expect these rights and obligations from your employer. It is only reasonable -- if you become an employer -- that you extend those rights/obligations to your employee.
Excellent point; so no doubt you'd agree that a system by which childcare providers can be paid in part via bed and board at limited marginal cost to the employer is a brilliant idea.
It's also the case that formal childcare has a lot of regulation (which is expensive) attached to it that au pairs don't have to worry about.
I agree (obviously) that people shouldn't be exploited, but I don't think you've evidenced that that's what's happening in the general case. One anecdote from a web forum where all the commenters agreed the situation wasn't acceptable doesn't count - if anything, it just proves that more normal working conditions are possible and exist.
I think the absence of a formal contract makes the role of an au pair very precarious, and certainly subject to possible exploitation. I doubt if it is uncommon as you imagine.
You would not do your job without a contract, would you? Why should you expect an au pair to?
I have absolutely no objections to a family having a formal employment contract with a child carer. However, then the family are paying a wage (which may be subject to taxation), and the family have the normal obligations of an employer (e.g. bank holidays, sickness pay, etc) .
I have no problem with payment in part by board & lodging, as long as that is probably accounted for in any tax obligations.
Not sure whether October and December weren't the same thing really but yeah whatever it is third or fourth we should try and avoid it. Don't want that June date to get pushed back.
I suspect we will see a slight rise (or perhaps a slower decline) in cases in the next couple of weeks brought on by school half-term and the better weather with more people out and about.
That will ease as more people are vaccinated though again I would argue progress countrywide continues to be uneven and that may reflect in case numbers in the next month or so.
So the "push" of vaccination will encounter the "pull" of the return of schools and the accompanying social mixing. Could well mean more cases but fewer deaths and the downward trend in hospitalisations should continue.
From there, as vaccinations go further into the population, we should see continuing downward pressure on deaths, cases and hospitalisations. The next question will be how long the immunity from the current vaccinations will last - 6 months, 9 months? We should be looking to get a new round of vaccinations started as quickly as possible once it appears the immunity offered by the initial vaccinations wears off.
The timetable as published looks sensible, achievable and realistic. There are siren calls to reduce the gap between phases but, and I think Johnson has a point here, this has to be a road trodden for the last time. Vaccination and improved vaccines combined with general improvements in health and hygiene should enable us to live with Covid which has become the new dominant influenza virus and will likely be so for a couple of decades or until something "new" appears (as it will).
That's incredibly unfair all-round. There are a lot of couples for whom, without au pairs, face a difficult choice between one partner giving up work entirely, or effectively earning nothing because their salary only just pays for the childcare. I know a fair few teachers, for example, who could only go back to work full time after having kids because they had the option of extra help. The problem here is that childcare is incredibly expensive, not that people are greedy.
.
Childcare is expensive because the person carrying out the child-care also has to live. The child-carer has to pay rent, Council Tax, possibly travel, food and the usual expenses of living.
If you are employing someone to look after your children, you need to think of the needs of that person as well. The child-carer is entitled to a proper contract in which (s)he has rights.
And it is absolutely reasonable to expect normal employment law to hold and the normal obligations of an employer to be maintained.
No doubt you expect these rights and obligations from your employer. It is only reasonable -- if you become an employer -- that you extend those rights/obligations to your employee.
Excellent point; so no doubt you'd agree that a system by which childcare providers can be paid in part via bed and board at limited marginal cost to the employer is a brilliant idea.
It's also the case that formal childcare has a lot of regulation (which is expensive) attached to it that au pairs don't have to worry about.
I agree (obviously) that people shouldn't be exploited, but I don't think you've evidenced that that's what's happening in the general case. One anecdote from a web forum where all the commenters agreed the situation wasn't acceptable doesn't count - if anything, it just proves that more normal working conditions are possible and exist.
I think the absence of a formal contract makes the role of an au pair very precarious, and certainly subject to possible exploitation. I doubt if it is uncommon as you imagine.
You would not do your job without a contract, would you? Why should you expect an au pair to?
I have absolutely no objections to a family having a formal employment contract with a child carer. However, then the family are paying a wage (which may be subject to taxation), and the family have the normal obligations of an employer (e.g. bank holidays, sickness pay, etc) .
I have no problem with payment in part by board & lodging, as long as that is probably accounted for in any tax obligations.
My friend doing au pair in Italy next year has a contract.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused!
Er, no, it's the French people who are refusing AZ (like the Germans) because their President told them it was "useless"
Though how could deliveries to France in Q2 have prevented a Q1 wave? We told them we were first in the queue and they would have to wait.
That's a pretty odd way of putting it. People's place in the queue, as you put it, would surely be determined by contractual matters. The way you phrase it makes it sound like the UK is responsible for determining the contractural position on delivery to other nations.
As for whether this wave could have been avoided, if it is the case one is occurring, it would be true that if deliveries would have been later then that would not have impacted the wave beginning. But undermining a vaccine that will be available in larger numbers, for no reason other than politics, surely risks that dealing with the wave will be so much harder than it otherwise would have been. Fortunately willingness to take a vaccine is up in France, but would that rise have been higher without Macron deciding making things up would be convenient for him politically?
That's incredibly unfair all-round. There are a lot of couples for whom, without au pairs, face a difficult choice between one partner giving up work entirely, or effectively earning nothing because their salary only just pays for the childcare. I know a fair few teachers, for example, who could only go back to work full time after having kids because they had the option of extra help. The problem here is that childcare is incredibly expensive, not that people are greedy.
.
Childcare is expensive because the person carrying out the child-care also has to live. The child-carer has to pay rent, Council Tax, possibly travel, food and the usual expenses of living.
If you are employing someone to look after your children, you need to think of the needs of that person as well. The child-carer is entitled to a proper contract in which (s)he has rights.
And it is absolutely reasonable to expect normal employment law to hold and the normal obligations of an employer to be maintained.
No doubt you expect these rights and obligations from your employer. It is only reasonable -- if you become an employer -- that you extend those rights/obligations to your employee.
Excellent point; so no doubt you'd agree that a system by which childcare providers can be paid in part via bed and board at limited marginal cost to the employer is a brilliant idea.
It's also the case that formal childcare has a lot of regulation (which is expensive) attached to it that au pairs don't have to worry about.
I agree (obviously) that people shouldn't be exploited, but I don't think you've evidenced that that's what's happening in the general case. One anecdote from a web forum where all the commenters agreed the situation wasn't acceptable doesn't count - if anything, it just proves that more normal working conditions are possible and exist.
I think the absence of a formal contract makes the role of an au pair very precarious, and certainly subject to possible exploitation. I doubt if it is uncommon as you imagine.
You would not do your job without a contract, would you? Why should you expect an au pair to?
I have absolutely no objections to a family having a formal employment contract with a child carer. However, then the family are paying a wage (which may be subject to taxation), and the family have the normal obligations of an employer (e.g. bank holidays, sickness pay, etc) .
I have no problem with payment in part by board & lodging, as long as that is probably accounted for in any tax obligations.
My friend doing au pair in Italy next year has a contract.
Is it a formal employment contract? If so, excellent.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused!
Er, no, it's the French people who are refusing AZ (like the Germans) because their President told them it was "useless"
Though how could deliveries to France in Q2 have prevented a Q1 wave? We told them we were first in the queue and they would have to wait.
I suspect that AZN is reasonably effective, as indeed are Sputnik and Sinopharm, though the evidence published for these is also pretty poor.
Don't they have a million or so sitting in the fridge? That's a million people who are now at full risk of being hospitalised rather than a 94% less risk.
Reasonably effective is a huge understatement. We have evidence from a trial and real world data that shows 76% efficacy against any symptoms after a first dose and 94% efficacy against hospitalisation from a single dose. It's highly effective and the only losers right now are the millions of people who are sitting there unvaccinated despite available doses.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused!
Er, no, it's the French people who are refusing AZ (like the Germans) because their President told them it was "useless"
Though how could deliveries to France in Q2 have prevented a Q1 wave? We told them we were first in the queue and they would have to wait.
That's a pretty odd way of putting it. People's place in the queue, as you put it, would surely be determined by contractual matters. The way you phrase it makes it sound like the UK is responsible for determining the contractural position on delivery to other nations.
As for whether this wave could have been avoided, if it is the case one is occurring, it would be true that if deliveries would have been later then that would not have impacted the wave beginning. But undermining a vaccine that will be available in larger numbers, for no reason other than politics, surely risks that dealing with the wave will be so much harder than it otherwise would have been. Fortunately willingness to take a vaccine is up in France, but would that rise have been higher without Macron deciding making things up would be convenient for him politically?
Yeah, the UK didn't force the EU to have an absolutely abysmal vaccine procurement program. They did that entirely on their own.
Damn, just looked that up and discovered I'm a millennial! Does that mean I'm a snowflake? I'd always assumed I was generation X, that sounds cool
Yes. Gen X is the coolest generation. The decade that we dominated culture, the 90s, was the last decade where anything worthwhile was produced. We just weren't much good at cricket.
Oh God.
An Oasis-Blur apologist.
Any Gen Xer worth their salt knows that the answer to Oasis or Blur was, of course, Pulp.
Any impartial millennial will tell you that Oasis were clearly the best. I couldn't even name any Blur songs.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused!
Er, no, it's the French people who are refusing AZ (like the Germans) because their President told them it was "useless"
Though how could deliveries to France in Q2 have prevented a Q1 wave? We told them we were first in the queue and they would have to wait.
I suspect that AZN is reasonably effective, as indeed are Sputnik and Sinopharm, though the evidence published for these is also pretty poor.
That is a genuinely perverse way of looking at it. At no time have we refused the export of vaccine to France or anywhere else in the EU. It is AZ who have chosen to abide by their contractual agreements and even then they are still sending vaccine to France - even though it is pretty pointless as France apparently doesn't want it.
Your remarks are particularly stupid and ignorant at a time when AZ are also unable to meet the supply commitments that they made to the UK. And yet the UK response is to say they understand and wait patiently unlike your beloved EU who had a tantrum and threw their toys out of the pram.
So your claims are factually wrong and clearly designed to try and deflect the blame away from where they should go - which in the case of France is straight at Macron
Damn, just looked that up and discovered I'm a millennial! Does that mean I'm a snowflake? I'd always assumed I was generation X, that sounds cool
Yes. Gen X is the coolest generation. The decade that we dominated culture, the 90s, was the last decade where anything worthwhile was produced. We just weren't much good at cricket.
Oh God.
An Oasis-Blur apologist.
Any Gen Xer worth their salt knows that the answer to Oasis or Blur was, of course, Pulp.
Any impartial millennial will tell you that Oasis were clearly the best. I couldn't even name any Blur songs.
Oh, well they mustn't be any good then.
You don't have to take it personally. My point was that as someone who is quite "in to" music and not particularly sheltered, I can name tons of Oasis songs but very few, if any Blur songs. That says a lot in regards to legacy.
That's incredibly unfair all-round. There are a lot of couples for whom, without au pairs, face a difficult choice between one partner giving up work entirely, or effectively earning nothing because their salary only just pays for the childcare. I know a fair few teachers, for example, who could only go back to work full time after having kids because they had the option of extra help. The problem here is that childcare is incredibly expensive, not that people are greedy.
.
Childcare is expensive because the person carrying out the child-care also has to live. The child-carer has to pay rent, Council Tax, possibly travel, food and the usual expenses of living.
If you are employing someone to look after your children, you need to think of the needs of that person as well. The child-carer is entitled to a proper contract in which (s)he has rights.
And it is absolutely reasonable to expect normal employment law to hold and the normal obligations of an employer to be maintained.
No doubt you expect these rights and obligations from your employer. It is only reasonable -- if you become an employer -- that you extend those rights/obligations to your employee.
Excellent point; so no doubt you'd agree that a system by which childcare providers can be paid in part via bed and board at limited marginal cost to the employer is a brilliant idea.
It's also the case that formal childcare has a lot of regulation (which is expensive) attached to it that au pairs don't have to worry about.
I agree (obviously) that people shouldn't be exploited, but I don't think you've evidenced that that's what's happening in the general case. One anecdote from a web forum where all the commenters agreed the situation wasn't acceptable doesn't count - if anything, it just proves that more normal working conditions are possible and exist.
I think the absence of a formal contract makes the role of an au pair very precarious, and certainly subject to possible exploitation. I doubt if it is uncommon as you imagine.
You would not do your job without a contract, would you? Why should you expect an au pair to?
I have absolutely no objections to a family having a formal employment contract with a child carer. However, then the family are paying a wage (which may be subject to taxation), and the family have the normal obligations of an employer (e.g. bank holidays, sickness pay, etc) .
I have no problem with payment in part by board & lodging, as long as that is probably accounted for in any tax obligations.
I don't really understand the situation you're describing. If we're talking about (say) 15+ hours a week on a regular basis, I would expect there to be a contract in place, and either side can insist on that for their own protection. If it's a few hours here and there, and payment is due immediately in cash, I wouldn't expect a contract to be necessary, and I can't see that one would prevent exploitation anyway.
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused! So Macron wasn't allowed to take them.
We refused what? Has the UK been banning exports to the EU or something?
I'm honestly struggling to see what point was trying to be made. It really does seem as though the suggestion is the UK prevent France from receiving vaccines to which it was entitled. Even the EU in its dispute was focusing its ire on AZ for failing to deliver (and some implying diversion of supplies), and even they seem to have gone quiet on that, so what role the UK had in this I cannot see.
Nothing bring on collective pb.com heartbreak more than the prospect of ... no more au pairs.
It is exploitative. Au pairs have little or no legal protection.
It is a tax avoidance, as the employer has no legal obligation to pay tax/employee benefits. (This is unlike the case of nanny, for which an employment contract exists and for which the host family has the usual obligations of an employer including paying NI.)
It is a hugely destructive relationship, in which the au pair suffers from excessive workload, the guilt of the absent mother and the sexual advances of the father (see TSE's gauche post about "a certain genre of movies")
It is the preserve of ugly, grasping middle-class people who want childcare on the cheap. The au pair is usually too young to realise that she is being exploited.
If Brexit has put a stop to it, then that is truly excellent. Well done, Brexit.
I've had no experience of au pairs, but I'd very much doubt any of them would describe themselves as "exploited". Usually they're getting kids off to school in the morning, picking them up in the evening, and getting to hang out in the UK and learn English.
"I've now been here 7 weeks and I still feel overwhelmed by the workload. So 2 weeks ago I started writing down the work I did each day and how long I actually worked, and it was far beyond the 30 hours we agreed on. The first week was 47 hours, and this week was 57 hours, as the mom had me babysitting 3 nights and go to an event at the school that she should have attended, but she didn't as she needed relaxing time and had left for an airbnb and the father lives in another country 5 days a week."
Also, I have no objection to the employment of nannies because the host family has proper obligations as given in the contract and pays tax/NI.
Why should the employment of an au pair be different to other forms of employment?
Why is the host family exempt from the usual obligations (including tax, NI, entitlement to sick leave) of an employer?
It is a middle-class scam. Let us call it what it is.
Fortunately, mumsnet is completely representative.
And who gives a shit if it benefits the middle classes or not. This is a bit like your obsession with skiing: if the middle classes do it, it must be bad.
As a general rule, willing buyer, willing seller, the government shouldn't get involved. Unless there are large negative externalities, then really, why is the government stepping in?
If theyd taken our vaccine this might not have happened.
Except we refused!
Er, no, it's the French people who are refusing AZ (like the Germans) because their President told them it was "useless"
Though how could deliveries to France in Q2 have prevented a Q1 wave? We told them we were first in the queue and they would have to wait.
I suspect that AZN is reasonably effective, as indeed are Sputnik and Sinopharm, though the evidence published for these is also pretty poor.
That is a genuinely perverse way of looking at it. At no time have we refused the export of vaccine to France or anywhere else in the EU. It is AZ who have chosen to abide by their contractual agreements and even then they are still sending vaccine to France - even though it is pretty pointless as France apparently doesn't want it.
Your remarks are particularly stupid and ignorant at a time when AZ are also unable to meet the supply commitments that they made to the UK. And yet the UK response is to say they understand and wait patiently unlike your beloved EU who had a tantrum and threw their toys out of the pram.
So your claims are factually wrong and clearly designed to try and deflect the blame away from where they should go - which in the case of France is straight at Macron
Foxy is also factually wrong. When the EU chucked a mental about AZ's delivery the UK government's response was: measured silence, with the sole remark "this is a matter between the EU and AZ". For once HMG took the correct path, and the moral high ground.
Foxy's hapless and maybe subconscious loathing of Britain for voting Brexit is being exposed, here, I believe. He will get over it, eventually
On topic about changes in views, my daughter (6) came home from school last term while schools were still open and said that her friends uncle is getting married to a man, then she said crossly "but that's not allowed".
Asked her why that wasn't allowed, thinking I'd need to explain that it is and she said "because of coronavirus. People shouldn't be have weddings due to coronavirus." The idea that it was a man marrying a man that could be an issue never even entered her head, just that the virus means no weddings right now.
On topic about changes in views, my daughter (6) came home from school last term while schools were still open and said that her friends uncle is getting married to a man, then she said crossly "but that's not allowed".
Asked her why that wasn't allowed, thinking I'd need to explain that it is and she said "because of coronavirus. People shouldn't be have weddings due to coronavirus." The idea that it was a man marrying a man that could be an issue never even entered her head, just that the virus means no weddings right now.
Macron bashing is easy (fun too, in less tragic situations), not least because for once it has nothing really to do with the UK at all, despite attempts to make it so. We cannot blame some of our failures on the EU, the EU and its members cannot blame some of their failures on the UK.
Comments
They were a little heavier before they became famous.
There is one way, but it seems a tad unlikely and I don’t think I’ll test the mods’ patience by saying what it is.
Sturgeon basically says that even though Salmond was acquitted, he probably still did it.
WTF? I've never seen her make an unforced error before, but that certainly looks like one.
https://twitter.com/CallmeRayf/status/1364571216753930245?s=20
https://www.gov.uk/au-pairs-employment-law/au-pairs#:~:text=Au pairs usually live with,to £85 a week.
Nothing bring on collective pb.com heartbreak more than the prospect of ... no more au pairs.
It is exploitative. Au pairs have little or no legal protection.
It is a tax avoidance, as the employer has no legal obligation to pay tax/employee benefits. (This is unlike the case of nanny, for which an employment contract exists and for which the host family has the usual obligations of an employer including paying NI.)
It is a hugely destructive relationship, in which the au pair suffers from excessive workload, the guilt of the absent mother and the sexual advances of the father (see TSE's gauche post about "a certain genre of movies")
It is the preserve of ugly, grasping middle-class people who want childcare on the cheap. The au pair is usually too young to realise that she is being exploited.
If Brexit has put a stop to it, then that is truly excellent. Well done, Brexit.
I think we'd be concerned if the DPP was a member of the UK PM's cabinet.
May have been awkward when Starmer decided to prosecute Huhne.
So, I'm going to go for "bullshit story".
Aupairs helped my parents cope. My dad couldn't have stayed in his sales job without.
I'd go further and extend the T5 two year Youth visa to many more countries, including but not limited to the EU.
That doesn't sound *that* terrible.
(I know, I know, the travails of the British middle classes.)
How long has that been the case?
I guess people used to make a similar point about the Lord Chancellor position?
Edit: also, "sexual advances of the father" are a whole lot harder to hide in the 3-4 bed semis that the parents are likely living in, than the Downton Abbey-like mansions you might be imagining.
I think the only prosecutions the first two get involved with are either national security related things and few other select matters.
But the fact a Criminal Law Commission in the 1800s flagged up the dangers of a DPP being political/directly reporting to the cabinet/PM should avoided, and was avoided makes me think this is an avoidable problem.
Watching is unbearable for Alec Salmond
https://tinyurl.com/b7p96jdy
"I've now been here 7 weeks and I still feel overwhelmed by the workload. So 2 weeks ago I started writing down the work I did each day and how long I actually worked, and it was far beyond the 30 hours we agreed on. The first week was 47 hours, and this week was 57 hours, as the mom had me babysitting 3 nights and go to an event at the school that she should have attended, but she didn't as she needed relaxing time and had left for an airbnb and the father lives in another country 5 days a week."
Also, I have no objection to the employment of nannies because the host family has proper obligations as given in the contract and pays tax/NI.
Why should the employment of an au pair be different to other forms of employment?
Why is the host family exempt from the usual obligations (including tax, NI, entitlement to sick leave) of an employer?
It is a middle-class scam. Let us call it what it is.
Not that it was an ideal arrangement, of course.
As @kle4 notes this normally wasn't a problem, however in this instance it has become a huge problem.
In future I'd expect things to be separated out.
Some pause for thought of course, but if Scotland were to be independent then there's no scope at all for them getting it wrong then.
I've long thought that this was a witch-hunt. However it may be that the victim has switched.
All a bit 'Wicker Man'
Tony Blair, somebody who read a law degree at Oxford, and QC didn't realise he needed primary legislation to abolish the role of Lord Chancellor rather than Prime Ministerial fiat.
I believe it was due to the Regency Act that it needed primary legislation to abolish the Lord Chancellor.
I used to get hit on by a lot of gay men when I was 30 years younger. Not my cup of tea though.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2020-06/sexual-orientation-and-attitudes-to-lgbtq-in-britain.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjjuv26moPvAhUgQxUIHdquA7wQFjABegQIExAC&usg=AOvVaw3lYWg-fFhw1UBbuEx8uwFu&cshid=1614193272370
Which is a very good thing too imho.
If you are employing someone to look after your children, you need to think of the needs of that person as well. The child-carer is entitled to a proper contract in which (s)he has rights.
And it is absolutely reasonable to expect normal employment law to hold and the normal obligations of an employer to be maintained.
No doubt you expect these rights and obligations from your employer. It is only reasonable -- if you become an employer -- that you extend those rights/obligations to your employee.
Salmond very obviously believes what he alleges is true: that the SNP elite actively CONSPIRED to get him jailed. What's more, there is credible evidence he is right (eg the Whatsapp messages between SNP bigwigs and so on, encouraging complainants).
Hence all the inquiries.
That is what fires his desire for revenge. If the rape trials hadn't happened he'd just be another embittered ex leader, like TMay or THeath. Salmond is different. He is now on a personal crusade.
https://twitter.com/Feorlean/status/1364648276897783810?s=20
https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/1364651137773821958?s=20
https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/1364652482803171331?s=20
https://twitter.com/afp/status/1355904925012615171?s=21
This wasn't in the distant past, it was the 90s. It wasn’t anywhere poor - it was wealthy rural Leicestershire. No one in my school had an au pair and I’d never heard of one outside of porn films until I started working in London.
Basically, if you have an au pair or are considering getting one, then you are minted and the last person the Government should prioritise helping in any way.
Pity for the French people, however.
It's also the case that formal childcare has a lot of regulation (which is expensive) attached to it that au pairs don't have to worry about.
I agree (obviously) that people shouldn't be exploited, but I don't think you've evidenced that that's what's happening in the general case. One anecdote from a web forum where all the commenters agreed the situation wasn't acceptable doesn't count - if anything, it just proves that more normal working conditions are possible and exist.
I suspect that AZN is reasonably effective, as indeed are Sputnik and Sinopharm, though the evidence published for these is also pretty poor.
Still needs to be subject to minimum wage laws though.
Younger people, by and large, won't even tolerate the jokes.
As for your other point, why on earth should the UK have donated precious AZ vaccines to France when the French president falsely states that these same vaccines are "quasi-ineffective", thus frightening the life out of everyone who has taken it?
As the French say: Fuck That
You would not do your job without a contract, would you? Why should you expect an au pair to?
I have absolutely no objections to a family having a formal employment contract with a child carer. However, then the family are paying a wage (which may be subject to taxation), and the family have the normal obligations of an employer (e.g. bank holidays, sickness pay, etc) .
I have no problem with payment in part by board & lodging, as long as that is probably accounted for in any tax obligations.
Instead she spent quite some time attacking her enemy Salmond.
Scotland is in a right old mess.
That will ease as more people are vaccinated though again I would argue progress countrywide continues to be uneven and that may reflect in case numbers in the next month or so.
So the "push" of vaccination will encounter the "pull" of the return of schools and the accompanying social mixing. Could well mean more cases but fewer deaths and the downward trend in hospitalisations should continue.
From there, as vaccinations go further into the population, we should see continuing downward pressure on deaths, cases and hospitalisations. The next question will be how long the immunity from the current vaccinations will last - 6 months, 9 months? We should be looking to get a new round of vaccinations started as quickly as possible once it appears the immunity offered by the initial vaccinations wears off.
The timetable as published looks sensible, achievable and realistic. There are siren calls to reduce the gap between phases but, and I think Johnson has a point here, this has to be a road trodden for the last time. Vaccination and improved vaccines combined with general improvements in health and hygiene should enable us to live with Covid which has become the new dominant influenza virus and will likely be so for a couple of decades or until something "new" appears (as it will).
As for whether this wave could have been avoided, if it is the case one is occurring, it would be true that if deliveries would have been later then that would not have impacted the wave beginning. But undermining a vaccine that will be available in larger numbers, for no reason other than politics, surely risks that dealing with the wave will be so much harder than it otherwise would have been. Fortunately willingness to take a vaccine is up in France, but would that rise have been higher without Macron deciding making things up would be convenient for him politically?
Reasonably effective is a huge understatement. We have evidence from a trial and real world data that shows 76% efficacy against any symptoms after a first dose and 94% efficacy against hospitalisation from a single dose. It's highly effective and the only losers right now are the millions of people who are sitting there unvaccinated despite available doses.
Your remarks are particularly stupid and ignorant at a time when AZ are also unable to meet the supply commitments that they made to the UK. And yet the UK response is to say they understand and wait patiently unlike your beloved EU who had a tantrum and threw their toys out of the pram.
So your claims are factually wrong and clearly designed to try and deflect the blame away from where they should go - which in the case of France is straight at Macron
That’s 50/1 that they implode in a civil war in the next two months.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/politics/event/30298288/multi-market?marketIds=1.179554856
And who gives a shit if it benefits the middle classes or not. This is a bit like your obsession with skiing: if the middle classes do it, it must be bad.
As a general rule, willing buyer, willing seller, the government shouldn't get involved. Unless there are large negative externalities, then really, why is the government stepping in?
Foxy's hapless and maybe subconscious loathing of Britain for voting Brexit is being exposed, here, I believe. He will get over it, eventually
Asked her why that wasn't allowed, thinking I'd need to explain that it is and she said "because of coronavirus. People shouldn't be have weddings due to coronavirus." The idea that it was a man marrying a man that could be an issue never even entered her head, just that the virus means no weddings right now.
The SNP have a sort of creeping decline. That will take a couple of years.